But then we look, and this turns into “we haven’t looked enough”. Which can be true, so maybe we go “can anyone think of something concrete that can go wrong with this?”, and ideally we will look into that, and try to calculate the expected utility.
But then it becomes “we can’t look enough—no matter how hard we try, it will always be possible that there’s something we missed”.
Which is also true. But if, just in case, we decide to act as if unknown unknowns are both certain and significant enough to override the known variables, then we start vetoing the development of things like antibiotics or the internet, and we stay Christians because “it can’t be proven wrong”.
I agree with this.
But then we look, and this turns into “we haven’t looked enough”. Which can be true, so maybe we go “can anyone think of something concrete that can go wrong with this?”, and ideally we will look into that, and try to calculate the expected utility.
But then it becomes “we can’t look enough—no matter how hard we try, it will always be possible that there’s something we missed”.
Which is also true. But if, just in case, we decide to act as if unknown unknowns are both certain and significant enough to override the known variables, then we start vetoing the development of things like antibiotics or the internet, and we stay Christians because “it can’t be proven wrong”.