Surely you can find someone who seems like they should be impartial and who’s smart enough to follow an online discussion. They don’t have to understand everything perfectly, they’re only judging what’s been written. Maybe a distant relative who doesn’t know your online alias?
If you pick a random person on the street, and you try to explain Popper to them for 20 minutes—and they are interested enough to let you have those 20 minutes—the chances they will understand it are small.
This doesn’t mean Popper was wrong. But it is one of many reasons your test won’t work well.
Right, it takes a while to understand these things. But they won’t understand Bayes, either; but they’ll still be able to give some impression of which side gave better arguments, and that sort of thing.
How about a philosopher who works on a topic totally unrelated to this one?
Have you ever heard what Popper thinks of the academic philosophy community?
No, an academic philosopher won’t do.
This entire exercise is silly. What will it prove? Nothing. What good is a sample size of 1 for this? Not much. Will you drop Bayesianism if the person sides against you? Of course not.
How about a physicist, then? They’re generally smart enough to figure out new topics quickly, but they don’t usually have cause to think about epistemology in the abstract.
The point of the exercise is not just to judge epistemology, it’s to judge whether you’ve gotten too emotional to think clearly. My hypothesis is that you have, and that this will be immediately obvious to any impartial observer. In fact, it should be obvious even to an observer who agrees with Popper.
How about asking David Deutsch what he thinks? If he does reply, I expect it will be an interesting reply indeed.
In fact, it should be obvious even to an observer who agrees with Popper.
But I’ve already shown lots of this discussion to a bunch of observers outside Less Wrong (I run the best private Popperian email list). Feedback has been literally 100% positive, including some sincere thank yous for helping them see the Conjunction Fallacy mistake (another reaction I got was basically: “I saw the conjunction fallacy was crap within 20 seconds. Reading your stuff now, it’s similar to what I had in mind.”) I got a variety of other positive reactions about other stuff. They’re all at least partly Popperian. I know that many of them are not shy about disagreeing with me or criticizing me—they do so often enough—but when it comes to this Bayesian stuff none of them has any criticism of my stance.
Not a single one of them considers it plausible my position on this stuff is a matter of emotions.
I’m skeptical of the claim about Deutsch. Why not actually test it? A Popperian should try to poke holes in his ideas. Note also that you seem to be missing Jim’s point: Jim is making an observation about the level of emotionalism in your argument, not the correctness. These are distinct issues.
As another suggestion, we could take a bunch of people who have epistemologies that are radically different from either Popper or Bayes. From my friends who aren’t involved in these issues, I could easily get an Orthodox Jew, a religious Muslim, and a conspiracy theorist. That also handles your concern about a sample size of 1. Other options include other Orthodox Jews including one who supports secular monarchies as the primary form of government, and a math undergrad who is a philosophical skeptic. Or if you want to have some real fun, we could get some regulars from the Flat Earth Forum. A large number of them self-identify as “zetetic” which in this context means something like only accepting evidence that is from one’s own sensory observation.
Not a single one of them considers it plausible my position on this stuff is a matter of emotions.
Jim is not suggesting that your position is “a matter of emotions”- he’s suggesting that you are being emotional. Note that these aren’t the same thing. For example, one could hypothetically have a conversation between a biologist and a creationist about evolution and the biologist could get quite angry with the creationist remaining calm. In that case, the biologist believes what they do due to evidence, but they could still be unproductively emotional about how they present that evidence.
You’ve already been told that you made that the point of Jim’s remark was about the emotionalism in your remarks, not about the correctness of your arguments. In that context, your sibling comment is utterly irrelevant. The fact that you still haven’t gotten that point is of course further evidence of that problem. We are well past the point where there’s any substantial likelyhood of productive conversation. Please go away. If you feel a need to come back, do so later, a few months from now when you are confident you can do so without either insulting people, deliberately trolling, and are willing to actually listen to what people here have to say.
