Simple explanations are good, but not necessarily correct. It’s awfully easy to say they’re all nutcases, but it’s still easy and a bit more fair to say that they’re mostly nutcases but maybe some of them are correct. Maybe. I think it’s best to give it a chance at least.
It’s awfully easy to say they’re all nutcases, but it’s still easy and a bit more fair to say that they’re mostly nutcases but maybe some of them are correct. Maybe. I think it’s best to give it a chance at least.
Openmindedness in these respects has always seemed to me highly selective—how openminded are you to the concept that most thunderbolts may be mere electromagnetic phenomena but maybe some thunderbolts are thrown down by Thor? Do you give that possibility a chance? Should we?
Or is it only the words that current society treats seriously e.g. “God” and “Jesus”, that we should keep an open mind about, and not the names that past societies treated seriously?
how openminded are you to the concept that most thunderbolts may be mere electromagnetic phenomena but maybe some thunderbolts are thrown down by Thor? Do you give that possibility a chance? Should we?
If billions of people think so, then yes, we should.
It’s not just that our society treats Jesus seriously, it’s that millions of people have overwhelming personal evidence of Him. And most of them are not rationalists, but they’re not mentally insane either.
I mean, there are over a billion people in the world who identify as believers of Islam, many of whom report personal experiences which they consider overwhelming evidence that there is no God but Allah, and Mahomet is His Prophet. But I don’t accept that there is no God but Allah. (And, I’m guessing, neither do you, so it seems likely that we agree that the beliefs of a billion people at least sometimes not sufficient evidence to compel confidence in an assertion.)
Going the other way, there was a time when only a million people reported personal evidence of Jesus Christ as Lord. There was a time when only a hundred thousand people had. There was a time when only a thousand people had. Etc. And yet, if Jesus Christ really is Lord, a rationalist wants to believe that even in 13 A.D., when very few people claim to. And if he is not, a rationalist wants to believe that even in 2013 A.D. when billions of people claim to.
I conclude that the number of people just isn’t that relevant.
I think that if in 13 A.D. you had asked a rationalist whether some random Nazarene kid was our savior, “almost certainly not” would have been the correct response given the evidence. But twenty years later, after a whole lot of strong evidence came out, that rationalist would have adjusted his probabilities significantly. The number of people who were brought up in something doesn’t matter, but given that there are millions if not billions of personal witnesses, I think God is a proposition to which we ought to give a fair chance.
given that there are millions if not billions of personal witnesses, I think God is a proposition to which we ought to give a fair chance.
And by “God” here you specifically mean God as presented in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints’ traditional understanding of the Book of Mormon, and our collective traditional understandings of the New Testament insofar as they don’t contradict each other or that understanding of the Book of Mormon, and our traditional understandings of the Old Testament insofar as they don’t contradict each other or any of the above.
Yes?
But you don’t mean God as presented in, for example, the Sufis’ traditional understanding of the Koran, and our collective traditional understandings of the New Testament insofar as they don’t contradict each other or that understanding of the Koran, and our traditional understandings of the Old Testament insofar as they don’t contradict each other or any of the above.
Yes?
Is this because there are insufficient numbers of personal witnesses to the latter to justify such a fair chance?
I mean deity or God in general. Because although they don’t agree on the details, these billions of people agree that there is some sort of conscious higher Power. And they don’t have to contradict each other in that.
Well… hm. Is there sufficient evidence, on your account, to conclude (or at least take very seriously the hypothesis) that Thomas Monson communicates directly with a conscious higher Power in a way that you do not? Is there sufficient evidence, on your account, to conclude (or at least take very seriously the hypothesis) that Sun Myung Moon communicated directly with a conscious higher Power in a way that you do not?
I think it’s too difficult to take this reasoning into specific cases. That is, with the general reasoning I’ve been talking about, I’m going to conclude that I think it’s best to take the general possibility of deity seriously.
Given that, and given my upbringing and personal experience and everything else, I think that it’s best to take Thomas Monson very seriously. I hardly know anything about Sun Myung Moon so I can’t say anything about him.
I can’t possibly ask you to do that second part, but I think that the possibility of deity in general is a cause I will fight for.
(edit: clarified)
So on your account, if I’ve understood it, I have sufficient evidence to justify a high confidence in a conscious higher Power consistent with the accounts of all believers in Abrahamic religions, though not necessarily identical to that described in any of those accounts, and the fact that I lack such confidence is merely because I haven’t properly evaluated the evidence available to me. Yes?
Just to avoid confusion, I’m going to label that evidence—the evidence I have access to on this account—E1.
Going further: on your account, you have more evidence than E1, given your upbringing and personal experience and everything else, and your evidence (which I’ll label E2) is sufficient to further justify a high confidence in additional claims, such as Thomas Monson’s exceptional ability to communicate with that Power. Yes?
And since you lack personal experiences relating to Sun Myung Moon that justify a high confidence in similar claims about him, you lack that confidence, but you don’t rule it out either… someone else might have evidence E3 that justifies a high confidence in Sun Myung Moon’s exceptional ability to communicate with that Power, and you don’t claim otherwise, you simply don’t know one way or the other. . Yes?
OK, so far so good.
Now, moving forward, it’s worth remembering that personal experience of an event V is not our only, or even our primary, source of evidence with which to calculate our confidence in V. As I said early on in our exchange, there are many events I’m confident occurred which I’ve never experienced observing, and some events which I’ve experienced observing which I’m confident never occurred, and I expect this is true of most people.
So, how is that possible? Well, for example, because other people’s accounts of an event are evidence that the event occurred, as you suggest with your emphasis on the mystical experiences of millions (or billions) of people as part of E1. Not necessarily compelling evidence, because people do sometimes give accounts of events that didn’t occur, but evidence worth evaluating. Yes?
Of course, not all such accounts are equally useful as evidence. You probably don’t know Thomas Monson personally, but you still take seriously the proposition that he is a Prophet of YHWH, primarily on the basis of the accounts of a relatively small number of people whom you trust (due to E2) to be sufficiently reliable evaluators of evidence. Yes?
(A digression on terminology: around here, we use “rational” as a shorthand which entails reliably evaluating evidence, so we might semi-equivalently say that you trust this group to be rational. I’m avoiding that jargon in this discussion because you’re new to the community and “rational” in the broader world has lots of other connotations that might prove distracting. OTOH, “sufficiently reliable evaluator of evidence” is really tedious to type over and over, which is why we don’t usually say that, so I’m going to adopt “SREoE” as shorthand for it here.)
Moving on: you don’t know Sun Myung Moon personally, but you don’t take seriously the proposition that he is a Prophet of the higher Power, despite the similar accounts of a relatively small number of people, presumably because you don’t trust them to be SREoEs. Yes?
And similarly, you don’t expect me to take seriously the proposition that Thomas Monson is a Prophet of the higher Power, not only because I lack access to E2, but also because you don’t expect me to trust you as a SREoE. If I did (for whatever reason, justified or not) trust you to be a SREoE, I would take that proposition seriously. Yes?
Pausing here to make sure I haven’t gone off the rails.
So, summarizing your account as I understand it and continuing from there:
Consider five propositions G1-G5 roughly articulable as follows: G1: “there exists a conscious higher Power consistent with the accounts A1 of all believers in Abrahamic religions, though not necessarily identical to that described in any particular account in A1” G2: “there exists a conscious higher Power consistent with the accounts A2 of Thomas Monson, where A2 is a subset of A1; any account Antm which is logically inconsistent with A2 is false.” G3: “there exists a conscious higher Power consistent with the accounts A3 of Sun Myung Moon, where A3 may or may not be a subset of A1; any account Ansmm which is logically inconsistent with A3 is false.” G4: “there exists a conscious higher Power consistent with the accounts A4 of all believers in any existing religion, Abrahamic or otherwise, though not necessarily identical to that described in any particular account in A4″ G5: “there exists a conscious higher Power consistent with the accounts A5 of some particular religious tradition R, where A5 is logically inconsistent with A1 and A2.”
