I more or less accept your reasoning as far as it goes, but:
our hardware and factory settings are so ridiculously mal-adapted to the epistemic environment of the modern world that this market test is extremely often utterly broken and useless.
If this is true, then why have so much confidence in your own personal appraisal of who to trust and who to write off as deluded? It is of course true that nearly everyone believes what they do for non-truth-tracking reasons, but “nearly everyone” isn’t everyone, and there are many people, both theist and atheist, who believe what they do even despite strong memetic pressures to the contrary. Take me, for example; my theism doesn’t win me any points with anyone, at least not as many points as it loses. And there are many theists like me. Knowing what you know about how easily humans fall into delusion, how can you be so confident that it’s the other side that is deluded, and not your own? To return to the point, can you really be confident enough to disregard Pascal’s wager? If so, how did so many at-least-nominally-truth-seeking people, from Plato to Pascal to Kant to me, end up disagreeing with you? How did we fall into such an obvious error?
Based on the comments of yours I’ve read, I think the only way you can call yourself a theist is by redefining most theistic terminology. Tell me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think you agree with the object-level claims made by an average theist, as that theist would understand them. I’m not sure what you should call yourself...
As far as I know, I have the same conception of God as Thomas Aquinas did, and Thomism is the predominant philosophy of the Catholic church, which is the largest sect of Christianity, which is the most popular religion in the world.
A year or two ago my ideas were still pretty fuzzy, so that might have tripped you up. I change my mind pretty often.
Can you reliably communicate a good approximation of what you believe to another without reference to decision theory?
If yes, I’ll accept your hypothesis that I’ve been reading the wrong comments of yours.
If no, I really doubt that Aquinas would recognize what you believe as what he believed.
(And I don’t know what the situation is among the average Catholic, but IMX the average protestant doesn’t even know who Aquinas is, so my point may still hold anyway....)
Can you reliably communicate a good approximation of what you believe to another without reference to decision theory?
I think so. There is a supremely powerful person, Who is the Form of the Good, Who is perfectly simple… yeah, pretty sure I can do it using accepted theological terminology.
Does it matter what the average theist believes? If Aquinas doesn’t believe in the same God that a typical Baptist churchgoer does, I don’t think that means that Aquinas isn’t a theist. If the average biology students don’t have the same definition of “gene” as the best biologists do… (This is like some really weird variation on No True Scotsman.)
I think so. There is a supremely powerful person, Who is the Form of the Good, Who is perfectly simple… yeah, pretty sure I can do it using accepted theological terminology.
But I don’t think those words coming from you are generated by the same thought process that most theists use to make similar statements. You use the same words, but you mean something different. At least, that is my impression.
Does it matter what the average theist believes?
No. But at some point it becomes helpful to try and make sure everyone means similar things when using the same word. If that’s not possible then maybe it’s a good time to taboo the word. I’m thinking that “theist” usually refers to a particular cluster of beliefs that are sorta similar to yours but different enough that I’m not sure if calling yourself a theist clarifies or obscures your actual beliefs. I’m leaning towards “obscures”...
You use the same words, but you mean something different. At least, that is my impression.
My impression differs… like, there’s only so many different things “supremely powerful person” and “Form of the Good” can mean, ya know? The meanings of those words all seem pretty straightforward.
mmm.… I was about to agree with you, but after some thought, no, I think those words are incredibly vague. I can see adherents of most any religion agreeing with them. And the various religions typically think that they disagree with each other. I still maintain that by the time you define your beliefs at the same specificity as a typical human religion does, most Christians will not count you among their number.
I’m not saying that they’re right and you’re wrong (I’ll bet on you if those are my options) just that you aren’t really saying the same thing.
Does it matter what the average theist believes? If Aquinas doesn’t believe in the same God that a typical Baptist churchgoer does, I don’t think that means that Aquinas isn’t a theist.
It matters if you’re arguing from a majoritarian “orthodoxy as democracy spread over time” perspective. If the vast majority of theists throughout history didn’t actually believe in the God of Aquinas, but rather in the God of the old testament (or whatever), then you can’t cite their belief as evidence supporting Aquinas’ (or your) God.
We seem to be getting into some potentially very important territory, and I would certainly like to continue this discussion, but I’m running out of time for now and may be busy for up to 24 hours.
Before I go though, I should say at least one thing. It’s certainly not an obvious error, and I could well be the one who’s wrong. The discussions about rationality on Less Wrong are extremely useful for a basic reason: it’s an extremely difficult and intricate epistemic journey to compensate for our mal-adapted hardware and software, and LW does it better than any other place at the moment (as far as I can see).
