I’m in an ongoing conversation with a couple of LDS missionaries, and those incommunicable experiences seem to be their primary argument. They say they can’t convince me Mormonism is true on their own, but if I read, and I pray, and I work, I’ll just have that experience myself and I’ll know it. And if I had more spare time, I would do all those things, primarily to give them Bayesian evidence that it’s actually not true (I keep meaning to pick up my Book of Mormon, but, well, particle physics to read, LW posts to write, root documentation to go through, etc etc etc)
The primary argument that I have given back, though, is that religious experiences of this stripe simply aren’t unique to Mormonism. Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, Catholics, and ravers taking E have all had similar transcendent experiences. It is naive to take it as Bayesian evidence of mormonism.true.
I don’t think Mormonism is true. I’m not even sure I should consider my friends’ experiences evidence in favor of the proposition that Mormonism is true, especially given that I know other religions have similarly experience-laden representatives and “Alicorn’s friends” isn’t a group representative of the population as a whole. I do, however, suspect that they should consider it evidence—even strong evidence—to exactly that effect.
I do, however, suspect that they should consider it evidence—even strong evidence—to exactly that effect.
Why? Unless the experience displays obvious entanglement with external facts they couldn’t have known at the time, “it’s all in my head” is a perfectly good explanation.
Also, I agree that some experiences are incommunicable in practice, but it still seems that enough information is available that your friends should conclude (with a touch of Outside View reasoning) that other people who claim incommunicable evidence for their religions are probably experiencing about the same thing they are.
Why? Unless the experience displays obvious entanglement with external facts they couldn’t have known at the time, “it’s all in my head” is a perfectly good explanation.
Unfortunately, there’s a slippery slope from “it’s all in your head” to “it doesn’t matter”/”you’re making it up”. Look at the history of psychiatry and mental health for examples.
Not saying you’re wrong, just that there may be layers of complicated cultural biases preventing people from accepting that answer.
A human mind is a physical object in the universe, mine as well as yours. An experience that you have should not produce a qualitatively different update in beliefs to an experience I report. In either case, the fact of the matter is, on such and such date and time, a human brain under such and such circumstances underwent such and such experiences.
To take it to an extreme case, no one has access to information which a scientist with a super-MRI machine observing the excitation of each individual neuron does not, in principle, have.
Yes, of course—but I don’t have a super-MRI. I can’t access the content of my friends’ experiences; I can’t take it into account the way I could entertain a communicable proposition, because they can’t even describe their experiences. If someone tells me a piece of evidence that would be excellent evidence for proposition P, but they say it in Swahili, I have no such evidence for P.
I’m in an ongoing conversation with a couple of LDS missionaries, and those incommunicable experiences seem to be their primary argument. They say they can’t convince me Mormonism is true on their own, but if I read, and I pray, and I work, I’ll just have that experience myself and I’ll know it. And if I had more spare time, I would do all those things, primarily to give them Bayesian evidence that it’s actually not true (I keep meaning to pick up my Book of Mormon, but, well, particle physics to read, LW posts to write, root documentation to go through, etc etc etc)
The primary argument that I have given back, though, is that religious experiences of this stripe simply aren’t unique to Mormonism. Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, Catholics, and ravers taking E have all had similar transcendent experiences. It is naive to take it as Bayesian evidence of mormonism.true.
I don’t think Mormonism is true. I’m not even sure I should consider my friends’ experiences evidence in favor of the proposition that Mormonism is true, especially given that I know other religions have similarly experience-laden representatives and “Alicorn’s friends” isn’t a group representative of the population as a whole. I do, however, suspect that they should consider it evidence—even strong evidence—to exactly that effect.
Why? Unless the experience displays obvious entanglement with external facts they couldn’t have known at the time, “it’s all in my head” is a perfectly good explanation.
Also, I agree that some experiences are incommunicable in practice, but it still seems that enough information is available that your friends should conclude (with a touch of Outside View reasoning) that other people who claim incommunicable evidence for their religions are probably experiencing about the same thing they are.
Unfortunately, there’s a slippery slope from “it’s all in your head” to “it doesn’t matter”/”you’re making it up”. Look at the history of psychiatry and mental health for examples.
Not saying you’re wrong, just that there may be layers of complicated cultural biases preventing people from accepting that answer.
A human mind is a physical object in the universe, mine as well as yours. An experience that you have should not produce a qualitatively different update in beliefs to an experience I report. In either case, the fact of the matter is, on such and such date and time, a human brain under such and such circumstances underwent such and such experiences.
To take it to an extreme case, no one has access to information which a scientist with a super-MRI machine observing the excitation of each individual neuron does not, in principle, have.
Yes, of course—but I don’t have a super-MRI. I can’t access the content of my friends’ experiences; I can’t take it into account the way I could entertain a communicable proposition, because they can’t even describe their experiences. If someone tells me a piece of evidence that would be excellent evidence for proposition P, but they say it in Swahili, I have no such evidence for P.