Don’t accept the Burden of Dis-Proof

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Suppose one person or some people say that something is true. And other people, perhaps you, are inclined to think that it is false. Should the burden of proof be on the second set of people, such as you, to prove that this idea is false? Or should the burden of proof be on those who say it is true to prove it true, by some reasoning or by some evidence?

I write this now because I heard some people, whom I know a little and whom I value, being unwilling to say they think a particular thing does not exist, because they do not have any evidence to prove it does not exist. These people do not have any belief that it does exist. That is close to the words they said themselves.

One of them wrote that, if he were to state that the thing does not exist, he would be taking the burden of proof, to prove that the thing does not exist.
I agree with both these people that there is no evidence disproving this thing’s existence. We also agree that there is no evidence in favour of it.
But I think that to say it does not exist is not taking the burden of proof. I explain this here below. It is about the huge ratio of false propositions to true propositions.

Propositions true, false, and ones whose truth we don’t know

Some propositions (statements) about the world are true, and some others are false. Also, the sum of all humans’ knowledge includes whether various propositions are true or false; and there is another set of propositions for which humans have no knowledge whether they are true or false.

How big are these 3 sets of propositions, in comparison to each other?

1. True propositions (whether humans know this or not). To be in this set, a proposition must correspond with some actual aspect of the world or part of the world. (in order to be even able to correspond, the proposition must be composed in a coherent and meaningful way).

2. False propositions (whether humans know this or not). To be in this set, a proposition must be able to correspond to some state of the world, that is, the proposition must be composed in a coherent and meaningful way. As it is not required to correspond with some actual aspect of the world or part of the world (being false, it conflicts with some aspect of the world), these propositions are less constrained. So there are a much larger number of false propositions than true propositions.
Here is a slightly different way to look at the huge ratio of false propositions to true propositions. Consider a proposition like “John is x metres tall”. The true proposition may be “John is 1.75 metres tall”. This would be true if John is indeed that size.
You can modify the true proposition by substituting another number for 1.75. Such a proposition is false. You can make many similar false propositions, “John is 1.9 metres tall”, “John is 1.5 metres tall”,….
For each true proposition there are many false propositions.

3. Propositions, that we don’t know if they are true or false. Well, for the propositions, which we do know are either true or false, there exists some way to obtain evidence about them, and some humans have worked to get that evidence.
For the propositions whose truth or falsehood we do not know, there may not be a route to obtain evidence, or there is a route but no human has done the work to get the evidence yet.
That there would be a route to get evidence is a constraint on the status of a proposition being known, while there is no such constraint on the proposition whose truth is not known.
The set of propositions, which humans do not know are true or false, is vastly greater than the combined sets of propositions which we do know are true, or false.

Of propositions whose truth or falsehood we do not know, nearly all of them are false, as follows from the reasons why the set of false propositions is many times the size of the set of true propositions. So, for any proposition for which we don’t know its truth, it is considerably more likely to be false than true.

Propositions of which we read or hear: true, false, and status unknown

Of the propositions that any reader hears or reads, the true ones are not such a tiny set compared to the false ones; and the combined set that we know to be either true or false could easily be larger that the ones with which we are familiar but do not know if they are true or false.
Why are both these ratios so different from the minuscule size of the true compared to the false and of the known compared to the unknown, as I wrote above?
Because humans are fairly rational. So, for most propositions proved to be false, people stop thinking about them; books and older people stop telling younger people about them. Similarly, people cannot sustain attention to many untested propositions which have no consequences on people (if they had some consequence, that could be evidence towards truth or falsehood, or at least would suggest a route towards a test of truth).

Where to lay the burden of Proof

A proposition, for which there is no evidence in favour, and also no evidence against, is a member of the set whose truth or falsehood we do not know.
Contrary to what may be a common perception that this set is not large, this set is enormous by comparison to the set where we know the proposition is either true or false.
Also contrary to a similar common perception that there is not a huge excess of false propositions over true propositions, a proposition whose truth or falsehood we do not know is vastly more likely to be false than true.

