Interpretive Blindness

10/19/2021

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by   Nicholas Asher, et al.

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We model here an epistemic bias we call interpretive blindness (IB). IB is a special problem for learning from testimony, in which one acquires information only from text or conversation. We show that IB follows from a co-dependence between background beliefs and interpretation in a Bayesian setting and the nature of contemporary testimony. We argue that a particular characteristic contemporary testimony, argumentative completeness, can preclude learning in hierarchical Bayesian settings, even in the presence of constraints that are designed to promote good epistemic practices.