2: On your account there exists evidence, E1, such that a SREoE would, upon evaluating E1, arrive at high confidence in G1. Further, I have access to E1, so if I were an SREoE I would be confident in G1, and if I lack confidence in G1 I am not an SREoE.
3: On your account there exists evidence E2 that similarly justifies high confidence in G2, and you have access to E2, though I lack such access.
4: If there are two agents X and Y, such that X has confidence that Y is an SREoE and that Y has arrived at high confidence of a proposition based on some evidence, X should also have high confidence in that proposition even without access to that evidence.
Yes? (I’m not trying to pull a fast one here; if the above is significantly mis-stating any of what you meant to agree to, pull the brake cord now.)
And you approached this community seeking evidence that we were SREoEs—specifically, seeking evidence that we had engaged with E1 in a sufficiently open-minded way, which an SREoE would—and you have concluded that no, we haven’t, and we aren’t. Yes?
And because of that conclusion, you don’t reduce your confidence in G1 based on our interactions, because the fact that we haven’t concluded G1 from E1 is not compelling evidence that #2 above is false, which it would be if we were SREoEs. Yes?
So, given all of that, and accepting for the sake of argument that I wish to become an SREoEs, how would you recommend I proceed?
And is that procedure one you would endorse following if, instead of engaging with you, I were instead engaging with someone who claimed (2b) “There exists evidence, E5, such that a SREoE would, upon evaluating E5, arrive at high confidence in G5. Further, Dave has access to E5, so if Dave were an SREoE he would be confident in G5, and if Dave lacks confidence in G5 he is not an SREoE.”?
I don’t think I can claim that your rejection of E1 means you are not a SREoE—this community is by far more SR in EE, the way we’re talking about it at least, than those who believe G1. I’m not going to go around calling anyone irrational as long as their conclusions do come from a proper evaluation of the evidence.
I can’t really claim E2 is that much stronger than E1—many people have access to E2 but don’t believe G2.
What I’m trying to figure out is if this community thinks that any SREoE must necessarily reject G1 (based largely on the inconsistency of E1). I’m not claiming that a SREoE must accept G1 upon being exposed to E1.
But assuming I did claim that I was a SREoE and you all weren’t...no, I don’t know. Because being a SREoE equates almost completely in my mind with being a rationalist in the ideal sense that this community strives for. That doesn’t mean everyone here is a SREoE, but most of them appear to be doing their best.
I’m curious, though, where else could this logic lead?
What I’m trying to figure out is if this community thinks that any SREoE must necessarily reject G1 (based largely on the inconsistency of E1). I’m not claiming that a SREoE must accept G1 upon being exposed to E1.
I get that you’re trying to be polite and all, and that’s nice of you.
Politeness is important, and the social constraints of politeness are a big reason I steered this discussion away from emotionally loaded terms like “rational,” “irrational,” “God,” “faith,” etc.in the first place; it’s a lot easier to discuss what confidence a SREoE resides in G1 given E1 without getting offended or apologetic or defensive than to discuss whether belief in God is rational or irrational, because the latter formulation carries so much additional cultural and psychological weight.
But politeness aside, I don’t see how what you’re saying can possibly be the case given what you’ve already agreed to. If E1 entails high confidence in G1, then an SREoE given E1 concludes that G1 is much more likely than NOT(G1), and an agent that does not conclude this is not an SREoE. That’s just what it means for evidence to entail a given level of confidence in a conclusion, be it a low level or a high level.
Which means that if you’re right that I have evidence that entails reasonably high confidence in the existence of God, then my vanishingly low confidence in the existence of God means I’m not being rational on the subject. Maybe that’s rude to say, but rude or not that’s just what it means for me to have evidence that entails reasonably high confidence in the existence of God.
And I get that you’re looking for the same kind of politeness in return… that we can believe or not believe whatever we want, but as long as we don’t insist it’s irrational to conclude from available evidence that God exists, we can all get along.
And in general, we’re willing to be polite in that way… most of us have stuff in our lives we don’t choose to be SREoEs about, and going around harassing each other about it is a silly way to spend our time. There are theists of various stripes on LW, but we don’t spend much time arguing about it.
But if you insist on framing the discussion in terms of epistemic rationality then, again, politeness aside, that doesn’t really work. If E1 entails low confidence in G1, then an SREoE given E1 concludes that G1 is much less likely than NOT(G1), and an agent that does not conclude this is not an SREoE. That’s just what it means for evidence to entail a given level of confidence in a conclusion, be it a low level or a high level.
Or, expressed in the more weighted way: either we have shared evidence that entails high confidence in the existence of God and I’m not evaluating that evidence as reliably as you are, or we have shared evidence that entails low confidence in the existence of God and you’re not evaluating that evidence as reliably as I am.
All the politeness in the world doesn’t change that.
All of that said, there’s no obligation here to be an SREoE in any particular domain, which is why I started this whole conversation by talking about pragmatic reasons to continue practicing your religion in the first place. If you insist on placing the discussion in the sphere of epistemic rationality, I don’t see how you avoid the conclusion, but there’s no obligation to do that.
I’m not trying to be nice. Do not interpret the fact that I’m won’t admit to attacking you to mean that I’m trying to be nice—perhaps I’m really not attacking you. I honestly believe that your position is fully self-justified, and I respect it.
Neither am I asking for politeness. I didn’t get come on here expecting you to be nice, only rational and reasonable, which most people have been. I’d be happy for you all to tell me that it’s irrational to conclude that God exists. One of my biggest questions was whether you all thought this was the case. Some of you don’t, but you all did, and undiplomatically told me so, I wouldn’t be offended. I might come away disappointed that this community wasn’t as open-minded as I had hoped (no accusations intended), but I wouldn’t be offended. If you think it’s the case, please tell me so, and I will respectfully disagree.
If E1 entails high confidence in G1, then an SREoE given E1 concludes that G1 is much more likely than NOT(G1), and an agent that does not conclude this is not an SREoE. That’s just what it means for evidence to entail a given level of confidence in a conclusion, be it a low level or a high level.
I think the biggest problem here is that, as I wrote in the other post, I don’t believe there’s only one conclusion a rational person (SREoE) can draw from the evidence. I don’t believe that there is only one correct “methodology,” and so I don’t believe that evidence necessarily entails one thing or the other.
I don’t believe that there is only one correct “methodology,” and so I don’t believe that evidence necessarily entails one thing or the other.
I see. I apologize; I missed this the first time you said it.
So, on your view, what does it mean to evaluate evidence reliably, if not that sufficiently reliable evaluations of given evidence will converge on the same confidence in given propositions? What does it mean for a methodology to be correct, if not that it leads a system that implements it to a given confidence in given propositions given evidence?
Or, to put it differently… well, let’s back up a step. Why should anyone care about evaluating evidence reliably? Why not evaluate it unreliably instead, or not bother evaluating it at all?
Yeah, I don’t really know. It just depends on your paradigm—according to rationalists like yourself, it seems, a cold rational analysis is most “correct” and reliable. For some others, the process involves fasting and prayer. I’m not going to say either is infallible. Certainly logic is a wonderful thing which has its place in our lives. But taken too far it’s not always helpful or accurate, especially in us subjective humans.
