I am a protestant Christian and your friend’s experience with “belief” are similar to mine. Or seem to be, from what I gather in your post.
One thing I’ve come to realize that helps to explain the disparity I feel when I talk with most other Christians is the fact that somewhere along the way my world-view took a major shift away from blind faith and landed somewhere in the vicinity of Orwellian double-think.
The double-think comes into play when you’re faced with non-axiomatic concepts such as morality. I believe that there is a God—and that He has instilled a sense of right and wrong in us by which we are able to evaluate the world around us. I also believe a sense of morality has been evolutionarily programmed into us—a sense of morality that is most likely a result of the formation of meta-political coalitions in Bonobo communities a very, very long time ago.
These two beliefs are not contradictory, but the complexity lies in reconciling the two. This post is not about the details of my Escher-esque brain, so suffice to say there are questions unanswered by viewing only the scientific side and there are just as many unanswered if viewed only from the spiritual side.
Simply because your friend is not blind to contradictions in the Orthodox Jewish belief system does not mean she does not sincerely believe—or that she’s deceived herself into believing that she believes. It means that she, as all intelligent believers who practice crisis of faith should, understands just how much she doesn’t understand.
Meta-comment: I up-voted this comment and James Andrix’s comment because they’re good data, I’m glad they shared it, and it looks like stuff more eyes should look at within the thread. But I wish “up-voting” didn’t give the appearance of agreement.
(I’m hoping practical discussion of what to do with votes is okay to keep in relevant threads, in the early stages of LW’s community formation?)
You said it yourself, you are double-thinking: both a smart thought and a stupid one. Bonobos are around today but they weren’t in the past, because humans have a common ancestor with them—i.e. Bonobos are irrelevant. Speaking of irrelevant, believing that we have evolved moral tendencies has nothing to do with your beliefs of god’s absolute morality.
Let me ask you a question about your God. Is it the simplest explanation of all the evidence? No, right? OK, then maybe you should believe something else i.e. naturalism. Because there is something called Occam’s Razor that basically says that, and if you haven’t heard about it then read it ASAP. I hope you understand how ridiculous it is to try to have an intellectual discussion when you think Santa Claus (i.e. God) is constantly talking to you like you have a cell phone. Even my kid can see that that’s a stupid thing to believe but you seem like a smart guy so how about join us in the twenty first century?
Occam’s Razor is a heuristic… and one I proceed according to- but its not at all clear just what its justification is. Why exactly ought we to believe the simpler hypothesis?
The best justification I’ve heard for believing simple hypotheses is an argument from probability.
Consider some event caused by a certain block. We know the block’s color must be either red, yellow, blue, or green; its shape must be either square, round, or triangular; its material must be either wood or metal.
We come up with two theories about the event. Both theories explain the event adequately:
The event was caused by the block being made of wood.
The event was caused by the block being blue, and triangular, and and made of metal.
Before the event happens, there are twenty four different possibile configurations of the block. “Made of wood” is true of twelve configurations, “blue, triangular, and made of metal” is true of one configuration.
After the event, we dismiss all configurations except these thirteen under which we believe the event was possible. We assume all of these thirteen are equally likely. Therefore, there’s a 12⁄13 chance that the block is made of wood and a 1⁄13 chance the block is blue, triangular, and made of metal.
Therefore, Theory 1 is twelve times more likely than Theory 2.
The same principle is at work any time you have a simple theory competing with a more complex theory. Because the complicated theory has more preconditions that have to be just right, it has a lower prior probability relative to the simple theory, and since the occurence of the event adjusts the probabilities of both theories equally, it has a lower posterior probability.
I know I read this explanation first on a discussion of Kolmogorov complexity on someone’s rationality blog, but I can’t remember who’s or what the link was. If I stole your explanation, please step up and take credit.
It also helps to keep in mind that the state space with associated probability distribution is something you dress the actual state of reality in. The model helps to keep track of the structure of the data you have about the actual state of reality, that hides in one tiny point of state space. Probabilities of areas of state space (events/hypotheses) quantitatively express the relation between those aspects of the model and reality it’s about.
