Okay, rephrase: Suppose I pull a crazy idea out of my hat and scream “I am 100% confident that every human being on earth will grow a tail in the next five minutes!” Then I am making a very forceful claim, which is not well-supported by the evidence.
The idea is that the outside view generally makes less forceful claims than the inside view—allowing for a wider range of possible outcomes, not being very detailed or precise or claiming a great deal of confidence. If we were to take both outside view and inside view perfectly at face value, giving them equal credence, the sum of the outside view and the inside view would be mostly the inside view. So saying that the sum of the outside view and the inside view equals mostly the outside view must imply that we think the inside view is not to be trusted in the strength it says its claims should have, which is indeed the argument being made.
Weakness as in the force of the claim, not how well-supported the claim may be.
This confuses me. What force of a claim should I feel, that does not come from it being well-supported?
Okay, rephrase: Suppose I pull a crazy idea out of my hat and scream “I am 100% confident that every human being on earth will grow a tail in the next five minutes!” Then I am making a very forceful claim, which is not well-supported by the evidence.
The idea is that the outside view generally makes less forceful claims than the inside view—allowing for a wider range of possible outcomes, not being very detailed or precise or claiming a great deal of confidence. If we were to take both outside view and inside view perfectly at face value, giving them equal credence, the sum of the outside view and the inside view would be mostly the inside view. So saying that the sum of the outside view and the inside view equals mostly the outside view must imply that we think the inside view is not to be trusted in the strength it says its claims should have, which is indeed the argument being made.
Thank you, I understand that much better.