The appropriateness of that probably depends on what kind of question it is...
I guess it is slightly more acceptable if it’s a binary question. But even so it’s terrible epistimology, since you are giving undue attention to a hypothesis just because it’s the first one you came up with.
An equally awful method of doing things: Reading through someone’s post and trying to find anything wrong with it. If you find anything --> post criticism, if you don’t find anything --> accept conclusion. It’s SOP even on Less Wrong, and it’s not totally stupid but it’s really not what rationalists are supposed to do.
I think my hackles got raised by the claim that your perception is “what it actually is”—and that’s a remarkably strong claim. It probably works better phrased like something along the lines of “trying to take your ego and preconceived notions out of the picture”.
Yes, that is a big part of it, but it’s more than that. It means you stop seeing things from one specific point of view. Think of how confused people get about issues like free will. Only once you stop thinking about the issue from the perspective of an agent and ask what is actually happening from the perspective of the universe can you resolve the confusion.
Or, if you want to see some great examples of people who get this wrong all the time, go to the James Randi forums. There’s a whole host of people there who will say things during discussions like “Well it’s your claim so you have the burden of proof. I am perfectly happy to change my mind if you show me proof that I’m wrong.” and who think that this makes them rationalists. Good grief.
Any links to egregious examples? :-)
I have spent some time going through your posts but I couldn’t really find any egregious examples. Maybe I got you confused with someone else. I did notice that where politics were involved you’re overly prone to talking about “the left” even though the universe does not think in terms of “left” or “right”. But of course that’s not exactly unique to you.
One other instance I found:
Otherwise, I still think you’re confused between the model class and the model complexity (= degrees of freedom), but we’ve set out our positions and it’s fine that we continue to disagree.
It’s not a huge deal but I personally would not classify ideas as belonging to people, for the reasons described earlier.
In practice I think “X has the burden of proof” generally means something similar to “The position X is advancing has a rather low prior probability, so substantial evidence would be needed to make it credible, and in particular if X wants us to believe it then s/he would be well advised to offer substantial evidence.” Which, yes, involves confusion between an idea and the people who hold it, and might encourage an argument-as-conflict view of things that can work out really badly—but it’s still a convenient short phrase, reasonably well understood by many people, that (fuzzily) denotes something it’s often useful to say.
So, yeah, issuing such challenges in such terms is a sign of imperfect enlightenment and certainly doesn’t make the one who does it a rationalist in any useful sense. But I don’t see it as such a bad sign as I think you do.
Yea, the concept of burden of proof can be a useful social convention, but that’s all it is. The thing is that taking a sceptical position and waiting for someone to proof you wrong is the opposite of what a sceptic should do. If you ever see two ‘sceptics’ both taking turns postinf ‘you have the burden of proof’, ‘no you have the burden of proof!’… You’ll see what i mean. Actual rationality isn’t supposed to be easy.
I guess it is slightly more acceptable if it’s a binary question.
No, that’s not what I had in mind. For example, there are questions which explicitly ask for an explanation and answering them with an explanation is fine. Or, say, there are questions which are wrong (as a question) so you answer them with an explanation of why they don’t make sense.
It means you stop seeing things from one specific point of view.
I don’t think you can. Or, rather, I think you can see things from multiple specific point of views, but you cannot see them without any point of view. Yes, I understand you talk about looking at things “from the perspective of the universe” but this expression is meaningless to me.
“I am perfectly happy to change my mind if you show me proof that I’m wrong.”
That may or may not be a reasonable position to take. Let me illustrate how it can be reasonable: people often talk in shortcuts. The sentence quoted could be a shortcut expression for “I have evaluated the evidence for and against X and have come to the conclusion Y. You are claiming that Y is wrong, but your claim by itself is not evidence. Please provide me with actual evidence and then I will update my beliefs”.
even though the universe does not think in terms of “left” or “right”
But humans do and I’m talking to humans, not to the universe.
A more general point—you said in another post
I am irrelevant. My emotions are irrelevant. Truth is not influenced by what I want to be true.
This is true when you are evaluating the physical reality. But it is NOT true when you are evaluating the social reality—it IS influenced by emotions and what people want to be true.
but I personally would not classify ideas as belonging to people
I guess it is slightly more acceptable if it’s a binary question. But even so it’s terrible epistimology, since you are giving undue attention to a hypothesis just because it’s the first one you came up with.
An equally awful method of doing things: Reading through someone’s post and trying to find anything wrong with it. If you find anything --> post criticism, if you don’t find anything --> accept conclusion. It’s SOP even on Less Wrong, and it’s not totally stupid but it’s really not what rationalists are supposed to do.
Yes, that is a big part of it, but it’s more than that. It means you stop seeing things from one specific point of view. Think of how confused people get about issues like free will. Only once you stop thinking about the issue from the perspective of an agent and ask what is actually happening from the perspective of the universe can you resolve the confusion.
Or, if you want to see some great examples of people who get this wrong all the time, go to the James Randi forums. There’s a whole host of people there who will say things during discussions like “Well it’s your claim so you have the burden of proof. I am perfectly happy to change my mind if you show me proof that I’m wrong.” and who think that this makes them rationalists. Good grief.
I have spent some time going through your posts but I couldn’t really find any egregious examples. Maybe I got you confused with someone else. I did notice that where politics were involved you’re overly prone to talking about “the left” even though the universe does not think in terms of “left” or “right”. But of course that’s not exactly unique to you.
One other instance I found:
It’s not a huge deal but I personally would not classify ideas as belonging to people, for the reasons described earlier.
In principle I agree with you.
In practice I think “X has the burden of proof” generally means something similar to “The position X is advancing has a rather low prior probability, so substantial evidence would be needed to make it credible, and in particular if X wants us to believe it then s/he would be well advised to offer substantial evidence.” Which, yes, involves confusion between an idea and the people who hold it, and might encourage an argument-as-conflict view of things that can work out really badly—but it’s still a convenient short phrase, reasonably well understood by many people, that (fuzzily) denotes something it’s often useful to say.
So, yeah, issuing such challenges in such terms is a sign of imperfect enlightenment and certainly doesn’t make the one who does it a rationalist in any useful sense. But I don’t see it as such a bad sign as I think you do.
Yea, the concept of burden of proof can be a useful social convention, but that’s all it is. The thing is that taking a sceptical position and waiting for someone to proof you wrong is the opposite of what a sceptic should do. If you ever see two ‘sceptics’ both taking turns postinf ‘you have the burden of proof’, ‘no you have the burden of proof!’… You’ll see what i mean. Actual rationality isn’t supposed to be easy.
No, that’s not what I had in mind. For example, there are questions which explicitly ask for an explanation and answering them with an explanation is fine. Or, say, there are questions which are wrong (as a question) so you answer them with an explanation of why they don’t make sense.
I don’t think you can. Or, rather, I think you can see things from multiple specific point of views, but you cannot see them without any point of view. Yes, I understand you talk about looking at things “from the perspective of the universe” but this expression is meaningless to me.
That may or may not be a reasonable position to take. Let me illustrate how it can be reasonable: people often talk in shortcuts. The sentence quoted could be a shortcut expression for “I have evaluated the evidence for and against X and have come to the conclusion Y. You are claiming that Y is wrong, but your claim by itself is not evidence. Please provide me with actual evidence and then I will update my beliefs”.
But humans do and I’m talking to humans, not to the universe.
A more general point—you said in another post
This is true when you are evaluating the physical reality. But it is NOT true when you are evaluating the social reality—it IS influenced by emotions and what people want to be true.
I don’t quite understand you here.