So yeah, your questions are certainly important, and they perhaps get to the essence of the issue. I look forward to trying to answer those questions, and seeing where it leads us in the discussion (assuming you think this is useful too). Feel free to write anything else in the meantime, or not.
I more or less accept your reasoning as far as it goes, but:
If this is true, then why have so much confidence in your own personal appraisal of who to trust and who to write off as deluded? It is of course true that nearly everyone believes what they do for non-truth-tracking reasons, but “nearly everyone” isn’t everyone, and there are many people, both theist and atheist, who believe what they do even despite strong memetic pressures to the contrary. Take me, for example; my theism doesn’t win me any points with anyone, at least not as many points as it loses. And there are many theists like me. Knowing what you know about how easily humans fall into delusion, how can you be so confident that it’s the other side that is deluded, and not your own? To return to the point, can you really be confident enough to disregard Pascal’s wager? If so, how did so many at-least-nominally-truth-seeking people, from Plato to Pascal to Kant to me, end up disagreeing with you? How did we fall into such an obvious error?
Based on the comments of yours I’ve read, I think the only way you can call yourself a theist is by redefining most theistic terminology. Tell me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think you agree with the object-level claims made by an average theist, as that theist would understand them. I’m not sure what you should call yourself...
Newsomelike.
As far as I know, I have the same conception of God as Thomas Aquinas did, and Thomism is the predominant philosophy of the Catholic church, which is the largest sect of Christianity, which is the most popular religion in the world.
A year or two ago my ideas were still pretty fuzzy, so that might have tripped you up. I change my mind pretty often.
Can you reliably communicate a good approximation of what you believe to another without reference to decision theory?
If yes, I’ll accept your hypothesis that I’ve been reading the wrong comments of yours.
If no, I really doubt that Aquinas would recognize what you believe as what he believed.
(And I don’t know what the situation is among the average Catholic, but IMX the average protestant doesn’t even know who Aquinas is, so my point may still hold anyway....)
I think so. There is a supremely powerful person, Who is the Form of the Good, Who is perfectly simple… yeah, pretty sure I can do it using accepted theological terminology.
Does it matter what the average theist believes? If Aquinas doesn’t believe in the same God that a typical Baptist churchgoer does, I don’t think that means that Aquinas isn’t a theist. If the average biology students don’t have the same definition of “gene” as the best biologists do… (This is like some really weird variation on No True Scotsman.)
But I don’t think those words coming from you are generated by the same thought process that most theists use to make similar statements. You use the same words, but you mean something different. At least, that is my impression.
No. But at some point it becomes helpful to try and make sure everyone means similar things when using the same word. If that’s not possible then maybe it’s a good time to taboo the word. I’m thinking that “theist” usually refers to a particular cluster of beliefs that are sorta similar to yours but different enough that I’m not sure if calling yourself a theist clarifies or obscures your actual beliefs. I’m leaning towards “obscures”...
My impression differs… like, there’s only so many different things “supremely powerful person” and “Form of the Good” can mean, ya know? The meanings of those words all seem pretty straightforward.
mmm.… I was about to agree with you, but after some thought, no, I think those words are incredibly vague. I can see adherents of most any religion agreeing with them. And the various religions typically think that they disagree with each other. I still maintain that by the time you define your beliefs at the same specificity as a typical human religion does, most Christians will not count you among their number.
I’m not saying that they’re right and you’re wrong (I’ll bet on you if those are my options) just that you aren’t really saying the same thing.
It matters if you’re arguing from a majoritarian “orthodoxy as democracy spread over time” perspective. If the vast majority of theists throughout history didn’t actually believe in the God of Aquinas, but rather in the God of the old testament (or whatever), then you can’t cite their belief as evidence supporting Aquinas’ (or your) God.
Or am I misunderstanding your argument?
We seem to be getting into some potentially very important territory, and I would certainly like to continue this discussion, but I’m running out of time for now and may be busy for up to 24 hours.
Before I go though, I should say at least one thing. It’s certainly not an obvious error, and I could well be the one who’s wrong. The discussions about rationality on Less Wrong are extremely useful for a basic reason: it’s an extremely difficult and intricate epistemic journey to compensate for our mal-adapted hardware and software, and LW does it better than any other place at the moment (as far as I can see).
So yeah, your questions are certainly important, and they perhaps get to the essence of the issue. I look forward to trying to answer those questions, and seeing where it leads us in the discussion (assuming you think this is useful too). Feel free to write anything else in the meantime, or not.