[Avodah] kavua/Rov

[Micha Berger via Avodah]

On Thu, Mar 02, 2017 at 12:37:07PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote:
: I've always wondered about the underlying seeming discontinuity in
: treating a safeik in a kavua (doubt generated in its original location)
: as 50/50, whereas any other safeik gets adjudicated based on statistical
: majority (the whole 10 stores thing). I'm wondering if this might have
: anything to do with behavioral economics heuristics (Kahnemann/Tversky,
: et al). I have some thoughts on the matter and would be interested in
: hearing from others.

There are many modern TiDE-like theories.

Shu"t R' Aqiva Eiger says it's that kol deparish is a means of assigning
a halakhah to an unknown metzi'us, whereas qavua is a case where the
object had a known metzi'us and thus a halachic state, but now we don't
know what it is.

I suggested here repeatedly in the past (since vol 1, and on Mail-Jewish
before we existed) that this could be because we deal more with how the
person percieves the metzi'us than with objective reality. Hints of this
exist in the terms "metzi'us", "mamashus", etc... So that safeiq and the
lack of halachic existence of microscopic bugs are aspects of a single
taam hamitzvos.

Since the person perceives the object as probably shuman (or whatever)
that's the metzi'us, not the actual G-d-only-knows actual origin of
the fat.

But that's only when it comes to metzi'us, not to unknown dinim.

I do now know behavioral economics. But since I am invoking the notion
of perception, I would expect significant overlap.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             "I think, therefore I am." - Renne Descartes
micha at aishdas.org        "I am thought about, therefore I am -
http://www.aishdas.org   my existence depends upon the thought of a
Fax: (270) 514-1507      Supreme Being Who thinks me." - R' SR Hirsch