The Sequences contain material which more than one person has reported as having dissolved their religious faith. What has your experience been of contact with that material, either directly by reading it here, or through the conversations that you have had with Eliezer and others, which impressed Eliezer enough to give you the karma to post here?
I first read Eliezer’s posts about 3 years ago, before I left for India. On an abstract level, I believe that humans’ purpose on earth is to become, like God, perfect, and making correct judgments seems to certainly be part of that. On a practical level, I really enjoyed reading the Sequences, because I love learning new things and because cognitive toolboxes for clear thinking are extremely useful.
Things that have caused me to downward-adjust the probability that there is a God: Occam’s Razor and MML. I realized that (God) and (not-God) are not a priori equally likely, because you can’t code “God” in one bit.
Things that caused me to upwardly-adjust the probability that there is a God. Finding independent support for principles I had reached through religious means. Your actual beliefs are best determined by your actions, not what you say your beliefs are. (The ‘invisible dragon’). That many people’s beliefs are actually just attire and tribe-identification.
The downward-adjusters are more powerful; Eliezer and LW have a fairly coherent atheistic worldview.
Things that caused me to upwardly-adjust the probability that there is a God. Finding independent support for principles I had reached through religious means.
That looks odd to me. Why does finding that someone has reached some of the same conclusions as you, but by a completely different and incompatible path, constitute evidence for your path?
The downward-adjusters are more powerful; Eliezer and LW have a fairly coherent atheistic worldview.
Am I correct in reading that as meaning that on balance, your religious faith has been lessened?
Just to make sure I understand, you mean that Eliezer’s
writings have more powerful downward-adjusters and a fairly
coherent atheistic worldview, right?
Your actual beliefs are best determined by your actions, not what you say your beliefs are. (The ‘invisible dragon’). That many people’s beliefs are actually just attire and tribe-identification.
Your actual beliefs are best determined by your actions, not what you say your beliefs are. (The ‘invisible dragon’). That many people’s beliefs are actually just attire and tribe-identification.
I don’t understand this. Why would learning this make it seem more likely that there is a god?
My impression is that calcsam believes that Mormonism (or the Book of Mormon) has produced accurate claims or predictions about human nature, non-supernatural events, and the like, and then extrapolated from that to a high probability that the institution’s metaphysical claims are accurate. If this isn’t the argument, I’d appreciate clarification or correction!
That could certainly be the case, and I can see how one might incorrectly extrapolate from performance in one area to another in a situation like that. But it seems likely that many of these predictions are things that are interpreted as predictions after-the-fact, and possibly collected, filtered, and interpreted by Mormon scholars.
I agree that if Calcsam does believe that Mormonism has made predictions, at least some of them are probably postdictions. Right now I’m just trying to figure out how the part of his comment I quoted above would raise his probability there’s a god. Your interpretation makes sense as an interpretation for how that would happen, though as you say it implies that Calcsam was making a mistake.
This, on its own, does not make sense to me. If you believe the arguments against theism (i.e., the downward-adjusters) are more powerful than your arguments for, why are you still a theist?
Can you quantify that probability? Also, you might be surprised that the Less Wrong consensus (or maybe strong minority position?) is closer to pantheism than atheism.
Judeo-Christian-style gods create the entire universe (as in everything that exists, not as in single components of a multiverse). A self-consistent god can be incompatible with the Tegmark multiverse.
That seems more like Gaiman’s Vertigo universe, where every god ever believed in has a physical reality fueled by that belief. It’s not a real-life belief, as far as I know, and it’s certainly not what is meant by “pantheism”.
Pantheism is the worship of the universe as a God. Most of us here in Less Wrong don’t worship the universe, we want to bind it to our service instead.
A lot of those that have thought carefully about it do. The Big Universe (Tegmark 1) is much easier to accept than level 4, as it is the current scientific consensus on cosmology. Most of the weird consequences of the bigger mathematical universe also happen in a simpler big universe, but scientists aren’t so good at taking the philosophical consequences of their ideas seriously.
The Big Universe (Tegmark 1) is much easier to accept than level 4, as it is the current scientific consensus on cosmology.
BTW, I strongly believe (>90%) that the consensus on cosmology is will change in some way that doesn’t have strong implications for observations but does have strong implications for this kind of philosophy. E.g., the dark matter/energy problem getting resolved to some way that makes the universe finite.
As for level 4, we could have a long and pointless debate that would reduce to the subtleties of defining what it means for something to exist.
“A lot of those that have thought carefully about it do.”
Oh, you ran a poll on LW, and most folks responded to it, with the results confirming your anecdotal hunch about the consensus view? Cool.
For a second there I thought you were making strange unsupported claims about people most of whom you don’t know and with whom you haven’t discussed Tegmark universes.
I’m vaguely aware that some Less Wrong people profess this belief, but as it’s not discussed on Less Wrong, I wouldn’t call it a Less Wrong belief. I would perhaps ascribe it to a metacontrarian cluster (perhaps the dominant metacontrarian cluster?) of beliefs professed in the SI-affiliated community.
The Sequences contain material which more than one person has reported as having dissolved their religious faith. What has your experience been of contact with that material, either directly by reading it here, or through the conversations that you have had with Eliezer and others, which impressed Eliezer enough to give you the karma to post here?
