The claim is trivially false if “universal” includes stones and clouds of gas, as in Yudkowsky’s argument. It’s also trivially true if it’s restricted , not just to minds, not just to rational minds , but to rational minds that do not share assumptions. If you restrict universality to sets of agents who agree on fundamental assumptions, and make correct inferences from them—then they can agree about everything else. (Aumanns Theorem, which he described as trivial himself, is an example).
That leaves a muddle in the middle, an actually contentious definition
…
which is probably something like universality across agents who are rational, but dont have assumptions (axioms, priors, etc) in common. And that’s what’s relevant to the practical question: why are there religions?
The theory that it’s lack of common assumptions that prevent convergence is the standard argument … ,I broady agree.
An unjustified claim does not have a credibility of zero. If it did, that would mean the opposite claim is certain.
You can’t judge the credibility of a claim in isolation. If there are N claims, the credibility of each is at most 1/n. So you need to know how many rival claims there are.
Hitchens razor explicitly applies to extraordinary claims. But how do you judge that?
Hitchens razor is ambiguous between there being a lot of rival claims (which is objective), and the claim being subjectively unlikely.
OK, so you agree that credibility is greater than zero, in other words—possible. So isn’t this a common assumption? I argue that all minds will share this idea—existence of fundamental “ought” is possible.
I’ve no idea what all minds will do. (No one else has). Rational minds will not treat anything as having an exactly zero credibility in theory, but often disregard some claims in practice. Which is somewhat justifiable based on limited resources, etc.
Is there any argument or evidence that universally compelling arguments are not possible?
If there was, would we have religions?
It all depends on the meaning of universal.
The claim is trivially false if “universal” includes stones and clouds of gas, as in Yudkowsky’s argument. It’s also trivially true if it’s restricted , not just to minds, not just to rational minds , but to rational minds that do not share assumptions. If you restrict universality to sets of agents who agree on fundamental assumptions, and make correct inferences from them—then they can agree about everything else. (Aumanns Theorem, which he described as trivial himself, is an example).
That leaves a muddle in the middle, an actually contentious definition … which is probably something like universality across agents who are rational, but dont have assumptions (axioms, priors, etc) in common. And that’s what’s relevant to the practical question: why are there religions?
The theory that it’s lack of common assumptions that prevent convergence is the standard argument … ,I broady agree.
Do I understand correctly that you do not agree with this?
Could you share reasons?
An unjustified claim does not have a credibility of zero. If it did, that would mean the opposite claim is certain.
You can’t judge the credibility of a claim in isolation. If there are N claims, the credibility of each is at most 1/n. So you need to know how many rival claims there are.
Hitchens razor explicitly applies to extraordinary claims. But how do you judge that?
Hitchens razor is ambiguous between there being a lot of rival claims (which is objective), and the claim being subjectively unlikely.
OK, so you agree that credibility is greater than zero, in other words—possible. So isn’t this a common assumption? I argue that all minds will share this idea—existence of fundamental “ought” is possible.
I’ve no idea what all minds will do. (No one else has). Rational minds will not treat anything as having an exactly zero credibility in theory, but often disregard some claims in practice. Which is somewhat justifiable based on limited resources, etc.