Connecting concepts: testable condition and ideas

# Goals: 

1. I want to brainstorm about how the idea of designing a programming function so that it's in testable condition applies to philosophy.
2. Audience: me and FI veterans. 
3. Content: avoid misrepresentation of the ideas.
4. Credit: avoid plagiarism.

# Content:

First some context. Yesterday I was programming and at the end of my session I decided next steps, which was to continue designing my function until it's in testable condition so that I could test it. And after writing that blog post realized that this logic applies to philosophy.

So when I was making my function, I ended the session leaving the function in a state where I hadn't tested it and I couldn't test it yet. I was still designing it using only my philosophical/non-empirical criticisms as tests. And I wanted to get it to the state where I could do empirical tests. 

How does this relate to philosophy? 

• If I have a new idea, I should try to get it into a state where it is worthy of submitting for external criticism before submitting it for external criticism. 
• If I have a new idea, I shouldn't believe it yet until it has crossed some thresholds. The first threshold is: is it ready for external criticism?
• What if it's personal and I don't want external criticism? Then at least recognize that your belief is to the standard of your own criticism and not to the standard of other people's criticism. 
• If I have a new idea, don't declare it good/right or otherwise present yourself that way, even if it's just ambiguous from the point of view of most people in your culture, until it has been exposed to external criticism and survived.
• What if it was exposed but nobody replied? Maybe people found mistakes but weren't interested in discussing it with you. What if it was exposed and people replied? Maybe it didn't survive and you think it did.
• So what to do in this case? Make your judgement about whether or not it survived criticism. Provide analysis. This exposes your judgement about the status of your idea so that others can criticize your judgement.
• What if you don't understand what they said? That means you're overreaching and unable to self-evaluate your idea. I recommend working with easier stuff, and iteratively work with harder stuff with small increments in difficulty, until you've sufficiently improved your self-evaluation skills.

# Analysis:

1. I think I did well connecting the testable condition idea to philosophy. I made a bunch of connections that I hadn't thought of before writing this blog post.
2. I think I did well writing this blog post for my audience, me and FI veterans. I think it's understandable to the audience.
3. I presented my blog post as being in brainstorming phrase, so I think I did well communicating the state of my ideas. I expect there to be substantive mistakes that other people can find.
4. I'm not sure that I'm not plagiarizing. I didn't quote or cite anything. I'm not sure I should have either. I didn't claim that I invented any of the ideas in my blog post. So I'm not taking credit for the ideas. But I also didn't claim that somebody else invented the ideas, so I'm not giving credit either.
1. What could I do to figure out whether or not I should give credit?
2. What could I do to give credit?

# Problems/solutions:

1. Problem: What could I do to figure out whether or not I should give credit?
1. Solution: Write blog post purposed for seeking out external criticism about it. 
2. What could I do to give credit?
1. Solution: (same as above, same blog post)

# Next steps: 

• Make a blog post purposed for seeking out external criticism about the above problems. (I saved this to my personal notes as a reminder to make the blog post.)