I first read Eliezer’s posts about 3 years ago, before I left for India. On an abstract level, I believe that humans’ purpose on earth is to become, like God, perfect, and making correct judgments seems to certainly be part of that. On a practical level, I really enjoyed reading the Sequences, because I love learning new things and because cognitive toolboxes for clear thinking are extremely useful.
Things that have caused me to downward-adjust the probability that there is a God: Occam’s Razor and MML. I realized that (God) and (not-God) are not a priori equally likely, because you can’t code “God” in one bit.
Things that caused me to upwardly-adjust the probability that there is a God. Finding independent support for principles I had reached through religious means. Your actual beliefs are best determined by your actions, not what you say your beliefs are. (The ‘invisible dragon’). That many people’s beliefs are actually just attire and tribe-identification.
The downward-adjusters are more powerful; Eliezer and LW have a fairly coherent atheistic worldview.
Why only “fairly”?
That looks odd to me. Why does finding that someone has reached some of the same conclusions as you, but by a completely different and incompatible path, constitute evidence for your path?
Am I correct in reading that as meaning that on balance, your religious faith has been lessened?
Just to make sure I understand, you mean that Eliezer’s writings have more powerful downward-adjusters and a fairly coherent atheistic worldview, right?
Yes. Edited to make it more clear.
Why did these two things cause upward-adjustment?
I don’t understand this. Why would learning this make it seem more likely that there is a god?
My impression is that calcsam believes that Mormonism (or the Book of Mormon) has produced accurate claims or predictions about human nature, non-supernatural events, and the like, and then extrapolated from that to a high probability that the institution’s metaphysical claims are accurate. If this isn’t the argument, I’d appreciate clarification or correction!
Are you trying to say that he’s trying to say that the Book of Mormon caused him to anticipate experiences which then happened?
That could certainly be the case, and I can see how one might incorrectly extrapolate from performance in one area to another in a situation like that. But it seems likely that many of these predictions are things that are interpreted as predictions after-the-fact, and possibly collected, filtered, and interpreted by Mormon scholars.
I agree that if Calcsam does believe that Mormonism has made predictions, at least some of them are probably postdictions. Right now I’m just trying to figure out how the part of his comment I quoted above would raise his probability there’s a god. Your interpretation makes sense as an interpretation for how that would happen, though as you say it implies that Calcsam was making a mistake.
This, on its own, does not make sense to me. If you believe the arguments against theism (i.e., the downward-adjusters) are more powerful than your arguments for, why are you still a theist?
No, I meant that the net effect of being on LW was to downward-adjust my perceived probability of God existing.
Can you quantify that probability? Also, you might be surprised that the Less Wrong consensus (or maybe strong minority position?) is closer to pantheism than atheism.
Could you clarify what you mean by pantheism? I’m surprised by this claim.
That in a Big Universe, all possible gods exist.
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0905/0905.1283v1.pdf
“All possible gods” may be an empty set.
Even if the claim is technically defensible, I think it’s more than a little misleading to say that Less Wrong leans towards pantheism.
Judeo-Christian-style gods create the entire universe (as in everything that exists, not as in single components of a multiverse). A self-consistent god can be incompatible with the Tegmark multiverse.
Whoever downmodded me obviously hasn’t read Tegmark.
I didn’t downvote you, but your usage of the term “pantheism” seems to be inconsistent with its standard meaning.
Hmm, you’re right, I was thinking that the accepted definition of pantheism was “All Gods exist”.
That seems more like Gaiman’s Vertigo universe, where every god ever believed in has a physical reality fueled by that belief. It’s not a real-life belief, as far as I know, and it’s certainly not what is meant by “pantheism”.
Pantheism is the worship of the universe as a God. Most of us here in Less Wrong don’t worship the universe, we want to bind it to our service instead.
I downvoted you because I object to your implication that everyone here believes in Tegmark universes.
A lot of those that have thought carefully about it do. The Big Universe (Tegmark 1) is much easier to accept than level 4, as it is the current scientific consensus on cosmology. Most of the weird consequences of the bigger mathematical universe also happen in a simpler big universe, but scientists aren’t so good at taking the philosophical consequences of their ideas seriously.
BTW, I strongly believe (>90%) that the consensus on cosmology is will change in some way that doesn’t have strong implications for observations but does have strong implications for this kind of philosophy. E.g., the dark matter/energy problem getting resolved to some way that makes the universe finite.
As for level 4, we could have a long and pointless debate that would reduce to the subtleties of defining what it means for something to exist.
“A lot of those that have thought carefully about it do.”
Oh, you ran a poll on LW, and most folks responded to it, with the results confirming your anecdotal hunch about the consensus view? Cool.
For a second there I thought you were making strange unsupported claims about people most of whom you don’t know and with whom you haven’t discussed Tegmark universes.
Naw, if someone said they don’t believe in Tegmark universes, Kevin would just conclude that they haven’t thought about it carefully enough.
I’m vaguely aware that some Less Wrong people profess this belief, but as it’s not discussed on Less Wrong, I wouldn’t call it a Less Wrong belief. I would perhaps ascribe it to a metacontrarian cluster (perhaps the dominant metacontrarian cluster?) of beliefs professed in the SI-affiliated community.