Well, I certainly agree about fallibility. Humans don’t have access to infallible epistemologies.
That said, if fasting and prayer reliably gets me the most useful confidence levels in propositions for achieving my goals, then I should engage in fasting and prayer because that’s part of the most reliable process for evaluating evidence.
If it doesn’t, then that’s not a reason for me to engage in fasting and prayer, though I may choose to do so for other reasons.
Either one of those things is true, or the other is. And I may not know enough about the world to decide with confidence which it is (though I sure do seem to), but even if I don’t my ignorance doesn’t somehow make it the case that they are both true.
These words seem subjective or at the very least unmeasurable. There is no way of determining absolutely whether something is “reliable” or “useful” without ridiculously technical definitions, which ruin the point anyway.
(sorry if I don’t respond right away. I’ve been retributively downvoted to −15 and so LW is giving me a hassle about commenting. The forum programming meant well...)
sorry if I don’t respond right away. I’ve been [...] downvoted to −15
That’s OK. If we no longer have any way of agreeing on whether propositions are useful, reliable, or true, or agreeing on what it means for propositions to be any of these things, then I don’t anticipate the discussion going anywhere from here that’s worth my time. We can let it drop here.
(sorry if I don’t respond right away. I’ve been retributively downvoted to −15 and so LW is giving me a hassle about commenting. The forum programming meant well...)
Working as intended. Evangelism of terrible thinking is not welcome here. For most intents and purposes you are a troll. It’s time for you to go and time for me to start downvoting anyone who feeds you. Farewell Ibidem (if you the user behind the handle ever happen to gain an actual sincere interest in rationality I recommend creating a new account and making a fresh start.)
I don’t believe there’s only one conclusion a rational person (SREoE) can draw from the evidence.
There is one direction a SREoE updates on evidence—towards the evidence.
If I have strong reasons (high prior probability) of thinking that a coin has heads on both sides, I’m making a mistake by becoming more confident after I flip the coin and it comes up tails.
Likewise, if I have strong reasons of thinking that another coin is biased towards heads, so it turns up heads 60% instead of 50%, I’m committing the same error if I become more confident after seeing the coinflip turn up tails.
So learning E1 should make any SREoE become more confident of G1 unless that person’s priors are already very heavily weighed towards G1. In the real world, there just aren’t that many SREoE’s with high priors on G1 before being exposed to E1.
In the real world, there just aren’t that many SREoE’s with high priors on G1 before being exposed to E1.
First of all, note that you effectively just said that nearly all religious people are irrational. I won’t hold it against you, just realize that that’s the position you’re expressing.
If I have strong reasons (high prior probability) of thinking that a coin has heads on both sides, I’m making a mistake by becoming more confident after I flip the coin and it comes up tails.
Obviously. If there is clear evidence against your beliefs, you should decrease your confidence in your beliefs. But the problem is that this situation is not so simple as heads and tails.
What I’m trying to say is that two SREoEs can properly examine E1 and come up with different conclusions. I’m sorry if I agreed too fully to Dave’s first set of propositions—the devil’s in the details, as we irrational people who believe in a Devil say sometimes.
So on your account, if I’ve understood it, I have sufficient evidence to justify a high confidence in a conscious higher Power consistent with the accounts of all believers in Abrahamic religions, though not necessarily identical to that described in any of those accounts, and the fact that I lack such confidence is merely because I haven’t properly evaluated the evidence available to me.
Yes?
The key is “if I haven’t properly evaluated the evidence.” I took “properly” to mean “in a certain way,” while Dave intended it as “in the one correct way.” When this became clear, I tried to clarify my position.
I’m going to reiterate it again, because you don’t seem to be getting it: I believe that it’s possible for two equally R Es oE to evaluate the same evidence and come up with different conclusions. Thus exposure to E1 does not necessarily entail any confidence-shifting at all, even in a SREoE.
First of all, note that you effectively just said that nearly all religious people are irrational. I won’t hold it against you, just realize that that’s the position you’re expressing.
I’ll pop in here and note that the general point of view here is that everyone is irrational, and even the best of us frequently err. That’s why we tend to use the term “aspiring rationalist,” since nobody has reached the point of being able to claim to be an ideal rationalist.
The highest standard we can realistically hold people to is to make a genuine effort to be rational, to the best of their abilities, using the information available to them.
That’s true. It’s not actually “rational” vs. “irrational,” even if that would make the situation so much easier to understand.
I hope you’d agree, though, that there are many people in this world (think: evangelicals) who don’t make any sort of effort to be rational in the sense you mean it, and even some who honestly think logical inference is a tool of the devil. How sad...but probably no need to worry about them in this thread.
I believe that it’s possible for two [SREoEs] to evaluate the same evidence and come up with different conclusions.
That is possible if and only if the two SREoEs started with different beliefs (priors) before receiving the same evidence. Aumann’s Agreement Theorem says that SREoEs who start with the same beliefs and see the same evidence cannot disagree without doing something wrong.
In the real world, there just aren’t that many SREoE’s with high priors on G1 before being exposed to E1.
I didn’t write this clearly. I meant that most human SREoEs who haven’t been exposed to E1 don’t assign high probability to G1. Theoretically, an SREoE who hadn’t been exposed to E1 could have such high confidence in G1 that expose to E1 should reduce confidence in G1. In practice, I’m not sure any adult human hasn’t been exposed to E1 already, and I’m doubtful that most children are SREoEs—thus, I’m not sure whether the set (human&non-E1&SREoE) has any elements in existence.
First of all, note that you effectively just said that nearly all religious people are irrational. I won’t hold it against you, just realize that that’s the position you’re expressing.
I’m saying that people who assign high probability to G1 after exposure to E1 either (a) had very different priors about G1 than I before exposure to E1, or (b) are not SREoEs. Alternatively, I either (a) am not an SREoE, or (b) have not been exposed to the evidence we have referred to as E1.
To put it slightly differently, I can identify evidence that would make me increase the probability I assign to G1. Can you identify evidence that would make you decrease the probability you assign G1?
Aumann’s Agreement Theorem says that SREoEs who start with the same beliefs and see the same evidence cannot disagree without doing something wrong.
Perhaps, then, I don’t fully agree with Aumann’s Agreement Theorem. I’ll leave it to you to decide whether that means I’m not a “genuine” Bayesian. I wouldn’t have a problem with being unable to fully adopt a single method of thinking about the universe.
In practice, I’m not sure any adult human hasn’t been exposed to E1 already, and I’m doubtful that most children are SREoEs
Is it fair to say that most current SREoEs became that way during a sort of rationalist awakening? (I know it’s not as simple as being a SREoE or not, and so this process actually takes years. but let’s pretend for a moment.) Imagine a child who grows up being fed very high priors about G1. This child (not a SREoE) is exposed to E1 and has a high confidence in G1. When he (/she) grows up and eventually becomes a SREoE, he first of all consciously throws out all his priors (rebellion against parents), then re-evaluates E1 (re-exposure?) and decides that in fact it entails ~G1.
Whether or not this describes you, does it make sense?
I’m saying that people who assign high probability to G1 after exposure to E1 either (a) had very different priors about G1 than I before exposure to E1, or (b) are not SREoEs. Alternatively, I either (a) am not an SREoE, or (b) have not been exposed to the evidence we have referred to as E1.
How about this: since both of you have been exposed to the same evidence and don’t agree, then either (a) you had very different priors (which is likely), or (b) you evaluate evidence differently. I’m going to avoid saying either of you is “better” or “more rational” at evaluating evidence.
