Quite commonly one selects one’s belief on a totally inadequate basis (affect heuristics, political sympathies) and then reinforces this belief by arguments constructed with the belief in mind. This is what the post was warning against.
That’s an application of the post’s argument, true. But as gRR notes, the literal meaning of the post discusses how we judge information presented to us by other people, which we receive complete with arguments and conclusions.
Once an argument is given in favor of a belief, and that argument has no logical faults, we must update our beliefs accordingly. We don’t have a choice to ignore a valid argument, if we are Bayesians. Even if the argument was deliberately built by someone trying to convince us, who is prone to biases, etc.
Yes, filtered evidence can in the extreme convince us of anything. Someone who controls all our incoming (true) information, and can filter but not modify it, can sometimes influence us to give believe anything they want. But the answer is not to discard information selected by non-objective partisans of beliefs. That would make us discard almost all information we receive at second hand. Instead, the answer is to try and collect information from partisans of different conflicting ideas, and to do confirmations ourselves or via trusted associates.
But as gRR notes, the literal meaning of the post discusses how we judge information presented to us by other people, which we receive complete with arguments and conclusions.
The bottom line of the EY’s post says:
This is intended as a caution for your own thinking, not a Fully General Counterargument against conclusions you don’t like. For it is indeed a clever argument to say “My opponent is a clever arguer”, if you are paying yourself to retain whatever beliefs you had at the start.
So I don’t think the post literally means what you think it means.
That part was apparently added a bit later, when he posted What Evidence Filtered Evidence.
It cautions people against interpreting the entire preceding post in this literal way. Presumably it was added because people did interpret it so, and gRR’s reading is not novel or unique.
Of course this reading is wrong—as it applies to reality, and as a description of Eliezer’s beliefs. But it’s right—as it applies to the post: it is a plausible literal meaning. It wasn’t the intention of the writer, but if some people understand it this way, then it’s the text’s fault (so to speak), no the readers’. There is no “true” literal meaning to a text other than what people understand from it.
That’s an application of the post’s argument, true. But as gRR notes, the literal meaning of the post discusses how we judge information presented to us by other people, which we receive complete with arguments and conclusions.
Once an argument is given in favor of a belief, and that argument has no logical faults, we must update our beliefs accordingly. We don’t have a choice to ignore a valid argument, if we are Bayesians. Even if the argument was deliberately built by someone trying to convince us, who is prone to biases, etc.
Yes, filtered evidence can in the extreme convince us of anything. Someone who controls all our incoming (true) information, and can filter but not modify it, can sometimes influence us to give believe anything they want. But the answer is not to discard information selected by non-objective partisans of beliefs. That would make us discard almost all information we receive at second hand. Instead, the answer is to try and collect information from partisans of different conflicting ideas, and to do confirmations ourselves or via trusted associates.
Eliezers’s followup post discusses this.
The bottom line of the EY’s post says:
So I don’t think the post literally means what you think it means.
That part was apparently added a bit later, when he posted What Evidence Filtered Evidence.
It cautions people against interpreting the entire preceding post in this literal way. Presumably it was added because people did interpret it so, and gRR’s reading is not novel or unique.
Of course this reading is wrong—as it applies to reality, and as a description of Eliezer’s beliefs. But it’s right—as it applies to the post: it is a plausible literal meaning. It wasn’t the intention of the writer, but if some people understand it this way, then it’s the text’s fault (so to speak), no the readers’. There is no “true” literal meaning to a text other than what people understand from it.