I think it’s often easiest/most tempting to comment specifically on a sketchy thing that someone says instead of being like “I basically agree with you based on your strongest arguments” and leaving it at that (because the latter doesn’t seem like it’s adding any value). (I think there’s been quite a bit of discussion about the psychology of nitpicking, which is similar to but distinct from the behavior you mention, though I can’t find a good link right now.) Of course it would be better to give both one’s overall epistemic state plus any specific counter-arguments one thought of, but I only see a few people doing this sort of thing consistently. That would be my guess as to what’s going on in the situations you mention (like, I could imagine myself behaving like the people you mention, but it wouldn’t be because I’m taking averages, it would be because I’m responding to whatever I happen to have the most thoughts on). But you have a lot more information about those situations so I could be totally off-base.
Yeah idk, what you say makes sense too. But in at least some cases it seemed like the takeaway they had at the end of the conversation, their overall update or views on timelines, was generated by averaging the plausibility of the various arguments rather than by summing them or doing something more complex.
(And to be clear I’m not complaining that this is unreasonable! For reasons Ronny and others have mentioned, sometimes this is a good heuristic to follow.)
I think it’s often easiest/most tempting to comment specifically on a sketchy thing that someone says instead of being like “I basically agree with you based on your strongest arguments” and leaving it at that (because the latter doesn’t seem like it’s adding any value). (I think there’s been quite a bit of discussion about the psychology of nitpicking, which is similar to but distinct from the behavior you mention, though I can’t find a good link right now.) Of course it would be better to give both one’s overall epistemic state plus any specific counter-arguments one thought of, but I only see a few people doing this sort of thing consistently. That would be my guess as to what’s going on in the situations you mention (like, I could imagine myself behaving like the people you mention, but it wouldn’t be because I’m taking averages, it would be because I’m responding to whatever I happen to have the most thoughts on). But you have a lot more information about those situations so I could be totally off-base.
Yeah idk, what you say makes sense too. But in at least some cases it seemed like the takeaway they had at the end of the conversation, their overall update or views on timelines, was generated by averaging the plausibility of the various arguments rather than by summing them or doing something more complex.
(And to be clear I’m not complaining that this is unreasonable! For reasons Ronny and others have mentioned, sometimes this is a good heuristic to follow.)