Suppose that, on knowing of a proposition which some other person or persons believe or claim to be true, but with no evidence in its favour, you do not decide that it is false, because you do not have evidence to prove that it is false.
Whatever are your reasons to think at least briefly about this idea, when you do not think very often about such not-proved-or-disproved propositions, this particular idea belongs in a set of propositions that is enormous when compared to the set of propositions known to be false, and even more enormous when compared to the set of propositions known to be true.
If you do not decide it is likely to be false, because you can’t prove it to be false, you would in principle be accepting as possibly true a very large number of ideas – and nearly all propositions in that set are false. You would be accepting that you carry the burden to disprove this particular idea now, but in principle you would be accepting the burden of proof for a very, very large set of propositions for which just now there is no evidence.

As an alternative to that, because the idea with no evidence in either direction has a very large chance of being false, you could say that you think it is not true. You could lay the burden of proof on any person who would say that it is true.

Do not accept the burden of proving that a proposition is false (a proposition that something exists).
The burden of proof rests fairly on any person who wants to say that the proposition is true.

No representation during a referendum?

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Some people who planned to vote no during the referendum on marriage (22 05 2015) without distinction of sex (gender) have said that they had no representation among political parties on this subject. That is, they noted that while they and (as it turned out) 3 of every 8 people who voted chose no, all the political parties had encouraged people to vote yes.

Representation

We ordinary people do not get to vote on legislation. One or 3, 4, or 5 TDs represent each of us in the Dáil, and there the TDs vote for or against each Bill. A substantial part of the time the TDs misrepresent the people or misrepresent some of the people in their constituency.

Senators are not directly elected, except for the 6 from the university constituencies. So people say that the Senate misrepresents the people a lot of the time.

As we can not vote on legislation, we need legislators to represent us.

Referendum

In the referendum, a voter gets to vote directly on the proposed change. The proposed change has always been about the Constitution.

In a referendum, you vote on the proposed change. You represent yourself. The ballot is secret. You do not have to vote in the way that the government speakers, or any other politicians, tell you. At the marriage referendum 3 of every 8 people ignored the politicians. At other referenda even more people have not voted as the politicians told them.

You do not need a person or a political party to represent you during the campaign leading up to the day of the vote in a referendum.

Trouble with politicians and referenda

That politicians would take a role in leading or directing the votes of the people in referenda has caused trouble.

The Constitution rules that any change to it requires the vote of the people. This is because the constitution is a set of rules that limit the laws that the Dáil and Senate can pass, and limit the way the Government and its departments administer the law. The limits are generally to stop the State from infringing the basic rights of the people. Accordingly there is sense in changes to these limiting rules being only with the approval of the people.

Government ministers and other politicians often give their views on the most sensible way to vote, and this means to vote yes. Their opinions are not necessarily more sound than anyone else’s view, but if most of the Dáil thought that a No vote was the most sensible, they would be unlikely to hold a referendum.

So politicians campaign to the people in most referenda, to vote yes. People have become used to this, and they partly identify the referendum or the campaign or debate with the politicians. Governments have on some occasions campaigned strongly, and on 2 European integration referenda have given us the vote a second time to get us to change from No to Yes.

It was right that people became annoyed at the Dáil and Senate sending us the vote a second time. Some people have thus come to see a referendum as a thing that the politicians foist on us the people, instead of a rare opportunity to vote directly on an important issue.

Some people have compounded the identification of a referendum with the political parties by changing their vote at the next general (sometimes local) election away from the parties that called the referendum. Some people have treated some referenda like a general election, that is, an opportunity to vote against the present government.

Thus politicians have been too involved in the votes in referenda. In response some of the voters have pushed back at the politicians. This was quite fair when voting in elections. But ordinary people pushing back at politicians by their vote in a referendum has greatly damaged those voters’ concept of the rare vote that you can make directly, in a referendum. These pushes reinforce each other and make them stronger, a vicious circle.

Valuing the direct vote of a Referendum, and not needing representation

While any voter may consider some or even most referenda a mistake or a waste of time and money, some subjects reserved to the vote of the people in a referendum are really important aspects of our society or our State on which it is wonderful to vote.

If you plan to vote in one way, and you see that all the political parties have favoured the opposite vote, it is natural to feel a little more alone. Yet I think that the view, of hoping that some politicians would support the vote that you plan to make in the referendum, is a mistake. The view of identifying the attitudes of politicians with the issue to be decided in a referendum is a product of the unproductive mutual pushing by the politicians and the people as I wrote in the last section.

