How much of a distraction did you find my extremely confident probabilities to be from the substance of my arguments?
It was somewhat a distraction as it lead to a comment basically suggesting that your probabilities were too high. On the other hand I didn’t keep me from revising my estimated of guilt downwards after reading your arguments.
How much did those confident estimates make it seem like I was disagreeing, rather than agreeing, with the LW survey consensus? (It seemed to me that I had provoked people into trumpeting pro-guilt arguments more than they otherwise would have if I had initally given more “reasonable” numbers.)
A good deal. But you also quoted me as an example of bad reasoning about the case so I’m not sure you weren’t disagreeing with me even though my estimation was in line with the LW consensus.
To what sorts of propositions, if any, do you yourself assign probabilities on the order of 0.999 or 0.001?
In the Less Wrong survey a while back I recall assigning probabilities this low and lower to the truth of the Bible, the existence of God and the existence of ontological fundamental mental entities. I’m pretty sure a lot of other people did the same.
It is a terrible turn of phrase, for sure. Souls are commonly conceived as one type of ontologically basic mental entity. God is another. Basically I take the claim “ontologically basic mental entities exist” to mean something like “there are things that think that do not have extension in space”.
Edited: So that the words ontologically, basic and mental aren’t repeated vertically three times right next to each other.
This doesn’t strike me as a serious question but it also isn’t funny enough to definitely be a joke. So I’m not sure what you’re doing.
My answer are exists, depends on what you mean, exists and exists.
Edit- with low confidence because ontology isn’t something I’m that interested in and I have not thought a lot about these questions. The Holes piece is a classic one.
Yeah, I love the Holes piece. I thought you were originally denying anything non-physical existed, but on re-reading it seems like you’re just denying dualism. Sorry if I misread.
Denying “the existence of ontological fundamental mental entities” is probably more efficiently expressed by, “I don’t believe there are any minds without physical brains.” This rules out God, ghosts, and pretty much all of the supernatural, since things like homeopathy are contingent on water being able to “remember” or “know” things.
It was somewhat a distraction as it lead to a comment basically suggesting that your probabilities were too high. On the other hand I didn’t keep me from revising my estimated of guilt downwards after reading your arguments.
A good deal. But you also quoted me as an example of bad reasoning about the case so I’m not sure you weren’t disagreeing with me even though my estimation was in line with the LW consensus.
In the Less Wrong survey a while back I recall assigning probabilities this low and lower to the truth of the Bible, the existence of God and the existence of ontological fundamental mental entities. I’m pretty sure a lot of other people did the same.
Does that mean ‘soul’?
It is a terrible turn of phrase, for sure. Souls are commonly conceived as one type of ontologically basic mental entity. God is another. Basically I take the claim “ontologically basic mental entities exist” to mean something like “there are things that think that do not have extension in space”.
Edited: So that the words ontologically, basic and mental aren’t repeated vertically three times right next to each other.
So the number three doesn’t exist? Freedom? Relationships? Holes?
This doesn’t strike me as a serious question but it also isn’t funny enough to definitely be a joke. So I’m not sure what you’re doing.
My answer are exists, depends on what you mean, exists and exists.
Edit- with low confidence because ontology isn’t something I’m that interested in and I have not thought a lot about these questions. The Holes piece is a classic one.
Yeah, I love the Holes piece. I thought you were originally denying anything non-physical existed, but on re-reading it seems like you’re just denying dualism. Sorry if I misread.
Denying “the existence of ontological fundamental mental entities” is probably more efficiently expressed by, “I don’t believe there are any minds without physical brains.” This rules out God, ghosts, and pretty much all of the supernatural, since things like homeopathy are contingent on water being able to “remember” or “know” things.