[SEQ RERUN] Leave a Line of Retreat
Today’s post, Leave a Line of Retreat was originally published on 25 February 2008. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):
If you are trying to judge whether some unpleasant idea is true you should visualise what the world would look like if it were true, and what you would do in that situation. This will allow you to be less scared of the idea, and reason about it without immediately trying to reject it.
Discuss the post here (rather than in the comments to the original post).
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This seems like a non-starter when talking to most believers, as seriously considering a world without God would probably be a grave sin to begin with. Even if not, one needs to go against everything they have learned to make this step. I cannot imagine a comparable leap that would be required of a non-believer. Maybe something along the lines of the Matrix Omake from HPMoR:
...
NEO: Anyone who’s made it past one science class in high school ought to know about the laws of thermodynamics!
MORPHEUS: Where did you go to high school, Neo?
(Pause.)
NEO: …in the Matrix.
MORPHEUS: The machines tell elegant lies.
(Pause.)
NEO (in a small voice): Could I please have a real physics textbook?
MORPHEUS: There is no such thing, Neo. The universe doesn’t run on math.
Well, we don’t know the same believers then. The believers I know don’t mind considering a world without God as a thought experiment or as a fiction, and wondering what would happen in such a world (the same way I don’t mind considering a world in which there is a God or magic as a fiction), as long as they keep it clear that it’s “just wondering”. And that could allow them to build a line of retreat.
Yea, I don’t think that can work.
If you are speaking to fairly dull religious individuals, you might confuse them to some extent, up until they ask someone smarter. If you are speaking to someone smart, he’ll in return ask you to visualize a Dell computer, complete with logos and microsoft windows and internet connection, that just exists on it’s own, without the universe, the factory, etc. ever having existed. And you’re back to square one, arguing with logic against rhetoric.
You’ll be back to trying to explain why you would infer existence of factory, mankind, and the like from existence of computer, even though factory is vastly more complex than a computer, but he shouldn’t infer existence of god from existence of the universe. Why if you found alien computer with alien software on it you would infer existence of entire highly complex alien race instead of explaining it as ‘just existing’.
I don’t see how asking to visualize alternate reality even constitutes a good argument. It can temporarily work on someone who believes in X without having constructed himself even rudimentary reasons to believe in X.
The Art of War