A) your ignorance
B) your negative assumptions to fill in the gaps in knowledge. you don’t think I’m a serious person who has reasons for what he says, and you became skeptical before finding out, just by assumption.
And you’re wrong.
Maybe by pointing it out in this case, you will be able to learn something. Do you think so?
Here’s two mild hints:
1) I interviewed David Deutsch yesterday
2) I’m in the acknowledgements of BoI
Here you are lecturing me about how a Popperian should try to poke holes in his ideas, as if I hadn’t. I had. (The hints do not prove I had. They’re just hints.)
I still don’t understand what you think the opinions of several random people will show (and now you are suggesting people that A) we both think are wrong (so who cares what they think?) B) are still justificationists). It seems to me the opinions of, say, the flat earth forum, should be regarded as pretty much random (well, maybe not random if you know a lot about their psychology. which i don’t want to study) and not a fair judge of the quality of arguments!
A large number of them self-identify as “zetetic” which in this context means something like only accepting evidence that is from one’s own sensory observation.
Also I want to thank you for continuing to post. You are easily the most effective troll that LW has ever had, and it is interesting and informative to study your techniques.
Yes. Someone with a worldview similar to mine will be more inclined to agree with me in all the threads. Someone with one I think is rather bad … won’t.
This confuses me. Why should whether someone is a justificationist impact how they read the thread about the conjunction fallacy? Note by the way that you seem to be misinterpreting Jim’s point. Jim isn’t saying that one should have an uninvolved individual decide who is correct. Jim’s suggestion (which granted may not have been explained well in his earlier comment) is to focus on seeing if anyone is behaving too emotionally rather than calmly discussing the issues. That shouldn’t be substantially impacted by philosophical issues.
A person like that won’t follow details of online discussion well.
A person like that won’t be very philosophical.
Sounds heavily biased against me. Understanding advanced ideas takes skill.
And, again, a person like that can pretty much be assumed to be a justificationist.
Surely you can find someone who seems like they should be impartial and who’s smart enough to follow an online discussion. They don’t have to understand everything perfectly, they’re only judging what’s been written. Maybe a distant relative who doesn’t know your online alias?
If you pick a random person on the street, and you try to explain Popper to them for 20 minutes—and they are interested enough to let you have those 20 minutes—the chances they will understand it are small.
This doesn’t mean Popper was wrong. But it is one of many reasons your test won’t work well.
Right, it takes a while to understand these things. But they won’t understand Bayes, either; but they’ll still be able to give some impression of which side gave better arguments, and that sort of thing.
How about a philosopher who works on a topic totally unrelated to this one?
Have you ever heard what Popper thinks of the academic philosophy community?
No, an academic philosopher won’t do.
This entire exercise is silly. What will it prove? Nothing. What good is a sample size of 1 for this? Not much. Will you drop Bayesianism if the person sides against you? Of course not.
How about a physicist, then? They’re generally smart enough to figure out new topics quickly, but they don’t usually have cause to think about epistemology in the abstract.
MWI is a minority view in the physics community because bad philosophy is prevalent there.
The point of the exercise is not just to judge epistemology, it’s to judge whether you’ve gotten too emotional to think clearly. My hypothesis is that you have, and that this will be immediately obvious to any impartial observer. In fact, it should be obvious even to an observer who agrees with Popper.
How about asking David Deutsch what he thinks? If he does reply, I expect it will be an interesting reply indeed.
I know what he thinks: he agrees with me.
But I’ve already shown lots of this discussion to a bunch of observers outside Less Wrong (I run the best private Popperian email list). Feedback has been literally 100% positive, including some sincere thank yous for helping them see the Conjunction Fallacy mistake (another reaction I got was basically: “I saw the conjunction fallacy was crap within 20 seconds. Reading your stuff now, it’s similar to what I had in mind.”) I got a variety of other positive reactions about other stuff. They’re all at least partly Popperian. I know that many of them are not shy about disagreeing with me or criticizing me—they do so often enough—but when it comes to this Bayesian stuff none of them has any criticism of my stance.
