For the latter, because I’m not sure what other choice there is. See the “No Universally Compelling Arguments” posts on Lesswrong.
If the namuH race, who somehow evolved to not use parsimony, told me the more complicated hypothesis is more likely to be true, I’d have no reason to offer then for why they are wrong. But I’d still say they were wrong, because my definition of Wrong is the only one that really matters when it comes down to it (the same way that my values are all that really matter when I’m faced with the Babyeater scenario)
For the former, questions of actual policy it’s partly because I think I’m smarter than the average scientist, and so my opinion is weighty when controversy appears under situations where everyone has access to the same data and yet no one is agreeing. (I feel uncomfortable admitting that and probably wouldn’t under my real name). Certainly, the smartest scientists are leagues above me, but from a birds eye view I don’t know who advocates what—all I get is the average opinion and a mess of data.
If I perceived someone to both have access to the same data and to be smarter than me, I sometimes do go against my better judgement—in the same spirit that I go against my own judgement when I perceive someone to have more data than me. (In actual practice I don’t distinguish between “has more data” and “better at using data”—I just keep a general model of people’s competencies.)
I also sometimes look at the skew of intelligence on either side—if all the people on one side of the debate give off signals of greater competence I start weighting them more.
BUT—If I was born with my current mind in a society where everyone was much smarter than me and I wasn’t too arrogant to realize it, I’d probably weigh my opinion much less...but I’d still weigh myself a little more than warranted by data or competence alone, because “No Universally Compelling Arguments-therefore-you-have-no-choice-but-to-follow-yourself” seeps into everything, even when all parties involved are human. Only I have my particular highly personalized intuitions about what is parsimonious, what is morally right, what is logical, and so on, and at bottom there is no justification for those things other than “I am programmed like that”.
For the latter, because I’m not sure what other choice there is. See the “No Universally Compelling Arguments” posts on Lesswrong.
If the namuH race, who somehow evolved to not use parsimony, told me the more complicated hypothesis is more likely to be true, I’d have no reason to offer then for why they are wrong. But I’d still say they were wrong, because my definition of Wrong is the only one that really matters when it comes down to it (the same way that my values are all that really matter when I’m faced with the Babyeater scenario)
For the former, questions of actual policy it’s partly because I think I’m smarter than the average scientist, and so my opinion is weighty when controversy appears under situations where everyone has access to the same data and yet no one is agreeing. (I feel uncomfortable admitting that and probably wouldn’t under my real name). Certainly, the smartest scientists are leagues above me, but from a birds eye view I don’t know who advocates what—all I get is the average opinion and a mess of data.
If I perceived someone to both have access to the same data and to be smarter than me, I sometimes do go against my better judgement—in the same spirit that I go against my own judgement when I perceive someone to have more data than me. (In actual practice I don’t distinguish between “has more data” and “better at using data”—I just keep a general model of people’s competencies.)
I also sometimes look at the skew of intelligence on either side—if all the people on one side of the debate give off signals of greater competence I start weighting them more.
BUT—If I was born with my current mind in a society where everyone was much smarter than me and I wasn’t too arrogant to realize it, I’d probably weigh my opinion much less...but I’d still weigh myself a little more than warranted by data or competence alone, because “No Universally Compelling Arguments-therefore-you-have-no-choice-but-to-follow-yourself” seeps into everything, even when all parties involved are human. Only I have my particular highly personalized intuitions about what is parsimonious, what is morally right, what is logical, and so on, and at bottom there is no justification for those things other than “I am programmed like that”.