. But since there is no sufficient evidence to support the claim of A, the required effort is significantly large and the methods appear strange to those not understanding the state how can B rationally decide to expend the effort?
The correct but unfortunately unsatisfying answer is that it all depends on your prior information (aka your model of the world). If A asserts something, and you think A is trustworthy, then this constitutes an evidence towards lucid dreaming, while if you think A is prone to lying, than his/her assertion is evidence against. Given this, you can decide to expend the effort with the usual expected value maximization (with the usual Pascal’s wager caveat: lucid dreaming must not have an extremely large utility compared to the rest of your alternatives).
MrMind’s point is not “trust is central”, but “prior beliefs are central”. What person B believes about the world and has learned through many years of observation and analysis does and should color their reaction to A’s claim.
Beliefs that B has about the world contain, as a subset, the beliefs that B has about A and his/her reliability. Since the argument in my post assumes that there is currently no sufficient evidence for the experience, B has to judge based on this subset for which we use the word ‘trust’.
The correct but unfortunately unsatisfying answer is that it all depends on your prior information (aka your model of the world). If A asserts something, and you think A is trustworthy, then this constitutes an evidence towards lucid dreaming, while if you think A is prone to lying, than his/her assertion is evidence against.
Given this, you can decide to expend the effort with the usual expected value maximization (with the usual Pascal’s wager caveat: lucid dreaming must not have an extremely large utility compared to the rest of your alternatives).
Yes trust seems to be central here. Which brings the question of rationally judging who to trust into focus. Not an easy problem, to say the least...
MrMind’s point is not “trust is central”, but “prior beliefs are central”. What person B believes about the world and has learned through many years of observation and analysis does and should color their reaction to A’s claim.
Beliefs that B has about the world contain, as a subset, the beliefs that B has about A and his/her reliability. Since the argument in my post assumes that there is currently no sufficient evidence for the experience, B has to judge based on this subset for which we use the word ‘trust’.