Yes, no, maybe so

a veritistic approach to echo chambers using a trichotomous belief model

Bert Baumgaertner

pp. 2549-2569

in: Frank Zenker, Carlo Proietti (eds), Social dynamics and collective rationality, Synthese 191 (11), 2014.

Abstract

I approach the study of echo chambers from the perspective of veritistic social epistemology. A trichotomous belief model is developed featuring a mechanism by which agents will have a tendency to form agreement in the community. The model is implemented as an agent-based model in NetLogo and then used to investigate a social practice called Impartiality, which is a plausible means for resisting or dismantling echo chambers. The implementation exposes additional factors that need close consideration in an evaluation of Impartiality. In particular, resisting or dismantling echo chambers requires the selection of sufficiently low levels of doxastic entrenchment, but this comes with other tradeoffs.