Alas, skepticism fits even less, as it is merely an outlook. In this community however, atheism is treated as an open-and-shut issue and I suspect most would say that they expect a rational person after considering the evidence on both sides to come down on the side of atheism. After all, the latest survey showed that LWers willing to fill in a survey were 80% atheist. Perhaps I should clarify that I mean weak (no belief a god exists) atheism, not strong (belief no god exists) atheism.
Regardless, nothing should be ‘embraced so as to become member of a community’, including vanilla rationality (scientific method? bayes?). That is a fundamental conflict of interest that all communities face and in may cases are destroyed by. This is exactly the reason why things like the ‘existential risk career network’ scare me quite a bit, especially if they become known as ways to get a lucrative job.
I’m not sure I understand this. Could you clarify? Are you saying that a true Bayesian doesn’t think there is a distinction? That a wise Bayesian will be neither kind of atheist?
So Bayesian epistemology doesn’t actually make use of the word ‘belief’, instead we just assign probabilities to hypotheses. You don’t believe or not believe, you just estimate p. So the distinction isn’t really intelligible. I guess one could interpret weak atheist as implying a higher probability of God’s existence than a strong atheist… but it doesn’t obviously translate that way and isn’t something a Bayesian would say.
I suppose someone could claim that a strong atheist actually sets P(God) = 0. Whereas a weak atheist sets P(God) = some small epsilon. But then a Bayesian shouldn’t become a strong atheist.
I’m not sure I understand this. Could you clarify?
I’m not looking to start an argument here. I don’t need to hear reasons.
I just want to know what Jack meant when he responded to “Perhaps I should clarify …” with “Not if you are going to endorse Bayes.”
Alas, skepticism fits even less, as it is merely an outlook. In this community however, atheism is treated as an open-and-shut issue and I suspect most would say that they expect a rational person after considering the evidence on both sides to come down on the side of atheism. After all, the latest survey showed that LWers willing to fill in a survey were 80% atheist. Perhaps I should clarify that I mean weak (no belief a god exists) atheism, not strong (belief no god exists) atheism.
Regardless, nothing should be ‘embraced so as to become member of a community’, including vanilla rationality (scientific method? bayes?). That is a fundamental conflict of interest that all communities face and in may cases are destroyed by. This is exactly the reason why things like the ‘existential risk career network’ scare me quite a bit, especially if they become known as ways to get a lucrative job.
Not if you’re going to endorse Bayes in the next sentence you shouldn’t :-)
I’m not sure I understand this. Could you clarify? Are you saying that a true Bayesian doesn’t think there is a distinction? That a wise Bayesian will be neither kind of atheist?
So Bayesian epistemology doesn’t actually make use of the word ‘belief’, instead we just assign probabilities to hypotheses. You don’t believe or not believe, you just estimate p. So the distinction isn’t really intelligible. I guess one could interpret weak atheist as implying a higher probability of God’s existence than a strong atheist… but it doesn’t obviously translate that way and isn’t something a Bayesian would say.
Got it. Thx.
I suppose someone could claim that a strong atheist actually sets P(God) = 0. Whereas a weak atheist sets P(God) = some small epsilon. But then a Bayesian shouldn’t become a strong atheist.
See here.
I’m not sure I understand this. Could you clarify?
I’m not looking to start an argument here. I don’t need to hear reasons. I just want to know what Jack meant when he responded to “Perhaps I should clarify …” with “Not if you are going to endorse Bayes.”
As to whether “skepticism” names a worldview, an outlook, or some pieces of a methodology—apparently there is some current controversy on that.