evidence: C. And for the validity of that meta-evidence, you need meta-
meta-evidence-and so on, ad nauseam. Despite this argument, people
have an intuitive sense of evidence. This is because-to repeat an old
refrain-people have built-in hardware in their brains that includes some
rudimentary ways of interpreting evidence. We can build on this, and
accumulate new ways of interpreting evidence; we even learn how and
when to override our most basic mechanisms of evidence interpretation, as
one must, for example, in trying to figure out magic tricks.
Concrete examples of evidence dilemmas crop up in regard to many
phenomena of fringe science. For instance, ESP often seems to manifest
itself outside of the laboratory, but when brought into the laboratory, it
vanishes mysteriously. The standard scientific explanation for this is that
ESP is a nonreal phenomenon which cannot stand up to rigorous scrutiny.
Some (by no means all) believers in ESP have a peculiar way of fighting
back, however. They say, "No, ESP is real; it simply goes away when one
tries to observe it scientifically-it is contrary to the nature of a scientific
worldview." This is an amazingly brazen technique, which we might call
"kicking the problem upstairs". What that means is, instead of questioning
the matter at hand, you call into doubt theories belonging to a higher level
of credibility. The believers in ESP insinuate that what is wrong is not their
ideas, but the belief system of science. This is a pretty grandiose claim, and
unless there is overwhelming evidence for it, one should be skeptical of it.
But then here we are again, talking about "overwhelming evidence" as if
everyone agreed on what that means!
The Nature of Evidence
The Sagredo-Simplicio-Salviati tangle, mentioned in Chapters XIII and
XV, gives another example of the complexities of evaluation of evidence.
Sagredo tries to find some objective compromise, if possible, between the
opposing views of Simplicio and Salviati. But compromise may not always
be possible. How can one compromise "fairly" between right and wrong?
Between fair and unfair? Between compromise and no compromise? These
questions come up over and over again in disguised form in arguments
about ordinary things.
Is it possible to define what evidence is? Is it possible to lay down laws
as to how to make sense out of situations? Probably not, for any rigid rules
would undoubtedly have exceptions, and nonrigid rules are not rules.
Having an intelligent AI program would not solve the problem either, for
as an evidence processor, it would not be any less fallible than humans are.
So, if evidence is such an intangible thing after all, why am I warning
against new ways of interpreting evidence? Am I being inconsistent? In this
case, I don't think so. My feeling is that there are guidelines which one can
give, and out of them an organic synthesis can be made. But inevitably
some amount of judgment and intuition must enter the picture-things
which are different in different people. They will also be different in(^694) Strange Loops, Or Tangled Hierarchies