“Finally, I am going to take a strictly realist perspective on quantum mechanics—the quantum world is really out there, our equations describe the territory and not our maps of it,”
Why isn’t this an example of the mind projection fallacy? I know you said to give you a break, but I really don’t like it when people contradict themselves.
A Bayesian calculation describes your state of knowledge. When a physicist talks about nonprobabilistic laws that govern water flowing downhill, he is talking about the water, not describing how to update your probabilistic beliefs about water.
Beliefs, by default, are part of our map and about the territory.
If you want to talk explicitly about beliefs—or probabilities! - then you have to employ beliefs about beliefs, which are then part of your metamap and about your map.
If you want to talk about beliefs about beliefs, you have to use beliefs about beliefs about beliefs, which are then about beliefs about beliefs, etc.
When I talk about quantum mechanics, I am of course using words and stating my beliefs; but those words and beliefs refer directly to the territory, they are not about my or anyone else’s knowledge.
There is nothing mind-projection-fallacious about saying, “This coin has landed heads”, because the interpretation of your beliefs is as a statement directly about the coin and it talks only about the coin’s state, even though what you have just said is your belief about the coin.
If you say “I believe the coin has landed heads,” that is not your belief, it is your belief about your belief, which is about your belief in the same way that your order-1 belief is about the coin.
Saying, “This coin has a 50% probability of landing heads”, rather than “I assign 50% probability to the coin landing heads”, is technically (though rather nitpickingly) a mind projection fallacy; you are talking about your beliefs as if they were directly in the coin.
William Pearson said:
A Bayesian calculation describes your state of knowledge. When a physicist talks about nonprobabilistic laws that govern water flowing downhill, he is talking about the water, not describing how to update your probabilistic beliefs about water.
Beliefs, by default, are part of our map and about the territory.
If you want to talk explicitly about beliefs—or probabilities! - then you have to employ beliefs about beliefs, which are then part of your metamap and about your map.
If you want to talk about beliefs about beliefs, you have to use beliefs about beliefs about beliefs, which are then about beliefs about beliefs, etc.
When I talk about quantum mechanics, I am of course using words and stating my beliefs; but those words and beliefs refer directly to the territory, they are not about my or anyone else’s knowledge.
There is nothing mind-projection-fallacious about saying, “This coin has landed heads”, because the interpretation of your beliefs is as a statement directly about the coin and it talks only about the coin’s state, even though what you have just said is your belief about the coin.
If you say “I believe the coin has landed heads,” that is not your belief, it is your belief about your belief, which is about your belief in the same way that your order-1 belief is about the coin.
Saying, “This coin has a 50% probability of landing heads”, rather than “I assign 50% probability to the coin landing heads”, is technically (though rather nitpickingly) a mind projection fallacy; you are talking about your beliefs as if they were directly in the coin.