Intuition and synthetic thinking

2.
a) As far as I understand, if synthetic thinking is based on the assumption that nothing is certain and therefore we can also be wrong about what we base our opinion on, it is, in other words, *refutable*.

b) This is clearly implausible. And that is why I ask whether it is even appropriate to say that synthetic thinking is being used here?

Anything that can be disproved is uncertain, but there may be uncertain things that cannot be disproved (every square is a square but not every square is a square). For example, was the world created so-and-so years ago or was it created at this moment in a way that accurately simulates creation so-and-so years ago.
And in particular, even things that can be disproved in a very theoretical way are sometimes not actually disprovable, such as the claim that yesterday morning there were two toads on Mars for a fraction of a second. Or the claim that there is a person in the world whose actions are once a day controlled by aliens.

The word intuition is somewhat misleading and misused in language. There is a certain amount of deceit in the use of this word.

It is usually used to refer to beliefs that are correct even though they have not undergone the scrutiny of thought at the time of their formation.

The moment you ask about the actual correctness of things, you should use the word belief and not the word intuition.

"Beautiful," replied the Lebanon Forest.

Rabbi, don't you find the option of "if a tradition comes about another revelation" to be something that can be refuted in a very theoretical way but not in practice?

I wrote that it is a theoretical possibility, but it is possible. But as mentioned, none of this matters to our case.

Why is this so theoretical? It is quite possible that tomorrow at noon the Lord will appear to a certain group of sixty thousand and give them tablets of the covenant written with the finger of His glory.

Rabbi, I didn't understand why it doesn't matter to our case.

Yaar Levanon, I agree that it is possible, but not absolutely. Why? Because in our experience, there is only one tradition out of thousands of traditions that reports such a thing, and therefore the chance of it happening again is quite rare. After all, this is part of Rabbi Mikhi's argument, that he rejects Yom's criticism of the witness argument because it is a “mental fix” – after all, such things don't happen often, but you can't completely rule out the possibility that they will happen – you will learn from this that it really is rare. And if it is that rare, it really means that using it as something to refute my claim is mostly theoretical and very, very hard to say that it is real.

I am not against the idea of synthetic thinking in general, but I wonder how relevant it is in a matter that is so rare to begin with?

Okay, I'll try again.
In Chapter 20 of the book “Truth and Uncertainty” you present the Talmudic ”Kal ve Hemor” as a synthetic tool.
I present here a short summary that I wrote about it to make sure I understood, I would be happy if you could confirm that I understood correctly:

“Summary of Kal ve Hemor as a synthetic tool – Suppose if I succeed in literature and not in English, then it is even more likely that Daniel, who succeeds in English, will also succeed in literature (the assumption of the hierarchy is that he is smarter than me). The explanation would be that we would give another English test in which Daniel fails and I do – and then we are actually equal, and it is no longer possible to learn the implicit assumption. In fact, if we did not receive another piece of data, we would be sure that Daniel is smarter than me, even though it may be a mistake. In other words, it is not certain, but it is quite clear that it is true until proven otherwise. For analytical thinking, this tool is irrelevant.

In principle, that's true. But a more acceptable explanation is to bring up a third subject in which Daniel failed and you did. What you brought up is a refutation of one of the data points (proof that Daniel is not necessarily better than you in English). A normal explanation breaks down the hierarchical relationship.

Rabbi, can't we say that we accept testimony by default, and only if it sounds strange do we not accept testimony?
And if so, it is strong, we accept it anyway.

Okay, so there is a reasonable chance that at some point we will discover that we were wrong in our observations (because suddenly they brought a third subject that I succeeded in but Daniel did not) and therefore we will have to change the conclusion accordingly. So although the conclusions are never certain, we find that in the vast majority of cases we actually advance in our understanding of the world thanks to these tools – and therefore there is justification for using synthetic tools and synthetic thinking in general.

Now if we say that a third such test (/another English test) occurs every few thousand years, and that is also not certain – is it still correct to say that the conclusion we reached (that Daniel will also succeed in literature) is extremely likely? After all, the chance that more data will come is very, very low, so how do I know that I am reasonably right? These are simply three specific events (my English test + my literature test + Daniel's English test).
Is synthetic thinking even relevant in such a situation?

I will add something else to clarify what I mean – after all, Newton's second law is also uncertain, but because of our intuition we want regularity (and understand that a straight line passes between all the points on the graph). And we can always perform more experiments and see that the points continue to produce a straight line – bingo! This is not just a one-off event and therefore saying that it is very likely is much more relevant, synthetic thinking is appropriate.

I hope I managed to explain this time

Q,
This may have the boundary of a voice and not of testimony. And there are some to whom it sounds dubious (the content of the ”testimony”” is a divine revelation, and not everyday actions. And there could certainly be a mistake, a hallucination, and the like here).

Roy,
Your analogy to tradition is weak. Our intuition distinguishes between testimony about tradition and the analogy between success in various professions. See my answer to Q.

I couldn't understand what you mean, and I still haven't made the analogy – because before I make an analogy I want to understand if there is anything at all about it.
I would like to return to the question I asked at the end of the previous response – Is synthetic thinking relevant in this particular situation of the tests?

I don't understand the question.

You have already seen the analogy I am thinking of making between my question about the tests – and the revelation argument, and you answered me that the analogy is weak, without answering the question I asked there. And before we discuss whether it is relevant to make this analogy at all, I am still looking for an answer to the question I asked:

“If we say that a third such test (/another English test) occurs every few thousand years, and even that is not certain – is it still correct to say that the conclusion we have reached (that Daniel will also succeed in literature) is extremely likely? After all, the chance that more data will come is very, very low, so how do I know that I am reasonably right? These are simply three specific events (my English test + my literature test + Daniel's English test).
Is synthetic thinking even relevant in such a situation?”

I don't understand this whole discussion. There's a conclusion to the argument that I assume you understand well. If a conflict arises, it overturns the argument. How do you know? Ask yourself. I have nothing to answer.

Although for some reason this is what you answered, I did not ask whether there can be a deduction that defeats a logical argument.

I asked that given a situation in which the deduction that can defeat a logical argument is very uncommon, is the very act of working with the tool of the least relevant?
After all, we have already said that a logical argument is an argument of a synthetic nature, and from this I would expect a minimum of attempts before I am convinced that a certain direction is more reasonable.
After all, I can trust the logical argument even though it is sometimes not the most "accurate" tool, precisely because I know that if there is a mistake in what I say, then it will fall. If it is also an inherently inaccurate tool + there are almost no options to examine the conclusion from it, is the very act of using this tool in this situation relevant??

If I'm wrong (maybe even grossly) then it would be nice if you could help me clarify and correct what I don't understand correctly.
Of course you don't have to, but if you've already written books and you allow people to ask you questions and people want to learn, then...

The validity of a statement does not depend on the number of explanations for it, but on its internal logic. If A is more serious than B, then when there is a serious statement in B, it will certainly also be in A. As long as it is not refuted, it makes sense. And if there are no explanations, then even better.