the arguments it talks about are complete non-sequiturs
This is simply not true. It is, in fact, the exact opposite of the truth. The point being made by that posting is precisely that even valid arguments towards a given conclusion may be of approximately zero evidential value, if there would be some such arguments even if the conclusion were false and the cause of the arguments’ having been made is something other than the truth of the conclusion.
Also, people usually don’t just write the bottom line first.
Of course not. I thought that aspect of the thought experiment was just to make it clearer and more vivid. The same argument proceeds in much the same way (though sometimes with lesser strength) when the bottom line doesn’t get explicitly written down until later.
[EDITED to fix a formatting screwup. Incidentally, if whoever downvoted this would like to explain why then I’ll try to improve any deficiencies in my thinking or writing that get exposed. But since it looks like what’s actually happened is that someone downvoted almost all my ~20-30 most recent comments indiscriminately, I’m not terribly optimistic about that.]
Look two paragraphs further up to where he’s setting the scene for this thought experiment:
There are all manner of signs and portents indicating whether a box contains a diamond; but I have no sign which I know to be perfectly reliable. There is a blue stamp on one box, for example, and I know that boxes which contain diamonds are more likely than empty boxes to show a blue stamp. Or one box has a shiny surface, and I have a suspicion—I am not sure—that no diamond-containing box is ever shiny.
And it’s in that context that he postulates a “clever arguer” who tries to persuade him by listing (true) facts like “box B shows a blue stamp”.
This is simply not true. It is, in fact, the exact opposite of the truth. The point being made by that posting is precisely that even valid arguments towards a given conclusion may be of approximately zero evidential value, if there would be some such arguments even if the conclusion were false and the cause of the arguments’ having been made is something other than the truth of the conclusion.
Of course not. I thought that aspect of the thought experiment was just to make it clearer and more vivid. The same argument proceeds in much the same way (though sometimes with lesser strength) when the bottom line doesn’t get explicitly written down until later.
[EDITED to fix a formatting screwup. Incidentally, if whoever downvoted this would like to explain why then I’ll try to improve any deficiencies in my thinking or writing that get exposed. But since it looks like what’s actually happened is that someone downvoted almost all my ~20-30 most recent comments indiscriminately, I’m not terribly optimistic about that.]
Ghmm. Are those valid arguments:
?
Look two paragraphs further up to where he’s setting the scene for this thought experiment:
And it’s in that context that he postulates a “clever arguer” who tries to persuade him by listing (true) facts like “box B shows a blue stamp”.