My impression of the campaigning in the referendum for equality in marriage is this. Although the political parties stated clearly that they favoured us voting Yes, and they all had posters on lampposts, they did little further campaigning. I saw more Yes posters from the organisations for equality and for LGBT rights than from the parties. The No posters were fewer than the Yes total, but nearly as many as the political party Yes posters. Nearly all the person-to-person and media campaigning was from groups with specific interests in a No vote or in a Yes vote. Thus the campaigning in this referendum was little to do with politicians.

I was very glad to hear Micheál Martin TD who leads Fianna Fáil tell the interviewer on RTÉ Radio 1 at lunchtime on Sunday 24 05 2015 that there is no need for political parties to be on each side of a referendum vote.

So, most important in a referendum is that you represent yourself. It is a better state to represent yourself than to have someone represent you (they often misrepresent you).

Marriage between two people of the same sex: the status argument

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In the referendum to make marriage open to two persons of the same sex, fairness and equality means people should vote yes.

I think there are many faults in marriage, and the law should be changed: but the choice to marry should be to a person of the sex that you choose, and not to only the other sex.

Very many writers have shown that arguments against the marriage of two people of the same sex, based on children, on the concept of marriage, and on the structure of society, have no strength at all. We should ignore those supposed arguments and vote yes.

I write about one supposed argument against same-sex marriage that I have not seen closely examined: how some persons married to persons of the other sex are sure that they will lose status, after couples of the same sex can legally marry.

Status (in marriage) in history

I suspect that status for a person who is married has very little real content now. I think it had some meaning in earlier centuries, when the society was tribal. Marriage still has some features that are tribal, but it has lost most of the feature of status.

A married woman was not allowed to own property, up to the nineteenth century. The woman who was married was property of her husband, in many aspects of the law. A young woman was the property of her father until she reached 21 years. This applied to young men also. Society seems to have wanted a woman to get married soon after 21, and then she would become the property of another man (the husband). Society and its members look like they were afraid of a woman being legally independent, and plenty of marriages were just before the woman reached 21.

This looks like people did not like a woman who was legally independent, that they feared what she would do. A woman who became married no longer excited this fear, and became more accepted in society, and was less open to criticism for her status.

Corresponding to the perceived dangerous status of an unmarried woman over 21 was the positive status of a married woman. A woman who married would feel of higher status than a woman living with a man or than a single woman.

Status recently

The law came to let married women own property (late 19th century), to refuse sex to the man she had married (late 20th century), and to divorce the man by the same rules as the man could divorce her, so that the differences of status no longer exist.

But the idea of status that is higher when you are married persists, in the minds of some people. I have heard or read this idea more often from women than from men.

It looks like some people have transferred the status of not being a socially uncontrolled person (the unmarried woman was supposed to be “uncontrolled” in earlier centuries) to a status of being in some way better than some other group(s) of people. Better than whom would the married person be, now? Would a married woman have a higher status than a married man, or the reverse? Both of these would be contrary to the laws that prohibit discrimination on the grounds of gender. Would a married woman have higher status than a single or divorced woman, and a married man also higher than a single or divorced man? These are also prohibited by law as they are discrimination by family status.

So, it is hard to support the idea of a status that is at present higher for a married woman or a married man than for some other class of person. So there is not a status that can be lost.

Is the status that some married people claim that they will lose, after two people of the same sex can legally marry each other, the status of a person who because of being heterosexual can marry their chosen partner, which is therefore higher than that of the minority who are homosexual and so now cannot marry their chosen partner? This looks contrary to the law against discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation, so the law is already against the idea that the status of one orientation would be higher. It also looks a bit petty, as the set of people who would gain equal status is small compared to the set of heterosexuals and so it is no real threat.

 

Conclusion: A woman used to have a higher status by being married, but a married person does not now have any status higher than other people, so there is no status to be lost if the minority of people who are gay are allowed legally to marry a person of the same sex.

 

 

We think…so freedom of expression is good for you

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I think.

Other people think and, though not exactly the same as my thoughts, I think people’s schemes of thinking are fairly similar.