Perhaps, then, I don’t fully agree with Aumann’s Agreement Theorem.
Whoa there. Aumann’s agreement theorem is a theorem. It is true, full stop. Whatever that term “SREoE” means (I keep going up and keep not seeing an explanation), either it doesn’t map onto the hypotheses of Aumann’s agreement theorem or you are attempting to disagree with a mathematical fact.
I believe it was “Sufficiently reasonable evaluator of evidence”—which I was using roughly equivalently to Bayesian empiricist. I’m beginning to doubt that is what ibidem means by it.
TheOtherDave defined it way back in the thread to try to taboo “rationalist,” since that word has such a multitude of denotations and connotations (including the LW intended meanings). Edit: terminology mostly defined here and here.
Sufficiently reliable, but otherwise yes. That said, we’ve since established that ibidem and I don’t have a shared understanding of “reliable” or “evidence,” either, so I’d have to call it a failed/incomplete attempt at tabooing.
For it to be a mathematical fact, it needs a mathematical proof. Go ahead...!
Like it or not, rationality is not mathematics—it is full of estimations, assumptions, objective decisions, and wishful thinking. Thus, a “theorem” in evidence evaluation is not a mathematical theorem, obtained using unambiguous formal logic.
If what you mean to say is that Aumann’s Agreement “Theorem” is a fundamental building block of your particular flavor of rational thinking, then what this means is simply that I don’t fully subscribe to your particular flavor of rational thinking. Nothing (mathematics nearly excepted) is “true, full stop.” Remember? 1 is not a probability. That one’s even more “true, full stop” than Aumann’s ideas about rational disagreement.
When did I claim that rationality was mathematics?
Right here:
you are attempting to disagree with a mathematical fact.
it needs a mathematical proof.
Here you go.
Maybe not “rationality” exactly but Aumann’s work, whatever it is you call what we’re doing here. Rational decision-making.
So yes, Aumann’s theorem can be proven using a certain system of formalization, taking a certain set of definitions and assumptions. What I’m saying is not that I disagree with the derivation I gave, but that I don’t fully agree with its premises.
If what you mean to say is that Aumann’s Agreement “Theorem” is a fundamental building block of your particular flavor of rational thinking
When did I say this?
You didn’t yet, I didn’t say you did. I’m guessing that that’s what you actually mean though, because very, very few things if any are “true, full stop.” Something like this theorem can be fully true according to Bayesian statistics or some other system of thought, full stop. If this is the case, then in means I don’t fully accept that system of thought. Is disagreement not allowed?
Maybe not “rationality” exactly but Aumann’s work, whatever it is you call what we’re doing here. Rational decision-making.
How does what I said there mean “rationality is mathematics”? All I’m saying is that Aumann’s agreement theorem is mathematics, and if you’re attempting to disagree with it, then you’re attempting to disagree with mathematics.
What I’m saying is not that I disagree with the derivation I gave, but that I don’t fully agree with its premises.
I agree that this is what you should’ve said, but that isn’t what you said. Disagreeing with an implication “if P, then Q” doesn’t mean disagreeing with P.
I’m guessing that that’s what you actually mean though
No, it’s not. I just mean that mathematical facts are mathematical facts and questioning their relevance to real life is not the same as questioning their truth.
Now this just depends on what we mean by “disagree.” Of course I can’t dispute a formal logical derivation. The math, of course, is sound.
Disagreeing with an implication “if P, then Q” doesn’t mean disagreeing with P.
All I disagree with X, which means either that I don’t agree that Q implies X, or I don’t accept P.
I’m not questioning mathematical truth. All I’m questioning is what TimS said.
But if we agree it was just a misunderstanding, can we move on? Or not. This also doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, especially if we’ve decided we fundamentally disagree. (Which in and of itself is not grounds for a downvote, may I remind you all.)
I didn’t downvote you because we disagree, I downvoted you because you conflated disagreeing with the applicability of a mathematical fact to a situation with disagreeing with a mathematical fact. Previously I downvoted you because you tried to argue against two positions I never claimed to hold.
Glad we’ve got that cleared up, then. I wasn’t only talking to you; there are a few people who have taken it upon themselves to make my views feel unwelcome here. Sorry if we’ve had some misunderstandings.
Imagine a child who grows up being fed very high priors about G1. This child (not a SREoE) is exposed to E1 and has a high confidence in G1. When he (/she) grows up and eventually becomes a SREoE, he first of all consciously throws out all his priors (rebellion against parents), then re-evaluates E1 (re-exposure?) and decides that in fact it entails ~G1.
This was not my experience. I was raised in a practicing religious family, and the existence of the holy texts, the well-being of the members of the religious community, and the existence of the religious community were all strong evidence for G1.
I reduced the probability I assigned to G1 because I realized I was underweighing other evidence. Things I would expect to be true if G1 were true turned out to be false. I think I knew those facts were false, but did not consider the implications, and so didn’t adjust my belief in G1.
Once I considered the implications, it became clear to me that E1 was outweighed by the falsification of other implications of G1. Given that balance, I assign G1 very very low probability of being accurate. But I still don’t deny that E1 is evidence of G1. If I didn’t know E1, learning it would adjust upward my belief in G1.
In practice, what people seem to mean is best described technically as changing what sorts of things count as evidence. I changed my beliefs about G1 because I started taking the state of the world and the prevalence of human suffering as a fact about G1
Also, if we are going to talk coherently about priors, we can’t really describe anything humans do as “throwing out their priors.” If we really assign probability zero to any proposition, we have no way of changing our minds again.. And if we assign some other probability, justifying that is weird.
Certainly you can’t simply will your aliefs to change, but it does seem to be a conscious and deliberate effort around here. The belief in G1 usually happens without any knowledge about Bayesian statistics, technical rationality, or priors, so this “awakening” may be the first time a person ever thought of E1 as “evidence” in this technical sense.
the prevalence of human suffering
By the way, I think the best response to this argument is that yes, there is evil, but God allows it because it is better for us in the long run—in other words, if there is an afterlife which is partly defined by our existence here, than our temporary comfort isn’t the only thing to consider. If we all lived in the Garden of Eden, we would never learn or progress. But I don’t want a whole new argument on my hands.
Maybe. I think it’s best to give it a chance at least.
I agree. As soon as a theist can demonstrate some evidence for his deity’s existence… well, I may not convert on the spot, given the plethora of simpler explanations (human hoaxers, super-powered alien teenagers, stuff like that), but at least I’d take his religion much more seriously. This is why I mentioned the prayer studies in my original comment.
Unfortunately, so far, no one managed to provide this level of evidence. For example, a Mormon friend of mine claimed that their Prophet can see the future. I told him that if the Prophet could predict the next 1000 rolls of a fair six-sided die, he could launch a hitherto unprecedented wave of atheist conversions to Mormonism. I know that I personally would probably hop on board (once alien teenagers and whatnot were taken out of the equation somehow). That’s all it would take—roll a die 1000 times, save a million souls in one fell swoop.
I’m still waiting for the Prophet to get back to me...
This one is a classic Sunday School answer. The God I was raised with doesn’t do that sort of thing very often because it defeats the purpose of faith, and knowledge of God is not the one simple requirement for many versions of heaven. It is necessary, they say, to learn to believe on your own. Those who are convinced by a manifestation alone will not remain faithful very long. There’s always another explanation. So yes, you’re right, God (assuming Mormonism is true for a moment, as your friend does) could do that, but it wouldn’t do the world much good in the end.
The God I was raised with doesn’t do that sort of thing very often because it defeats the purpose of faith...