You move from simpler hypotheses to more complex hypotheses for the same reason that you count from small numbers to big numbers.
Try imagining what counting the natural numbers “in the opposite order” would look like.
Of course, you can have large wiggles. For example, you might alternate jumping up to the next power of two and counting backwards. But using different representations for hypotheses leads to the same sort of wiggles in Occam’s Razor.
The best justification I’ve heard for believing simple hypotheses is an argument from probability.
Consider some event caused by a certain block. We know the block’s color must be either red, yellow, blue, or green; its shape must be either square, round, or triangular; its material must be either wood or metal.
We come up with two theories about the event. Both theories explain the event adequately:
The event was caused by the block being made of wood.
The event was caused by the block being blue, and triangular, and and made of metal.
Before the event happens, there are twenty four different possibile configurations of the block. “Made of wood” is true of twelve configurations, “blue, triangular, and made of metal” is true of one configuration.
After the event, we dismiss all configurations except these thirteen under which we believe the event was possible. We assume all of these thirteen are equally likely. Therefore, there’s a 12⁄13 chance that the block is made of wood and a 1⁄13 chance the block is blue, triangular, and made of metal.
Therefore, Theory 1 is twelve times more likely than Theory 2.
The same principle is at work any time you have a simple theory competing with a more complex theory. Because the complicated theory has more preconditions that have to be just right, it has a lower prior probability relative to the simple theory, and since the occurence of the event adjusts the probabilities of both theories equally, it has a lower posterior probability.
I know I read this explanation first on a discussion of Kolmogorov complexity on someone’s rationality blog, but I can’t remember who’s or what the link was. If I stole your explanation, please step up and take credit.
For simplicity, Occam’s razor is often cited as “choose the simplest hypothesis” even when it’s more appropriate to employ its original definition as the principle that one should favor the explanation that requires the fewest assumptions.
I agree that less_schlong shouldn’t be citing Occam’s razor as some fundamental law of the universe, but I do think it’s obvious that all things being equal, we should attempt to minimize speculative assumptions.
This I can understand.
I am a protestant Christian and your friend’s experience with “belief” are similar to mine. Or seem to be, from what I gather in your post.
One thing I’ve come to realize that helps to explain the disparity I feel when I talk with most other Christians is the fact that somewhere along the way my world-view took a major shift away from blind faith and landed somewhere in the vicinity of Orwellian double-think.
The double-think comes into play when you’re faced with non-axiomatic concepts such as morality. I believe that there is a God—and that He has instilled a sense of right and wrong in us by which we are able to evaluate the world around us. I also believe a sense of morality has been evolutionarily programmed into us—a sense of morality that is most likely a result of the formation of meta-political coalitions in Bonobo communities a very, very long time ago.
These two beliefs are not contradictory, but the complexity lies in reconciling the two. This post is not about the details of my Escher-esque brain, so suffice to say there are questions unanswered by viewing only the scientific side and there are just as many unanswered if viewed only from the spiritual side.
Simply because your friend is not blind to contradictions in the Orthodox Jewish belief system does not mean she does not sincerely believe—or that she’s deceived herself into believing that she believes. It means that she, as all intelligent believers who practice crisis of faith should, understands just how much she doesn’t understand.
Do you have a list?
Meta-comment: I up-voted this comment and James Andrix’s comment because they’re good data, I’m glad they shared it, and it looks like stuff more eyes should look at within the thread. But I wish “up-voting” didn’t give the appearance of agreement.
(I’m hoping practical discussion of what to do with votes is okay to keep in relevant threads, in the early stages of LW’s community formation?)
Up-voted for honesty.
You said it yourself, you are double-thinking: both a smart thought and a stupid one. Bonobos are around today but they weren’t in the past, because humans have a common ancestor with them—i.e. Bonobos are irrelevant. Speaking of irrelevant, believing that we have evolved moral tendencies has nothing to do with your beliefs of god’s absolute morality.