I think mostly about doing things, about their advantages and disadvantages. I will later do only a very small portion of these things.

The actions that I later do: while I do some of them soon after I think, there are many that I only end up doing months or years later. For some, the opportunity or the need for the action has not come yet.

From their conversation, I understand that other people do some similar thinking. Their conversations include talk of actions, and alternative actions, of which I have not thought. Some of these are about situations or opportunities that had not come to my mind before I heard them from others.

The bulk of thoughts are about situations and questions that I never face in person

My own spontaneous thoughts about actions in various situations, coupled with what I hear from others about similar and some quite different situations, have throughout life stimulated me to think about the choice of actions in situations that neither I nor the people I meet have experienced.

From that thinking I decide that one or more actions would be wiser than some of the other actions.

I reach these judgements about what I should do, many without testing the choice as I have not faced that situation. I reach judgements that some actions and plans are more sensible and rational than others. I hear other people in conversation also make these judgements. So, much as other people judge things, when I decide that an action or plan is the wise choice, I see my judgement as being a wise choice for people in general.

Thinking is also about knowledge

Some of the time I think about facts about parts of the world, about what is real knowledge about the world. This is important sometimes for the judgements about the right thing(s) to do in a situation.

I, and other people, make judgements about others’ judgements

I come to think that some actions are right for people in various situations (some I have faced, and some not).

I may make sensible judgements, or I may make judgements that are wholly or partly mistaken. I hear other people also considering these matters. They make judgements about what is best to do in situations. As people do not all reach the same conclusions on how best to act (or on what is true), I and every other person can make judgements about other people’s judgements (both their moral judgements and their factual judgements). If you think your idea is right, that implies that you think a contrary idea is at least partly wrong.

Some people don’t approve of people making judgements about other people. Here I am not writing about making judgements about other people, about the person. I only make judgements about people’s ideas or views. If I decide that one judgement or idea of a person is wrong, that is not a judgement that the person is a bad person.

Improving my judgements with help from other people

With people reaching different judgements, some people think that the other people’s rights to hold their own views means it is not correct to say to them that there is any fault with their ideas or judgements.

I think a lot about facts that I can never check out myself; and I reach judgements on what it’s best to do in situations I have not faced. I have reached these judgements in as rational a way as I can. I have a critical voice inside my head that sometimes asks the rest of my mind if I might have things wrong.

My internal critical voice has sometimes led me to change my view. But it is part of me. It can never criticise my views as objectively as another person could. So I value other people’s judgements on my ideas, because I want to get as close as I can to the sensible and correct judgement.

I welcome other people telling my views are wrong. I look forward to their rational arguments or evidence that point to the weak parts of my ideas.

I want this, because I want to reach more sensible ideas. If you respond to the great diversity of people’s judgements by never criticising an idea with which you do not agree, you contribute to other people remaining mistaken. And the social rule to avoid criticising other ideas contributes to you remaining mistaken.

I do not notice people giving the view that it is good to keep to mistaken thinking or actions.

Freedom of expression helps other people

I want to improve my ideas and judgements. I can improve them a lot by myself, while never conversing with other people. But to be sure of improving my ideas, I need to live in a society where people are free to express criticism of my views. These other people who would be criticising my views would be helping me. People have helped me in this way.

I am not alone on this desire about society. I know lots of other people who also want society to have a rule in favour of freedom of expression. If I express my views about their ideas, I could be helping them.

People’s first response to criticism of their ideas is often to feel uncomfortable. But it is not the person’s only reaction. After some seconds or minutes people may listen. At the end people often say that they value the criticism of their idea.

Freedom of expression helps societies

In a society, people will have different views on a lot of subjects. Variety on some subjects may not cause trouble to other people and so not to the society. But there are sure to be some subjects on which it is important that most or all of society will agree, the subjects where people’s actions can harm others or interfere with their rights.

If criticism of other people’s ideas is muted because of a rule that such criticism is wrong, the difficulties that come from lack of agreement will persist.

The people who may end up having to change their views will do this most easily and peacefully if the process of change is peaceful, and if it is a normal process and not one commenced particularly for the particular subject. In other words, criticism and discussion of ideas should be going on all the time in the society.

Freedom of expression is good for all of us, all of the time.