Right, but hopefully this explains one of the reasons why I’m still an atheist. From my perspective, gods are no more real than 18th-level Wizards or Orcs or unicorns; I don’t say this to be insulting, but merely to bring things into perspective. There’s nothing special in my mind that separates a god (of any kind) from any other type of a fictional character, and, so far, theists have not supplied me with any reason to think otherwise.
In general, any god who a priori precludes any possibility of evidence for its existence is a very hard (in fact, nearly impossible) sell for me. If I were magically transported from our current world, where such a god exists, into a parallel world where the god does not exist, how would I tell the difference ? And if I can’t tell the difference, why should I care ?
And if I can’t tell the difference, why should I care ?
Well, if in one world, your disbelief results in you going to hell and being tormented eternally, I think that would be pretty relevant. Although I suppose you could say in that case you can tell the difference, but not until it’s too late.
Simple explanations are good, but not necessarily correct.
Right, simpler explanations start with a higher probability of being correct. And if two explanations for the same data exist, you should assign a high chance to the one that is simpler.
It’s awfully easy to say they’re all nutcases, but it’s still easy and a bit more fair to say that they’re mostly nutcases but maybe some of them are correct. Maybe. I think it’s best to give it a chance at least.
Why should one give “it a chance” and what does that mean? Note also that “nutcase” is an overly strong conclusion. Human reasoning and senses are deeply flawed, and very easy to have problems. That doesn’t require nutcases. For example, I personally get sleep paralysis. When that occurs, I get to encounter all sorts of terrible things, demons, ghosts, aliens, the Borg, and occasionally strange tentacled things that would make Lovecraft’s monsters look tame. None of those things exist- I have a minor sensory problem. The point of using something like schizophrenia is an example is that it is one of the most well-known explanations for the more extreme experiences or belief sets. But the general hypothesis that’s relevant here isn’t “nutcase” so much as “brain had a sensory or reasoning error, as they are wont to do.”
Simple explanations are good, but not necessarily correct. It’s awfully easy to say they’re all nutcases, but it’s still easy and a bit more fair to say that they’re mostly nutcases but maybe some of them are correct. Maybe. I think it’s best to give it a chance at least.
Openmindedness in these respects has always seemed to me highly selective—how openminded are you to the concept that most thunderbolts may be mere electromagnetic phenomena but maybe some thunderbolts are thrown down by Thor? Do you give that possibility a chance? Should we?
Or is it only the words that current society treats seriously e.g. “God” and “Jesus”, that we should keep an open mind about, and not the names that past societies treated seriously?
If billions of people think so, then yes, we should.
It’s not just that our society treats Jesus seriously, it’s that millions of people have overwhelming personal evidence of Him. And most of them are not rationalists, but they’re not mentally insane either.
Is the number of people really all that relevant?
I mean, there are over a billion people in the world who identify as believers of Islam, many of whom report personal experiences which they consider overwhelming evidence that there is no God but Allah, and Mahomet is His Prophet. But I don’t accept that there is no God but Allah. (And, I’m guessing, neither do you, so it seems likely that we agree that the beliefs of a billion people at least sometimes not sufficient evidence to compel confidence in an assertion.)
Going the other way, there was a time when only a million people reported personal evidence of Jesus Christ as Lord.
There was a time when only a hundred thousand people had.
There was a time when only a thousand people had.
Etc.
And yet, if Jesus Christ really is Lord, a rationalist wants to believe that even in 13 A.D., when very few people claim to. And if he is not, a rationalist wants to believe that even in 2013 A.D. when billions of people claim to.
I conclude that the number of people just isn’t that relevant.
I think that if in 13 A.D. you had asked a rationalist whether some random Nazarene kid was our savior, “almost certainly not” would have been the correct response given the evidence. But twenty years later, after a whole lot of strong evidence came out, that rationalist would have adjusted his probabilities significantly. The number of people who were brought up in something doesn’t matter, but given that there are millions if not billions of personal witnesses, I think God is a proposition to which we ought to give a fair chance.
And by “God” here you specifically mean God as presented in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints’ traditional understanding of the Book of Mormon, and our collective traditional understandings of the New Testament insofar as they don’t contradict each other or that understanding of the Book of Mormon, and our traditional understandings of the Old Testament insofar as they don’t contradict each other or any of the above.
Yes?
But you don’t mean God as presented in, for example, the Sufis’ traditional understanding of the Koran, and our collective traditional understandings of the New Testament insofar as they don’t contradict each other or that understanding of the Koran, and our traditional understandings of the Old Testament insofar as they don’t contradict each other or any of the above.
Yes?
Is this because there are insufficient numbers of personal witnesses to the latter to justify such a fair chance?
I mean deity or God in general. Because although they don’t agree on the details, these billions of people agree that there is some sort of conscious higher Power. And they don’t have to contradict each other in that.
Well… hm.
Is there sufficient evidence, on your account, to conclude (or at least take very seriously the hypothesis) that Thomas Monson communicates directly with a conscious higher Power in a way that you do not?
Is there sufficient evidence, on your account, to conclude (or at least take very seriously the hypothesis) that Sun Myung Moon communicated directly with a conscious higher Power in a way that you do not?
I think it’s too difficult to take this reasoning into specific cases. That is, with the general reasoning I’ve been talking about, I’m going to conclude that I think it’s best to take the general possibility of deity seriously.
Given that, and given my upbringing and personal experience and everything else, I think that it’s best to take Thomas Monson very seriously. I hardly know anything about Sun Myung Moon so I can’t say anything about him.
I can’t possibly ask you to do that second part, but I think that the possibility of deity in general is a cause I will fight for. (edit: clarified)
I see.
So on your account, if I’ve understood it, I have sufficient evidence to justify a high confidence in a conscious higher Power consistent with the accounts of all believers in Abrahamic religions, though not necessarily identical to that described in any of those accounts, and the fact that I lack such confidence is merely because I haven’t properly evaluated the evidence available to me.
Yes?
Just to avoid confusion, I’m going to label that evidence—the evidence I have access to on this account—E1.
Going further: on your account, you have more evidence than E1, given your upbringing and personal experience and everything else, and your evidence (which I’ll label E2) is sufficient to further justify a high confidence in additional claims, such as Thomas Monson’s exceptional ability to communicate with that Power.
Yes?
And since you lack personal experiences relating to Sun Myung Moon that justify a high confidence in similar claims about him, you lack that confidence, but you don’t rule it out either… someone else might have evidence E3 that justifies a high confidence in Sun Myung Moon’s exceptional ability to communicate with that Power, and you don’t claim otherwise, you simply don’t know one way or the other. .
Yes?
OK, so far so good.
Now, moving forward, it’s worth remembering that personal experience of an event V is not our only, or even our primary, source of evidence with which to calculate our confidence in V. As I said early on in our exchange, there are many events I’m confident occurred which I’ve never experienced observing, and some events which I’ve experienced observing which I’m confident never occurred, and I expect this is true of most people.
So, how is that possible? Well, for example, because other people’s accounts of an event are evidence that the event occurred, as you suggest with your emphasis on the mystical experiences of millions (or billions) of people as part of E1. Not necessarily compelling evidence, because people do sometimes give accounts of events that didn’t occur, but evidence worth evaluating.
Yes?
Of course, not all such accounts are equally useful as evidence. You probably don’t know Thomas Monson personally, but you still take seriously the proposition that he is a Prophet of YHWH, primarily on the basis of the accounts of a relatively small number of people whom you trust (due to E2) to be sufficiently reliable evaluators of evidence.
Yes?
