Given that this is a draft let me criticise this phrase as undermining your post somewhat.
Describing evolutionary psychology as something to be “believed in” is a far from neutral act. If you are going to include evpsych explanations I suggest finding a better way to make them tentative. Don’t thrust them into the realm of subjective optional ‘tribal affiliation’ memes.
I don’t see anything in that statement that implies that ep is a subjective optional tribal affiliation meme. Clearly propositional attitudes about it are either justified or not. (It may also be a tribal affiliation meme as well, but that’s orthogonal.) But given that assessments of evolutionary psychology here are known to vary, one can easily disclaim that a bit of evidence is conditional on it. The conditionality here is somewhat obvious, of course, and so the natural reading of the disclaimer is that it’s a way of noting that the piece of evidence to follow is nonessential to the argument.
I don’t see anything in that statement that implies that ep is a subjective optional tribal affiliation meme.
It would seem, then, that you aren’t someone who “believes in” the evolutionary psychology explanation for ‘belief’ as is distinct from, you know, just thinking stuff actually is that way.
Leaving aside the various plausible adaptive explanations for why it is the way that “belief in” can refer to something psychologically distinct from expected experiences, sure, I can assent that these are distinct. I just don’t buy that the English phrase “believe in” always refers to the latter rather than the former, and didn’t think to do so in the case of the OP.
That said, if this less flexible reading of “believe in” is common enough among the audience here for someone (you) to have made a comment about it, I can see that it may make sense to choose a different phrase when and if the argument is rewritten.
That said, if this less flexible reading of “believe in” is common enough among the audience here for someone (you) to have made a comment about it, I can see that it may make sense to choose a different phrase when and if the argument is rewritten.
Given that this is a draft let me criticise this phrase as undermining your post somewhat.
Describing evolutionary psychology as something to be “believed in” is a far from neutral act. If you are going to include evpsych explanations I suggest finding a better way to make them tentative. Don’t thrust them into the realm of subjective optional ‘tribal affiliation’ memes.
I don’t see anything in that statement that implies that ep is a subjective optional tribal affiliation meme. Clearly propositional attitudes about it are either justified or not. (It may also be a tribal affiliation meme as well, but that’s orthogonal.) But given that assessments of evolutionary psychology here are known to vary, one can easily disclaim that a bit of evidence is conditional on it. The conditionality here is somewhat obvious, of course, and so the natural reading of the disclaimer is that it’s a way of noting that the piece of evidence to follow is nonessential to the argument.
It would seem, then, that you aren’t someone who “believes in” the evolutionary psychology explanation for ‘belief’ as is distinct from, you know, just thinking stuff actually is that way.
Leaving aside the various plausible adaptive explanations for why it is the way that “belief in” can refer to something psychologically distinct from expected experiences, sure, I can assent that these are distinct. I just don’t buy that the English phrase “believe in” always refers to the latter rather than the former, and didn’t think to do so in the case of the OP.
That said, if this less flexible reading of “believe in” is common enough among the audience here for someone (you) to have made a comment about it, I can see that it may make sense to choose a different phrase when and if the argument is rewritten.
It doesn’t matter much what my reaction would be. I have to downvote either way based on the section on the AI space in general.