1) If a hypothetical is unspecified, and you ask for it to be clarified, then that isn’t fighting the hypothetical.
Re: Too divorced from reality. “But fighting the hypothetical by challenging the premises of the scenario is exactly the same as saying, “I don’t find this topic interesting for whatever reason, and wish to talk about something I am interested in.”″ - TimS
2) People are often too ready to consider things as a trap. Some people will claim that any convincing or hard to argue against statement is a “trap”
If a hypothetical is unspecified, and you ask for it to be clarified, then that isn’t fighting the hypothetical.
Unfortunately, people will rarely actually do that. In particular, I’ve yet to see anyone else ask, much less answer, what appears to be highly relevant information in the classic train-switch dilemma: what are these people doing on the track?
Re: Too divorced from reality. “But fighting the hypothetical by challenging the premises of the scenario is exactly the same as saying, “I don’t find this topic interesting for whatever reason, and wish to talk about something I am interested in.”″ - TimS
2) People are often too ready to consider things as a trap. Some people will claim that any convincing or hard to argue against statement is a “trap”
The problem with hypotheticals is that they’re fictional evidence that you’re asking people to generalize from.
The version of the dilemma I’m familiar with specifies that all six people had been kidnapped by a mentally ill philosopher and tied onto the tracks against their will.
“In particular, I’ve yet to see anyone else ask, much less answer, what appears to be highly relevant information in the classic train-switch dilemma: what are these people doing on the track?”—the way to get around it is to ask the questioner if they have any objections to you imagining a specific scenario. Such as, you might pretend that the people were put there by an evil villain or that they were stupidly walking along it. If someone says that it “doesn’t matter”, then you should consider yourself free to imagine whatever situation you want.
“The problem with hypotheticals is that they’re fictional evidence that you’re asking people to generalize from.”—I think you’re really misunderstanding that article. There’s a huge difference between trying to argue that robots will take over the world because it happened in Terminator and considering the hypothetical situation of human-level AI.
“In particular, I’ve yet to see anyone else ask, much less answer, what appears to be highly relevant information in the classic train-switch dilemma: what are these people doing on the track?”—the way to get around it
I’m perfectly aware of how to ask a question. My point is that most people confronted with a hypothetical don’t ask any clarifying questions, and base their answers on whatever associations were in the question.
Re: Too divorced from reality. “But fighting the hypothetical by challenging the premises of the scenario is exactly the same as saying, “I don’t find this topic interesting for whatever reason, and wish to talk about something I am interested in.”″ - TimS
There are a lot of other things it can mean. For example, “I reject the agenda behind the hypothetical.” “I reject the attempt to induce me to give you a soundbite that you are going to broadcast out of context.” “The minute part of possibility space that you are focussing on does not merit so much as a millisecond of anyone’s attention.” “You are stuffing your desired conclusion into the hypotheses.”
“The minute part of possibility space that you are focussing on does not merit so much as a millisecond of anyone’s attention.”—which is exactly the same as: “I don’t find this topic interesting for whatever reason, and wish to talk about something I am interested in.”
“I reject the attempt to induce me to give you a soundbite that you are going to broadcast out of context”—that can definitely be the case. But this isn’t really an issue specific to hypotheticals, just non-good faith discussions in general.
“The minute part of possibility space that you are focussing on does not merit so much as a millisecond of anyone’s attention.”—which is exactly the same as: “I don’t find this topic interesting for whatever reason, and wish to talk about something I am interested in.”
“does not merit so much as a millisecond of anyone’s attention” is a quite different claim from “I don’t find this topic interesting”.
I think that at times, ‘This is a very uninteresting question’ is the appropriate response. Just, lead with that and explain why next, rather than just explaining why.
1) If a hypothetical is unspecified, and you ask for it to be clarified, then that isn’t fighting the hypothetical.
Re: Too divorced from reality. “But fighting the hypothetical by challenging the premises of the scenario is exactly the same as saying, “I don’t find this topic interesting for whatever reason, and wish to talk about something I am interested in.”″ - TimS
2) People are often too ready to consider things as a trap. Some people will claim that any convincing or hard to argue against statement is a “trap”
Unfortunately, people will rarely actually do that. In particular, I’ve yet to see anyone else ask, much less answer, what appears to be highly relevant information in the classic train-switch dilemma: what are these people doing on the track?
The problem with hypotheticals is that they’re fictional evidence that you’re asking people to generalize from.
The version of the dilemma I’m familiar with specifies that all six people had been kidnapped by a mentally ill philosopher and tied onto the tracks against their will.
“In particular, I’ve yet to see anyone else ask, much less answer, what appears to be highly relevant information in the classic train-switch dilemma: what are these people doing on the track?”—the way to get around it is to ask the questioner if they have any objections to you imagining a specific scenario. Such as, you might pretend that the people were put there by an evil villain or that they were stupidly walking along it. If someone says that it “doesn’t matter”, then you should consider yourself free to imagine whatever situation you want.
“The problem with hypotheticals is that they’re fictional evidence that you’re asking people to generalize from.”—I think you’re really misunderstanding that article. There’s a huge difference between trying to argue that robots will take over the world because it happened in Terminator and considering the hypothetical situation of human-level AI.
I’m perfectly aware of how to ask a question. My point is that most people confronted with a hypothetical don’t ask any clarifying questions, and base their answers on whatever associations were in the question.
There are a lot of other things it can mean. For example, “I reject the agenda behind the hypothetical.” “I reject the attempt to induce me to give you a soundbite that you are going to broadcast out of context.” “The minute part of possibility space that you are focussing on does not merit so much as a millisecond of anyone’s attention.” “You are stuffing your desired conclusion into the hypotheses.”
“The minute part of possibility space that you are focussing on does not merit so much as a millisecond of anyone’s attention.”—which is exactly the same as: “I don’t find this topic interesting for whatever reason, and wish to talk about something I am interested in.”
“I reject the attempt to induce me to give you a soundbite that you are going to broadcast out of context”—that can definitely be the case. But this isn’t really an issue specific to hypotheticals, just non-good faith discussions in general.
“does not merit so much as a millisecond of anyone’s attention” is a quite different claim from “I don’t find this topic interesting”.
I think that at times, ‘This is a very uninteresting question’ is the appropriate response. Just, lead with that and explain why next, rather than just explaining why.