How much of the information you have has you personally tested with your own hands, eyes and head? I’m willing to bet, by the sheer number of facts, substantially less than 0.001%.
We could go even farther. Why do you trust your own senses? Eyes, ears, smell, taste, and even touch can be deceived. So why believe anything at all?
I trust my senses if I can reasonably be sure that I’m not in the altered state of consciousness. So what?
Beliefs are important because without them you cannot act in this world.
My point was that you should not dismiss the thoughts of knowledgeable author what he put into the mouth of some character in the story just because it’s “logical fallacy” or “not real” while taking into consideration what your neighbour says on the similar matter. Of course if you are interested in being less wrong.
By excluding from the pool of knowledge of reality on which you update your beliefs any written “fiction” you deprive yourself of valuable chunk of information. This overconfidence is quite common error of rationalists and CFAR participants as I see.
My point was that you should not dismiss the thoughts of knowledgeable author what he put into the mouth of some character in the story just because it’s “logical fallacy” or “not real” while taking into consideration what your neighbour says on the similar matter.
If Sherlock Holmes tells me that it was raining on “Friday, June 19th 1889”[1], I will trust that information much less than I would trust the report of a historian.
Indeed, June 19th 1889 is a Wednesday, not a Friday
I was not talking that facts in fiction books are correct representation of the reality, it would be bullshit. I was talking that facts from history books which is taken for “non-fiction” often are no better and implications which you can derive from the thoughts of author of fiction are often more correct than those you can derive from the thoughts of your neighbour or friend or author at the popular magazine.
We could go even farther. Why do you trust your own senses? Eyes, ears, smell, taste, and even touch can be deceived. So why believe anything at all?
I trust my senses if I can reasonably be sure that I’m not in the altered state of consciousness. So what?
Beliefs are important because without them you cannot act in this world.
My point was that you should not dismiss the thoughts of knowledgeable author what he put into the mouth of some character in the story just because it’s “logical fallacy” or “not real” while taking into consideration what your neighbour says on the similar matter. Of course if you are interested in being less wrong.
By excluding from the pool of knowledge of reality on which you update your beliefs any written “fiction” you deprive yourself of valuable chunk of information. This overconfidence is quite common error of rationalists and CFAR participants as I see.
If Sherlock Holmes tells me that it was raining on “Friday, June 19th 1889”[1], I will trust that information much less than I would trust the report of a historian.
Indeed, June 19th 1889 is a Wednesday, not a Friday
I was not talking that facts in fiction books are correct representation of the reality, it would be bullshit. I was talking that facts from history books which is taken for “non-fiction” often are no better and implications which you can derive from the thoughts of author of fiction are often more correct than those you can derive from the thoughts of your neighbour or friend or author at the popular magazine.