(A digression on terminology: around here, we use “rational” as a shorthand which entails reliably evaluating evidence, so we might semi-equivalently say that you trust this group to be rational. I’m avoiding that jargon in this discussion because you’re new to the community and “rational” in the broader world has lots of other connotations that might prove distracting. OTOH, “sufficiently reliable evaluator of evidence” is really tedious to type over and over, which is why we don’t usually say that, so I’m going to adopt “SREoE” as shorthand for it here.)
Moving on: you don’t know Sun Myung Moon personally, but you don’t take seriously the proposition that he is a Prophet of the higher Power, despite the similar accounts of a relatively small number of people, presumably because you don’t trust them to be SREoEs.
Yes?
And similarly, you don’t expect me to take seriously the proposition that Thomas Monson is a Prophet of the higher Power, not only because I lack access to E2, but also because you don’t expect me to trust you as a SREoE. If I did (for whatever reason, justified or not) trust you to be a SREoE, I would take that proposition seriously.
Yes?
Pausing here to make sure I haven’t gone off the rails.
Yes, actually, that’s spot on. Good job and thank you for helping me to figure out my own reasoning. Please continue...
OK, good.
So, summarizing your account as I understand it and continuing from there:
Consider five propositions G1-G5 roughly articulable as follows:
G1: “there exists a conscious higher Power consistent with the accounts A1 of all believers in Abrahamic religions, though not necessarily identical to that described in any particular account in A1”
G2: “there exists a conscious higher Power consistent with the accounts A2 of Thomas Monson, where A2 is a subset of A1; any account Antm which is logically inconsistent with A2 is false.”
G3: “there exists a conscious higher Power consistent with the accounts A3 of Sun Myung Moon, where A3 may or may not be a subset of A1; any account Ansmm which is logically inconsistent with A3 is false.”
G4: “there exists a conscious higher Power consistent with the accounts A4 of all believers in any existing religion, Abrahamic or otherwise, though not necessarily identical to that described in any particular account in A4″
G5: “there exists a conscious higher Power consistent with the accounts A5 of some particular religious tradition R, where A5 is logically inconsistent with A1 and A2.”
2: On your account there exists evidence, E1, such that a SREoE would, upon evaluating E1, arrive at high confidence in G1. Further, I have access to E1, so if I were an SREoE I would be confident in G1, and if I lack confidence in G1 I am not an SREoE.
3: On your account there exists evidence E2 that similarly justifies high confidence in G2, and you have access to E2, though I lack such access.
4: If there are two agents X and Y, such that X has confidence that Y is an SREoE and that Y has arrived at high confidence of a proposition based on some evidence, X should also have high confidence in that proposition even without access to that evidence.
Yes? (I’m not trying to pull a fast one here; if the above is significantly mis-stating any of what you meant to agree to, pull the brake cord now.)
And you approached this community seeking evidence that we were SREoEs—specifically, seeking evidence that we had engaged with E1 in a sufficiently open-minded way, which an SREoE would—and you have concluded that no, we haven’t, and we aren’t.
Yes?
And because of that conclusion, you don’t reduce your confidence in G1 based on our interactions, because the fact that we haven’t concluded G1 from E1 is not compelling evidence that #2 above is false, which it would be if we were SREoEs.
Yes?
So, given all of that, and accepting for the sake of argument that I wish to become an SREoEs, how would you recommend I proceed?
And is that procedure one you would endorse following if, instead of engaging with you, I were instead engaging with someone who claimed (2b) “There exists evidence, E5, such that a SREoE would, upon evaluating E5, arrive at high confidence in G5. Further, Dave has access to E5, so if Dave were an SREoE he would be confident in G5, and if Dave lacks confidence in G5 he is not an SREoE.”?
I don’t think I can claim that your rejection of E1 means you are not a SREoE—this community is by far more SR in EE, the way we’re talking about it at least, than those who believe G1. I’m not going to go around calling anyone irrational as long as their conclusions do come from a proper evaluation of the evidence.
I can’t really claim E2 is that much stronger than E1—many people have access to E2 but don’t believe G2.
What I’m trying to figure out is if this community thinks that any SREoE must necessarily reject G1 (based largely on the inconsistency of E1). I’m not claiming that a SREoE must accept G1 upon being exposed to E1.
But assuming I did claim that I was a SREoE and you all weren’t...no, I don’t know. Because being a SREoE equates almost completely in my mind with being a rationalist in the ideal sense that this community strives for. That doesn’t mean everyone here is a SREoE, but most of them appear to be doing their best.
I’m curious, though, where else could this logic lead?
I get that you’re trying to be polite and all, and that’s nice of you.
Politeness is important, and the social constraints of politeness are a big reason I steered this discussion away from emotionally loaded terms like “rational,” “irrational,” “God,” “faith,” etc.in the first place; it’s a lot easier to discuss what confidence a SREoE resides in G1 given E1 without getting offended or apologetic or defensive than to discuss whether belief in God is rational or irrational, because the latter formulation carries so much additional cultural and psychological weight.
But politeness aside, I don’t see how what you’re saying can possibly be the case given what you’ve already agreed to. If E1 entails high confidence in G1, then an SREoE given E1 concludes that G1 is much more likely than NOT(G1), and an agent that does not conclude this is not an SREoE. That’s just what it means for evidence to entail a given level of confidence in a conclusion, be it a low level or a high level.
Which means that if you’re right that I have evidence that entails reasonably high confidence in the existence of God, then my vanishingly low confidence in the existence of God means I’m not being rational on the subject. Maybe that’s rude to say, but rude or not that’s just what it means for me to have evidence that entails reasonably high confidence in the existence of God.
And I get that you’re looking for the same kind of politeness in return… that we can believe or not believe whatever we want, but as long as we don’t insist it’s irrational to conclude from available evidence that God exists, we can all get along.
And in general, we’re willing to be polite in that way… most of us have stuff in our lives we don’t choose to be SREoEs about, and going around harassing each other about it is a silly way to spend our time. There are theists of various stripes on LW, but we don’t spend much time arguing about it.
But if you insist on framing the discussion in terms of epistemic rationality then, again, politeness aside, that doesn’t really work. If E1 entails low confidence in G1, then an SREoE given E1 concludes that G1 is much less likely than NOT(G1), and an agent that does not conclude this is not an SREoE. That’s just what it means for evidence to entail a given level of confidence in a conclusion, be it a low level or a high level.
Or, expressed in the more weighted way: either we have shared evidence that entails high confidence in the existence of God and I’m not evaluating that evidence as reliably as you are, or we have shared evidence that entails low confidence in the existence of God and you’re not evaluating that evidence as reliably as I am.
All the politeness in the world doesn’t change that.
All of that said, there’s no obligation here to be an SREoE in any particular domain, which is why I started this whole conversation by talking about pragmatic reasons to continue practicing your religion in the first place. If you insist on placing the discussion in the sphere of epistemic rationality, I don’t see how you avoid the conclusion, but there’s no obligation to do that.
I’m not trying to be nice. Do not interpret the fact that I’m won’t admit to attacking you to mean that I’m trying to be nice—perhaps I’m really not attacking you. I honestly believe that your position is fully self-justified, and I respect it.
Neither am I asking for politeness. I didn’t get come on here expecting you to be nice, only rational and reasonable, which most people have been. I’d be happy for you all to tell me that it’s irrational to conclude that God exists. One of my biggest questions was whether you all thought this was the case. Some of you don’t, but you all did, and undiplomatically told me so, I wouldn’t be offended. I might come away disappointed that this community wasn’t as open-minded as I had hoped (no accusations intended), but I wouldn’t be offended. If you think it’s the case, please tell me so, and I will respectfully disagree.
