Thanks for the reminder that belief and understanding are two seperate (but related) concepts. I’ll try to keep that in mind for the future.
Assuming that you too have a good amount of epistemic trust for Eliezer and all of the other people making these claims, you should probably adopt their beliefs as well.
I don’t think I can fully agree with you on that one. I do place high epistemic trust in many members of the rationalist community, but I also place high epistemic trust on many people who are not members of this community. For example, I place extremely high value on the insights of Roger Penrose, based on his incredible work on multiple scientific, mathematical, and artistic subjects that he’s been a pioneer in. At the same time, Penrose argues in his book The Emperor’s New Mind that consciousness is not “algorithmic,” which for obvious reasons I find myself doubting. Likewise, I tend to trust the CDC, but when push came to shove during the pandemic, I found myself agreeing with people’s analysis here.
I don’t think that argument from authority is a meaningful response here, because there are more authorities than just those in the rationalist community., and even if there weren’t, sometimes authorities can be wrong. To blindly follow whatever Eliezer says would, I think, be antithetical to following what Eliezer teaches.
Thanks for the reminder that belief and understanding are two seperate (but related) concepts. I’ll try to keep that in mind for the future.
I don’t think I can fully agree with you on that one. I do place high epistemic trust in many members of the rationalist community, but I also place high epistemic trust on many people who are not members of this community. For example, I place extremely high value on the insights of Roger Penrose, based on his incredible work on multiple scientific, mathematical, and artistic subjects that he’s been a pioneer in. At the same time, Penrose argues in his book The Emperor’s New Mind that consciousness is not “algorithmic,” which for obvious reasons I find myself doubting. Likewise, I tend to trust the CDC, but when push came to shove during the pandemic, I found myself agreeing with people’s analysis here.
I don’t think that argument from authority is a meaningful response here, because there are more authorities than just those in the rationalist community., and even if there weren’t, sometimes authorities can be wrong. To blindly follow whatever Eliezer says would, I think, be antithetical to following what Eliezer teaches.
Agreed fully. I didn’t mean to imply otherwise in my OP, even though I did.