I suppose they are in a sense, but what exactly are the rewards/lack of benefit for a layman, even an educated one, believing or not in MWI? .I think a major indicator is that I haven’t heard in recent years of anyone been outed as a MWIist and loosing their job as a consequence :P
Nitpick: The average person who has read QM sequence is likley above average in rationality.
but what exactly are the rewards/lack of benefit for a layman, even an educated one, believing or not in MWI?
Everyone is avoiding realistic examples, for fear that if they should disturb any of the several large elephants in the living room, they will immediately be trampled.
Substitute a relevant example as needed, I’m simply trying to make the point that ignorance != irrationality. Someone who simply has more information on a field is going to reach better conclusions, and will thus need to hide controversial opinions. Someone with less information is generally going to go with the “follow the herd” strategy, because in the absence of any other evidence, it’s their best bet. Thus, just based on knowledge (not rationality!) you’re going to see a split between A and B types.
There dosen’t have to be a correlation of 1 between ignorance and irrationally. There just has to be some positive correlation for us to judge in the absence of other information A probably more rational than B.
And if there isn’t a correlation greater than 0 between rationality and a proper map of reality, uhm what is this rationality thing anyway?
For starters we de facto know he is less rational than A
Ahhh, you’re meaning “we have Bayesian evidence that Person B is less likely to be rational than Person A”? I’d agree, but I still think it’s weak evidence if you’re only looking at a single situation, and
I’d still feel I therefore know more about Person A (how they handle these situations) than I do about Person B (merely that they are either ignorant or irrational). How someone handles a situation strikes me as a more consistent trait, whereas most people seem to have enough gaps in their knowledge that a single gap is very little evidence for other gaps.
Ahhh, you’re meaning “we have Bayesian evidence that Person B is less likely to be rational than Person A”?
Yeah I should have been more explicit on that, sorry for the miscommunication!
I’d agree, but I still think it’s weak evidence if you’re only looking at a single situation, and
I’d still feel I therefore know more about Person A (how they handle these situations) than I do about Person B (merely that they are either ignorant or irrational). How someone handles a situation strikes me as a more consistent trait, whereas most people seem to have enough gaps in their knowledge that a single gap is very little evidence for other gaps.
Perhaps for convenience we can add that person A and B are exposed to the same information? It dosen’t change the spirit of the thought experiment. I was originally implicitly operating with that as given but since we started discussing it I’ve noticed I never explicitly mentioned it.
Basically I wanted to compare what kinds of things person A/B would signal in a certain set of circumstances to others.
I suppose they are in a sense, but what exactly are the rewards/lack of benefit for a layman, even an educated one, believing or not in MWI? .I think a major indicator is that I haven’t heard in recent years of anyone been outed as a MWIist and loosing their job as a consequence :P
Nitpick: The average person who has read QM sequence is likley above average in rationality.
Everyone is avoiding realistic examples, for fear that if they should disturb any of the several large elephants in the living room, they will immediately be trampled.
Substitute a relevant example as needed, I’m simply trying to make the point that ignorance != irrationality. Someone who simply has more information on a field is going to reach better conclusions, and will thus need to hide controversial opinions. Someone with less information is generally going to go with the “follow the herd” strategy, because in the absence of any other evidence, it’s their best bet. Thus, just based on knowledge (not rationality!) you’re going to see a split between A and B types.
There dosen’t have to be a correlation of 1 between ignorance and irrationally. There just has to be some positive correlation for us to judge in the absence of other information A probably more rational than B.
And if there isn’t a correlation greater than 0 between rationality and a proper map of reality, uhm what is this rationality thing anyway?
Ahhh, you’re meaning “we have Bayesian evidence that Person B is less likely to be rational than Person A”? I’d agree, but I still think it’s weak evidence if you’re only looking at a single situation, and
I’d still feel I therefore know more about Person A (how they handle these situations) than I do about Person B (merely that they are either ignorant or irrational). How someone handles a situation strikes me as a more consistent trait, whereas most people seem to have enough gaps in their knowledge that a single gap is very little evidence for other gaps.
Yeah I should have been more explicit on that, sorry for the miscommunication!
Perhaps for convenience we can add that person A and B are exposed to the same information? It dosen’t change the spirit of the thought experiment. I was originally implicitly operating with that as given but since we started discussing it I’ve noticed I never explicitly mentioned it.
Basically I wanted to compare what kinds of things person A/B would signal in a certain set of circumstances to others.
No worries. I think part of it was on me as well :)