One of the most exciting ideas that you presented in The Beginning of Infinity is not expressed by you directly but by your character Socrates, who after his encounter with Hermes poses the following question: ‘Could it be that the moral imperative not to destroy the means of correcting mistakes is the only moral imperative? That all other moral truths follow from it?’ That morality may be deeply connected to fallibilism is a novel conjecture. It reminds me of Posner’s conjecture: Posner was the first to suggest that common law may be the most economically efficient system of law. Academics still argue about Posner’s conjecture (see, for instance, David Friedman’s book Law’s Order), but his conjecture has been undeniably fruitful because it expressed the novel idea that systems of law could be subject to economic analysis, which has led to a unification of two seemingly separate fields of study – that of law and economics. Like Posner, you asked, through the character of Socrates, a question not hitherto considered and hinted at a unification of two seemingly separate theories – i.e. morality and fallibilism.
In its current form, Socrates’ conjecture cannot be literally true because destroying some of the means of correcting errors is often necessary for error correction. My hands are a means of correcting errors, and as I type this essay, I ever so slightly destroy their capacity to type another. This is unproblematic because this essay will also be a means of correcting errors – hopefully allowing its readers to solve more problems than they could without it – so more has been gained than lost by my writing it. People constantly make such trade-offs. So perhaps Socrates’ conjecture can be clarified by rephrasing it as an economic cost-benefit analysis between solving problems and preserving the means of correcting errors.
Unfortunately, conventional economics is agnostic about what it means to optimise one's ability to solve problems, which is why it speaks of optimising one's utility instead. That cannot be fundamental because utility is merely the quantity that we appear to optimise when what we are really doing is solving problems. This issue with economic theory is an open problem that would be solved if the connection between Popper’s epistemology and economic theory were understood. We can see tantalising hints that these theories can be unified in a way that they currently aren’t; for instance, in light of Socrates’ conjecture, perhaps it is better to think of goods and services as means of correcting mistakes and of trade as one of the institutions that efficiently allocates those means. Socrates’ conjecture therefore unites not just fallibilism and morality: it also links both theories to economics, something which I hope you will find intriguing.
I wish you a very happy 70th birthday. May this be the year in which the above-described problems, and many others besides, are solved to your satisfaction. –Sam