Let me ask you a question about your God. Is it the simplest explanation of all the evidence? No, right? OK, then maybe you should believe something else i.e. naturalism. Because there is something called Occam’s Razor that basically says that, and if you haven’t heard about it then read it ASAP. I hope you understand how ridiculous it is to try to have an intellectual discussion when you think Santa Claus (i.e. God) is constantly talking to you like you have a cell phone. Even my kid can see that that’s a stupid thing to believe but you seem like a smart guy so how about join us in the twenty first century?
Occam’s Razor is a heuristic… and one I proceed according to- but its not at all clear just what its justification is. Why exactly ought we to believe the simpler hypothesis?
The best justification I’ve heard for believing simple hypotheses is an argument from probability.
Consider some event caused by a certain block. We know the block’s color must be either red, yellow, blue, or green; its shape must be either square, round, or triangular; its material must be either wood or metal.
We come up with two theories about the event. Both theories explain the event adequately:
The event was caused by the block being made of wood. The event was caused by the block being blue, and triangular, and and made of metal. Before the event happens, there are twenty four different possibile configurations of the block. “Made of wood” is true of twelve configurations, “blue, triangular, and made of metal” is true of one configuration.
After the event, we dismiss all configurations except these thirteen under which we believe the event was possible. We assume all of these thirteen are equally likely. Therefore, there’s a 12⁄13 chance that the block is made of wood and a 1⁄13 chance the block is blue, triangular, and made of metal.
Therefore, Theory 1 is twelve times more likely than Theory 2.
The same principle is at work any time you have a simple theory competing with a more complex theory. Because the complicated theory has more preconditions that have to be just right, it has a lower prior probability relative to the simple theory, and since the occurence of the event adjusts the probabilities of both theories equally, it has a lower posterior probability.
I know I read this explanation first on a discussion of Kolmogorov complexity on someone’s rationality blog, but I can’t remember who’s or what the link was. If I stole your explanation, please step up and take credit.
It also helps to keep in mind that the state space with associated probability distribution is something you dress the actual state of reality in. The model helps to keep track of the structure of the data you have about the actual state of reality, that hides in one tiny point of state space. Probabilities of areas of state space (events/hypotheses) quantitatively express the relation between those aspects of the model and reality it’s about.
You move from simpler hypotheses to more complex hypotheses for the same reason that you count from small numbers to big numbers.
Try imagining what counting the natural numbers “in the opposite order” would look like.
Of course, you can have large wiggles. For example, you might alternate jumping up to the next power of two and counting backwards. But using different representations for hypotheses leads to the same sort of wiggles in Occam’s Razor.
The best justification I’ve heard for believing simple hypotheses is an argument from probability.
Consider some event caused by a certain block. We know the block’s color must be either red, yellow, blue, or green; its shape must be either square, round, or triangular; its material must be either wood or metal.
We come up with two theories about the event. Both theories explain the event adequately:
The event was caused by the block being made of wood.
The event was caused by the block being blue, and triangular, and and made of metal.
Before the event happens, there are twenty four different possibile configurations of the block. “Made of wood” is true of twelve configurations, “blue, triangular, and made of metal” is true of one configuration.
After the event, we dismiss all configurations except these thirteen under which we believe the event was possible. We assume all of these thirteen are equally likely. Therefore, there’s a 12⁄13 chance that the block is made of wood and a 1⁄13 chance the block is blue, triangular, and made of metal.
Therefore, Theory 1 is twelve times more likely than Theory 2.
The same principle is at work any time you have a simple theory competing with a more complex theory. Because the complicated theory has more preconditions that have to be just right, it has a lower prior probability relative to the simple theory, and since the occurence of the event adjusts the probabilities of both theories equally, it has a lower posterior probability.
I know I read this explanation first on a discussion of Kolmogorov complexity on someone’s rationality blog, but I can’t remember who’s or what the link was. If I stole your explanation, please step up and take credit.
For simplicity, Occam’s razor is often cited as “choose the simplest hypothesis” even when it’s more appropriate to employ its original definition as the principle that one should favor the explanation that requires the fewest assumptions.
I agree that less_schlong shouldn’t be citing Occam’s razor as some fundamental law of the universe, but I do think it’s obvious that all things being equal, we should attempt to minimize speculative assumptions.
I just looked it up, and it looks like you were correct about the Bonobos. Should have said “Pan Prior”.