Not a single one of them considers it plausible my position on this stuff is a matter of emotions.
I’m skeptical of the claim about Deutsch. Why not actually test it? A Popperian should try to poke holes in his ideas. Note also that you seem to be missing Jim’s point: Jim is making an observation about the level of emotionalism in your argument, not the correctness. These are distinct issues.
As another suggestion, we could take a bunch of people who have epistemologies that are radically different from either Popper or Bayes. From my friends who aren’t involved in these issues, I could easily get an Orthodox Jew, a religious Muslim, and a conspiracy theorist. That also handles your concern about a sample size of 1. Other options include other Orthodox Jews including one who supports secular monarchies as the primary form of government, and a math undergrad who is a philosophical skeptic. Or if you want to have some real fun, we could get some regulars from the Flat Earth Forum. A large number of them self-identify as “zetetic” which in this context means something like only accepting evidence that is from one’s own sensory observation.
Jim is not suggesting that your position is “a matter of emotions”- he’s suggesting that you are being emotional. Note that these aren’t the same thing. For example, one could hypothetically have a conversation between a biologist and a creationist about evolution and the biologist could get quite angry with the creationist remaining calm. In that case, the biologist believes what they do due to evidence, but they could still be unproductively emotional about how they present that evidence.
From sibling:
Shall I take this as a no?
You’ve already been told that you made that the point of Jim’s remark was about the emotionalism in your remarks, not about the correctness of your arguments. In that context, your sibling comment is utterly irrelevant. The fact that you still haven’t gotten that point is of course further evidence of that problem. We are well past the point where there’s any substantial likelyhood of productive conversation. Please go away. If you feel a need to come back, do so later, a few months from now when you are confident you can do so without either insulting people, deliberately trolling, and are willing to actually listen to what people here have to say.
So you say things that are false, and then you think the appropriate follow up is to rant about me?
And your skepticism stems from a combination of
A) your ignorance B) your negative assumptions to fill in the gaps in knowledge. you don’t think I’m a serious person who has reasons for what he says, and you became skeptical before finding out, just by assumption.
And you’re wrong.
Maybe by pointing it out in this case, you will be able to learn something. Do you think so?
Here’s two mild hints:
1) I interviewed David Deutsch yesterday 2) I’m in the acknowledgements of BoI
Here you are lecturing me about how a Popperian should try to poke holes in his ideas, as if I hadn’t. I had. (The hints do not prove I had. They’re just hints.)
I still don’t understand what you think the opinions of several random people will show (and now you are suggesting people that A) we both think are wrong (so who cares what they think?) B) are still justificationists). It seems to me the opinions of, say, the flat earth forum, should be regarded as pretty much random (well, maybe not random if you know a lot about their psychology. which i don’t want to study) and not a fair judge of the quality of arguments!
So they are extremely anti-Popperian...
You don’t say...
Also I want to thank you for continuing to post. You are easily the most effective troll that LW has ever had, and it is interesting and informative to study your techniques.
This isn’t obvious to me, but this cuts both ways.
As to your other claims, do you think any of these matters will be a serious issue if we used the conjunction fallacy thread as our test case?
Yes. Someone with a worldview similar to mine will be more inclined to agree with me in all the threads. Someone with one I think is rather bad … won’t.
This confuses me. Why should whether someone is a justificationist impact how they read the thread about the conjunction fallacy? Note by the way that you seem to be misinterpreting Jim’s point. Jim isn’t saying that one should have an uninvolved individual decide who is correct. Jim’s suggestion (which granted may not have been explained well in his earlier comment) is to focus on seeing if anyone is behaving too emotionally rather than calmly discussing the issues. That shouldn’t be substantially impacted by philosophical issues.
Because justificationism is relevant to that, and most everything else.
Seriously? You don’t even know that there are philosophical issues about the nature of emotion, the proper ways to evaluate its presence, and so on?