I think the biggest problem here is that, as I wrote in the other post, I don’t believe there’s only one conclusion a rational person (SREoE) can draw from the evidence. I don’t believe that there is only one correct “methodology,” and so I don’t believe that evidence necessarily entails one thing or the other.
I see. I apologize; I missed this the first time you said it.
So, on your view, what does it mean to evaluate evidence reliably, if not that sufficiently reliable evaluations of given evidence will converge on the same confidence in given propositions? What does it mean for a methodology to be correct, if not that it leads a system that implements it to a given confidence in given propositions given evidence?
Or, to put it differently… well, let’s back up a step. Why should anyone care about evaluating evidence reliably? Why not evaluate it unreliably instead, or not bother evaluating it at all?
Yeah, I don’t really know. It just depends on your paradigm—according to rationalists like yourself, it seems, a cold rational analysis is most “correct” and reliable. For some others, the process involves fasting and prayer. I’m not going to say either is infallible. Certainly logic is a wonderful thing which has its place in our lives. But taken too far it’s not always helpful or accurate, especially in us subjective humans.
Well, I certainly agree about fallibility. Humans don’t have access to infallible epistemologies.
That said, if fasting and prayer reliably gets me the most useful confidence levels in propositions for achieving my goals, then I should engage in fasting and prayer because that’s part of the most reliable process for evaluating evidence.
If it doesn’t, then that’s not a reason for me to engage in fasting and prayer, though I may choose to do so for other reasons.
Either one of those things is true, or the other is. And I may not know enough about the world to decide with confidence which it is (though I sure do seem to), but even if I don’t my ignorance doesn’t somehow make it the case that they are both true.
Is there no possibility of partly true?
These words seem subjective or at the very least unmeasurable. There is no way of determining absolutely whether something is “reliable” or “useful” without ridiculously technical definitions, which ruin the point anyway.
(sorry if I don’t respond right away. I’ve been retributively downvoted to −15 and so LW is giving me a hassle about commenting. The forum programming meant well...)
That’s OK. If we no longer have any way of agreeing on whether propositions are useful, reliable, or true, or agreeing on what it means for propositions to be any of these things, then I don’t anticipate the discussion going anywhere from here that’s worth my time. We can let it drop here.
Working as intended. Evangelism of terrible thinking is not welcome here. For most intents and purposes you are a troll. It’s time for you to go and time for me to start downvoting anyone who feeds you. Farewell Ibidem (if you the user behind the handle ever happen to gain an actual sincere interest in rationality I recommend creating a new account and making a fresh start.)
There is one direction a SREoE updates on evidence—towards the evidence.
If I have strong reasons (high prior probability) of thinking that a coin has heads on both sides, I’m making a mistake by becoming more confident after I flip the coin and it comes up tails.
Likewise, if I have strong reasons of thinking that another coin is biased towards heads, so it turns up heads 60% instead of 50%, I’m committing the same error if I become more confident after seeing the coinflip turn up tails.
So learning E1 should make any SREoE become more confident of G1 unless that person’s priors are already very heavily weighed towards G1. In the real world, there just aren’t that many SREoE’s with high priors on G1 before being exposed to E1.
First of all, note that you effectively just said that nearly all religious people are irrational. I won’t hold it against you, just realize that that’s the position you’re expressing.
Obviously. If there is clear evidence against your beliefs, you should decrease your confidence in your beliefs. But the problem is that this situation is not so simple as heads and tails.
What I’m trying to say is that two SREoEs can properly examine E1 and come up with different conclusions. I’m sorry if I agreed too fully to Dave’s first set of propositions—the devil’s in the details, as we irrational people who believe in a Devil say sometimes.
The key is “if I haven’t properly evaluated the evidence.” I took “properly” to mean “in a certain way,” while Dave intended it as “in the one correct way.” When this became clear, I tried to clarify my position.
I’m going to reiterate it again, because you don’t seem to be getting it: I believe that it’s possible for two equally R Es oE to evaluate the same evidence and come up with different conclusions. Thus exposure to E1 does not necessarily entail any confidence-shifting at all, even in a SREoE.
I’ll pop in here and note that the general point of view here is that everyone is irrational, and even the best of us frequently err. That’s why we tend to use the term “aspiring rationalist,” since nobody has reached the point of being able to claim to be an ideal rationalist.
The highest standard we can realistically hold people to is to make a genuine effort to be rational, to the best of their abilities, using the information available to them.
That’s true. It’s not actually “rational” vs. “irrational,” even if that would make the situation so much easier to understand.
I hope you’d agree, though, that there are many people in this world (think: evangelicals) who don’t make any sort of effort to be rational in the sense you mean it, and even some who honestly think logical inference is a tool of the devil. How sad...but probably no need to worry about them in this thread.
That is possible if and only if the two SREoEs started with different beliefs (priors) before receiving the same evidence. Aumann’s Agreement Theorem says that SREoEs who start with the same beliefs and see the same evidence cannot disagree without doing something wrong.
I didn’t write this clearly. I meant that most human SREoEs who haven’t been exposed to E1 don’t assign high probability to G1. Theoretically, an SREoE who hadn’t been exposed to E1 could have such high confidence in G1 that expose to E1 should reduce confidence in G1. In practice, I’m not sure any adult human hasn’t been exposed to E1 already, and I’m doubtful that most children are SREoEs—thus, I’m not sure whether the set (human&non-E1&SREoE) has any elements in existence.
I’m saying that people who assign high probability to G1 after exposure to E1 either (a) had very different priors about G1 than I before exposure to E1, or (b) are not SREoEs. Alternatively, I either (a) am not an SREoE, or (b) have not been exposed to the evidence we have referred to as E1.
To put it slightly differently, I can identify evidence that would make me increase the probability I assign to G1. Can you identify evidence that would make you decrease the probability you assign G1?
Perhaps, then, I don’t fully agree with Aumann’s Agreement Theorem. I’ll leave it to you to decide whether that means I’m not a “genuine” Bayesian. I wouldn’t have a problem with being unable to fully adopt a single method of thinking about the universe.
Is it fair to say that most current SREoEs became that way during a sort of rationalist awakening? (I know it’s not as simple as being a SREoE or not, and so this process actually takes years. but let’s pretend for a moment.) Imagine a child who grows up being fed very high priors about G1. This child (not a SREoE) is exposed to E1 and has a high confidence in G1. When he (/she) grows up and eventually becomes a SREoE, he first of all consciously throws out all his priors (rebellion against parents), then re-evaluates E1 (re-exposure?) and decides that in fact it entails ~G1.
Whether or not this describes you, does it make sense?
How about this: since both of you have been exposed to the same evidence and don’t agree, then either (a) you had very different priors (which is likely), or (b) you evaluate evidence differently. I’m going to avoid saying either of you is “better” or “more rational” at evaluating evidence.
Whoa there. Aumann’s agreement theorem is a theorem. It is true, full stop. Whatever that term “SREoE” means (I keep going up and keep not seeing an explanation), either it doesn’t map onto the hypotheses of Aumann’s agreement theorem or you are attempting to disagree with a mathematical fact.
I believe it was “Sufficiently reasonable evaluator of evidence”—which I was using roughly equivalently to Bayesian empiricist. I’m beginning to doubt that is what ibidem means by it.
TheOtherDave defined it way back in the thread to try to taboo “rationalist,” since that word has such a multitude of denotations and connotations (including the LW intended meanings). Edit: terminology mostly defined here and here.
Sufficiently reliable, but otherwise yes.
