Can you think of the last time where you cared about an issue and someone professed to believe what you likely believed to be true, that you disagreed with them?
Do I need to express it in numbers? In my mind I follow and practice, among others, the saying: “Study the assumptions behind your actions. Then study the assumptions behind your assumptions.”
Having said that, I can not think of an example of applying that in a situation where I was in agreement. I am thinking that ‘I would not be in agreement without a reason regarding a belief that I have examined’ but I might be rationalising here. I will try to observe myself on that. Thanks!
I am thinking that ‘I would not be in agreement without a reason regarding a belief that I have examined’ but I might be rationalising here
We both had reasons for believing it to be true. On the other hand human believe things that are wrong. If you ask a Republican and a Democrat whether Trump is good for America they might have both reasons for their belief but they still disagree. That means for each of them there’s a chance of them being wrong despite having reasons for their beliefs.
The reasons he had in this mind pointed to the belief being true but they didn’t provide him the certainty that it’s true.
It was a belief that was important enough for him to be right and not only have reasons for holding his belief.
The practice of putting numbers on a belief forces you to be precise about what you believe.
Let’s say that you believe: “It’s likely that Trump will get impeached.” If Trump actually get’s impeached you will tell yourself “I correctly predicted it, I was right”. If he doesn’t get impeached you are likely to think “When I said likely than it meant that there was a decent chance that he get’s impeached but I didn’t mean to say that the chance was more than 50%.
The number forces precision. The practice of forcing yourself to be precise allows the development of more mental categories.
When Elon Musk started SpaceX he reportedly thought that it had a 10% chance of success. Many people would think of 10% of success as. It’s highly unlikely that the company succeeds. Elon on the other hand thought that given the high stakes 10% chance of success is enough to found SpaceX.
The number forces precision. The practice of forcing yourself to be precise allows the development of more mental categories.
I will have to explore this further. At the moment the method seems to me to just give an illusion of precision which I am not sure is effective. I could say that I assign a 5% probability that the practice is useful to represent my belief. I will now keep interacting with the community and update my belief according to the evidence I see from people that are using it. Is this the right approach?
Do I need to express it in numbers? In my mind I follow and practice, among others, the saying: “Study the assumptions behind your actions. Then study the assumptions behind your assumptions.”
Having said that, I can not think of an example of applying that in a situation where I was in agreement. I am thinking that ‘I would not be in agreement without a reason regarding a belief that I have examined’ but I might be rationalising here. I will try to observe myself on that. Thanks!
We both had reasons for believing it to be true. On the other hand human believe things that are wrong. If you ask a Republican and a Democrat whether Trump is good for America they might have both reasons for their belief but they still disagree. That means for each of them there’s a chance of them being wrong despite having reasons for their beliefs.
The reasons he had in this mind pointed to the belief being true but they didn’t provide him the certainty that it’s true.
It was a belief that was important enough for him to be right and not only have reasons for holding his belief.
The practice of putting numbers on a belief forces you to be precise about what you believe.
Let’s say that you believe: “It’s likely that Trump will get impeached.” If Trump actually get’s impeached you will tell yourself “I correctly predicted it, I was right”. If he doesn’t get impeached you are likely to think “When I said likely than it meant that there was a decent chance that he get’s impeached but I didn’t mean to say that the chance was more than 50%.
The number forces precision. The practice of forcing yourself to be precise allows the development of more mental categories.
When Elon Musk started SpaceX he reportedly thought that it had a 10% chance of success. Many people would think of 10% of success as. It’s highly unlikely that the company succeeds. Elon on the other hand thought that given the high stakes 10% chance of success is enough to found SpaceX.
I will have to explore this further. At the moment the method seems to me to just give an illusion of precision which I am not sure is effective. I could say that I assign a 5% probability that the practice is useful to represent my belief. I will now keep interacting with the community and update my belief according to the evidence I see from people that are using it. Is this the right approach?
The word “useful” itself isn’t precise and as such the precision of 5% might be more precise than warranted.
Otherwise having your number and then updating it according to what you see from people using it, is the Bayesian way.
How would you express the belief?