Coherence
Chapter 1 - Worldview
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Welcome to the Coherence page
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Coherence is a state or situation in which all the parts or ideas fit together well so that they form a united whole. Someone's belief is true if and only if it is coherent with all or most of his or her other (true) beliefs.
Relying solely on coherence can sometimes lead to confirmation bias or the rejection of new, valid information that doesn't fit with existing beliefs. Therefore, it's crucial to balance coherence with other methods of determining truth, such as empirical evidence and critical thinking.
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Core ideas
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Coherence is a process
The aim of all the elements of the 'free energy principle' - autonomy, active inference, surprise and attractors, is to achieve coherence with your existing worldview.
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Coherence in science
- In scientific theories, coherence theory suggests that new observational facts must be integrated with existing facts to maximize coherence, although perfect coherence is not expected
- Coherence theories often imply that truth exists only within a system and not outside of it
- A new idea that fits well with established scientific principles is more likely to be considered plausible
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Coherence in everyday life
- People often form political opinions based on how well new information aligns with their existing beliefs. If a new policy proposal coheres with someone's overall political ideology, they are more likely to accept it as true or valid
- Cultural practices and traditions often persist because they form a coherent system of beliefs within a community. New ideas or practices may be accepted if they fit well with existing cultural norms
- If a new theory coheres with existing knowledge, it's easier for people to accept and understand it
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Deep dive
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Key take-aways from the deep dive
- Your brain evolved to handle fragmented patterns
- Coherence is a state in which all your ideas fit together well so that they form a united whole
- Coherence is a precursor to consciouness
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Coherence as a partial definition of consiousness
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| The coherence definition of consciousness. - von der Malsburg, C - Cognition, computation, and consciousness (pp. 193–204). Oxford University Press |
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| Consciousness is a state of high coherence among modalities that rely intensely on implicit features of the environment and of the working brain itself. |
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Coherence and knowledge management
When you miss something, it bothers you that things don't hang together. Consider: "... give him ...". In any language, that is a bothersome sentence. Something essential is missing here, and it rings an alarm bell in your brain. You search for an implied "what" and try to guess what will make the words hang together into a complete thought.
Coherence is closely related to knowledge management. Dave Snowden formulated seven principles.
Knowledge can only be volunteered. It cannot be conscripted
You can't make someone share their knowledge because you can never measure if they have. You can measure information transfer or process compliance, but you can't determine if a senior partner has genuinely passed on all their experience or knowledge of a case.
We only know what we know when we need to know it
Human knowledge is deeply contextual and requires stimulus for recall. Unlike computers, we do not have a list-all function. Small verbal or nonverbal clues can provide those ah-ha moments when a memory or series of memories are suddenly recalled in context to enable us to act. When we sleep on things, we are engaged in a complex organic form of knowledge recall and creation; in contrast, a computer would need to be rebooted.
In the context of real need, few people will withhold their knowledge
A genuine request for help is not often refused unless there is literally no time or a previous history of distrust. On the other hand, asking people to codify everything they know before a contextual enquiry will be refused (in practice, it's impossible anyway). Linking and connecting people is more important than storing their artefacts.
Everything is fragmented
We evolved to handle unstructured, fragmented, fine-granularity information objects, not highly structured documents. People will spend hours on the Internet or in casual conversation without any incentive or pressure. However, creating and using structured documents requires considerably more effort and time. Our brains evolved to handle fragmented patterns, not information.
Tolerated failure imprints learning better than success
When my young son burnt his finger on a match, he learned more about the dangers of fire than any amount of parental instruction could provide. All human cultures have developed forms that allow stories of failure to spread without attribution of blame. Avoiding failure has a more significant evolutionary advantage than imitating success. Attempting to impose best practice systems is flying in the face of over a hundred thousand years of evolution that says it is terrible.
The way we know things is not the way we report we know things
An increasing body of research data indicates that in the practice of knowledge, people use heuristics, past pattern matching, and extrapolation to make decisions, coupled with a complex blending of ideas and experiences in nanoseconds. Asked to describe how they decided after the event, they will tend to provide a more structured process-oriented approach that does not match reality. This has significant consequences for knowledge management practice.
We always know more than we can say, and we will always say more than we can write down
This is the most important. The process of taking things from our heads to our mouths (speaking them) to our hands (writing them down) involves loss of content and context. It is always less than it could have been as it is increasingly codified.
| Content source |
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| Rendering Knowledge - Dave Snowden - October 10, 2008 - Cynefin co. |
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Coherent action
The coherence theory provides a framework for evaluating arguments and beliefs.
- By examining how well new information coheres with existing knowledge, individuals can assess the plausibility of claims
- In debate, arguments are expected to flow logically from premises to conclusions, demonstrating internal consistency
- New hypotheses are often evaluated based on how well they cohere with existing scientific knowledge. While perfect coherence is not expected, the integration of new observational facts with existing knowledge is a key aspect of scientific progress
- In the legal field, coherence theory is applied when evaluating evidence and constructing arguments. The consistency and interconnectedness of different pieces of evidence are crucial in building a coherent case
- In policy-making, decisions may be based on what coheres with existing knowledge and what has proven effective in practice
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Experience
Personal experience plays a significant role in the coherence theory, despite the theory's primary focus on logical consistency and interconnectedness of beliefs.
- For many, coherance is based on their ability to recognize and justify propositions
- Personal experiences, particularly sensory perceptions and memories, serve as "truth-data" or "truth-candidates" in coherence theories. These experiential evidential statements provide a foundation for building coherent belief systems
- Empiricism and helps ground coherent belief systems in lived reality. Truth is not just about generic coherence, but specifically "coherence with experience."
- When assessing the truth of a claim, individuals often compare it against their personal experiences. This process of checking claims against lived experiences is a practical application of coherence theory in everyday critical thinking
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Belief system
Coherence theory suggests that individuals are more likely to accept new information as true if it aligns with their current belief system. This can lead to the reinforcement of existing beliefs, as people tend to gravitate towards ideas that fit their worldview. Personal truths are often formed through this process of coherence. For example, if a person believes their teacher is honest and their experiences are trustworthy, they are more likely to accept new information from that teacher as true.
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Truth
What is considered true depends on how well it coheres with a specified set of propositions or beliefs. What is true for one person may not be true for another. But, the coherence theory allows for the evolution of subjective truths over time as new information is integrated into existing belief systems, making them more coherent.
Some versions of coherentism suggest that truth comes in degrees, depending on how well a belief coheres with other beliefs. This allows for the possibility that some beliefs, while coherent to a certain extent, may not be fully true if they don't achieve the highest degree of coherence within the system. This also mplies that what was once considered true within a coherent system may later be recognized as false when the system evolves to incorporate new, more coherent beliefs.
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What science can tell you
Coherence theory
| Patrick Greenough (University of St. Andrews) - Coherence Theory of Truth |
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| Coherence theories of truth identify truth as consisting in coherence with other members of a set. Particularly, a proposition or belief is considered true if and only if it fits with every other proposition or belief in the system to which they all belong, without logically contradicting any of them. |
| https://philpapers.org/browse/coherence-theory-of-truth |
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