That said, we’ve since established that ibidem and I don’t have a shared understanding of “reliable” or “evidence,” either, so I’d have to call it a failed/incomplete attempt at tabooing.
They’re using it to mean “sufficiently reliable evaluator of evidence”.
For it to be a mathematical fact, it needs a mathematical proof. Go ahead...!
Like it or not, rationality is not mathematics—it is full of estimations, assumptions, objective decisions, and wishful thinking. Thus, a “theorem” in evidence evaluation is not a mathematical theorem, obtained using unambiguous formal logic.
If what you mean to say is that Aumann’s Agreement “Theorem” is a fundamental building block of your particular flavor of rational thinking, then what this means is simply that I don’t fully subscribe to your particular flavor of rational thinking. Nothing (mathematics nearly excepted) is “true, full stop.” Remember? 1 is not a probability. That one’s even more “true, full stop” than Aumann’s ideas about rational disagreement.
Here you go.
When did I claim that rationality was mathematics?
When did I say this?
Right here:
Maybe not “rationality” exactly but Aumann’s work, whatever it is you call what we’re doing here. Rational decision-making.
So yes, Aumann’s theorem can be proven using a certain system of formalization, taking a certain set of definitions and assumptions. What I’m saying is not that I disagree with the derivation I gave, but that I don’t fully agree with its premises.
You didn’t yet, I didn’t say you did. I’m guessing that that’s what you actually mean though, because very, very few things if any are “true, full stop.” Something like this theorem can be fully true according to Bayesian statistics or some other system of thought, full stop. If this is the case, then in means I don’t fully accept that system of thought. Is disagreement not allowed?
How does what I said there mean “rationality is mathematics”? All I’m saying is that Aumann’s agreement theorem is mathematics, and if you’re attempting to disagree with it, then you’re attempting to disagree with mathematics.
I agree that this is what you should’ve said, but that isn’t what you said. Disagreeing with an implication “if P, then Q” doesn’t mean disagreeing with P.
No, it’s not. I just mean that mathematical facts are mathematical facts and questioning their relevance to real life is not the same as questioning their truth.
Now this just depends on what we mean by “disagree.” Of course I can’t dispute a formal logical derivation. The math, of course, is sound.
All I disagree with X, which means either that I don’t agree that Q implies X, or I don’t accept P.
I’m not questioning mathematical truth. All I’m questioning is what TimS said. But if we agree it was just a misunderstanding, can we move on? Or not. This also doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, especially if we’ve decided we fundamentally disagree. (Which in and of itself is not grounds for a downvote, may I remind you all.)
I didn’t downvote you because we disagree, I downvoted you because you conflated disagreeing with the applicability of a mathematical fact to a situation with disagreeing with a mathematical fact. Previously I downvoted you because you tried to argue against two positions I never claimed to hold.
Glad we’ve got that cleared up, then. I wasn’t only talking to you; there are a few people who have taken it upon themselves to make my views feel unwelcome here. Sorry if we’ve had some misunderstandings.
This was not my experience. I was raised in a practicing religious family, and the existence of the holy texts, the well-being of the members of the religious community, and the existence of the religious community were all strong evidence for G1.
I reduced the probability I assigned to G1 because I realized I was underweighing other evidence. Things I would expect to be true if G1 were true turned out to be false. I think I knew those facts were false, but did not consider the implications, and so didn’t adjust my belief in G1.
Once I considered the implications, it became clear to me that E1 was outweighed by the falsification of other implications of G1. Given that balance, I assign G1 very very low probability of being accurate. But I still don’t deny that E1 is evidence of G1. If I didn’t know E1, learning it would adjust upward my belief in G1.
Also, if we are going to talk coherently about priors, we can’t really describe anything humans do as “throwing out their priors.” If we really assign probability zero to any proposition, we have no way of changing our minds again.. And if we assign some other probability, justifying that is weird.
In practice, what people seem to mean is best described technically as changing what sorts of things count as evidence. I changed my beliefs about G1 because I started taking the state of the world and the prevalence of human suffering as a fact about G1
Certainly you can’t simply will your aliefs to change, but it does seem to be a conscious and deliberate effort around here. The belief in G1 usually happens without any knowledge about Bayesian statistics, technical rationality, or priors, so this “awakening” may be the first time a person ever thought of E1 as “evidence” in this technical sense.
By the way, I think the best response to this argument is that yes, there is evil, but God allows it because it is better for us in the long run—in other words, if there is an afterlife which is partly defined by our existence here, than our temporary comfort isn’t the only thing to consider. If we all lived in the Garden of Eden, we would never learn or progress. But I don’t want a whole new argument on my hands.
I agree. As soon as a theist can demonstrate some evidence for his deity’s existence… well, I may not convert on the spot, given the plethora of simpler explanations (human hoaxers, super-powered alien teenagers, stuff like that), but at least I’d take his religion much more seriously. This is why I mentioned the prayer studies in my original comment.
Unfortunately, so far, no one managed to provide this level of evidence. For example, a Mormon friend of mine claimed that their Prophet can see the future. I told him that if the Prophet could predict the next 1000 rolls of a fair six-sided die, he could launch a hitherto unprecedented wave of atheist conversions to Mormonism. I know that I personally would probably hop on board (once alien teenagers and whatnot were taken out of the equation somehow). That’s all it would take—roll a die 1000 times, save a million souls in one fell swoop.
I’m still waiting for the Prophet to get back to me...
This one is a classic Sunday School answer. The God I was raised with doesn’t do that sort of thing very often because it defeats the purpose of faith, and knowledge of God is not the one simple requirement for many versions of heaven. It is necessary, they say, to learn to believe on your own. Those who are convinced by a manifestation alone will not remain faithful very long. There’s always another explanation. So yes, you’re right, God (assuming Mormonism is true for a moment, as your friend does) could do that, but it wouldn’t do the world much good in the end.
The primary problem with this sort of thing is that apparently God was willing to do full-scale massive miracles in ancient times. So why the change?
Right, but hopefully this explains one of the reasons why I’m still an atheist. From my perspective, gods are no more real than 18th-level Wizards or Orcs or unicorns; I don’t say this to be insulting, but merely to bring things into perspective. There’s nothing special in my mind that separates a god (of any kind) from any other type of a fictional character, and, so far, theists have not supplied me with any reason to think otherwise.
In general, any god who a priori precludes any possibility of evidence for its existence is a very hard (in fact, nearly impossible) sell for me. If I were magically transported from our current world, where such a god exists, into a parallel world where the god does not exist, how would I tell the difference ? And if I can’t tell the difference, why should I care ?
Well, if in one world, your disbelief results in you going to hell and being tormented eternally, I think that would be pretty relevant. Although I suppose you could say in that case you can tell the difference, but not until it’s too late.
Indeed. I have only one of me available, so I can’t afford to waste this single resource on figuring things out by irrevocably dying.
Right, simpler explanations start with a higher probability of being correct. And if two explanations for the same data exist, you should assign a high chance to the one that is simpler.
Why should one give “it a chance” and what does that mean? Note also that “nutcase” is an overly strong conclusion. Human reasoning and senses are deeply flawed, and very easy to have problems. That doesn’t require nutcases. For example, I personally get sleep paralysis. When that occurs, I get to encounter all sorts of terrible things, demons, ghosts, aliens, the Borg, and occasionally strange tentacled things that would make Lovecraft’s monsters look tame. None of those things exist- I have a minor sensory problem. The point of using something like schizophrenia is an example is that it is one of the most well-known explanations for the more extreme experiences or belief sets. But the general hypothesis that’s relevant here isn’t “nutcase” so much as “brain had a sensory or reasoning error, as they are wont to do.”