And very scary as well.
Arielgenesis
Karma: 20
Given the current status quo, it is impossible. However, I can imagine the political world developing into an atmosphere where Esperanto might be made the lingua franca. Imagine that American and British power continues to decline, and Russia and China and German, and maybe India, become more influential, leading to a new status quo, a stalemate. Given sufficiently long stalemate, like decades, Esperanto might once again become a politically viable situation.
Are people here is interested in having a universal language, and have strong opinions on esperanto?
I just thought of this ‘cute’ question and not sure how to answer it.
The sample space of an empirical statement is True or False. Then, given an empirical statement, one would then assign a certain prior probability 0<p<1 to TRUE and one minus that to FALSE. One would not assign a p=1 or p=0 because it wouldn’t allow believe updating.
For example: Santa Claus is real.
I suppose most people in LW will assign a very small p to that statement, but not zero. Now my question is, what is the prior probability value for the following statement:
Prior probability cannot be set to 1.
Thank you. This reply actually answer the first part of my question.
The ‘working’ presuppositions include:
Induction
Occam’s razor
I will quote most important part from Fundamental Doubts
So, in the end, I think we must allow the use of brains to think about thinking; and the use of evolved brains to think about evolution; and the use of inductive brains to think about induction; and the use of brains with an Occam prior to think about whether the universe appears to be simple; for these things we really cannot unwind entirely, even when we have reason to distrust them. Strange loops through the meta level, I think, are not the same as circular logic.
And this have a lot of similarities with my previous conclusion (with significant differences about circular logic and meta loops)
a non-contradicting collection of self-referential statement that covers the epistemology and axiology
I will have to copy paste my answer to your other comment:
Yes I could. I chose not to. It is a balance between suspension of disbelieve and narrative simplicity. Moreover, I am not sure how much credence should I put on recent cosmological theories that they will not be updated the future, making my narrative set up obsolete. I also do not want to burden my reader with familiarity of cosmological theories.
Am I not allowed to use such narrative technique to simplify my story and deliver my point? Yes I know it is out of touch with the human condition but I was hoping it would not strain my audiences’ suspension of disbelieve.
genuine marital relationship
“If Adam is guilty, then the relationship was not genuine.” Am I on the right track? or did I misunderstood your question?
Why are you a theist?
This is very poorly formulated. But there are 2 foundations in my logic. First is, that I am leaning towards presuppositionalism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presuppositional_apologetics). The only way to build a ‘map’, first of all, is to take a list of presuppositions for granted. I am also interested in that (see my post on http://lesswrong.com/lw/nsm/open_thread_jul_25_jul_31_2016/). The idea is that a school could have a non-contradicting collection of self-referential statement that covers the epistemology and axiology and another school have another distinct collection. And due to the expensiveness of computation and lack of information, both maps are equally good and predicting what should and should not happen (“and also what is actually happening and why”, what scientist, not rationalist, cares about).
The other part is, the basis of this post, personal experience. All of my personal life experience, up until this point, “arrived at a posterior where P(God exists) >> P(God does not exist)” exactly in the same way Eve arrived at hers in this OP.
Now I do realize that is very crude and not at all solid, not even presentable. But since you asked, there you go.
We needn’t presume that we are not in a simulation, we can evaluate the evidence for it.
How do we not fall into the rabbit hole of finding evidence that we are not in a simulation?
why does she want to be correct (beyond “I like being right”)?
I think that’s it. “I like knowing that the person I love is innocent.” Which implies that Adam is not lying to her and “I like being in healthy, fulfilling and genuine marital relationship”
I see… I have been using unfalsifiability and lack of evidence as a synonym. The title should have read: a rational believe without evidence
Thank You.
God is a messy concept. As a theist, I am leaning more towards the Calvinistic Christianity. Defining God is very problematic because, by definition, it is something, which in it’s fullness, is beyond human comprehension.
Could you clarify?
Since ancient time, there are many arguments for and against God (and the many versions of it). Lately, the arguments against God has developed to a very sophisticated extend and the theist is lagging very far behind and there doesn’t seem to be any interest in catching up.
Well… That’s part of the story. I’m sure there is a term for it, but I don’t know what. Something that the story gives and you accept it as fact.
you can make a more sciency argument with recent cosmological theories
Yes I could. I chose not to. It is a balance between suspension of disbelieve and narrative simplicity. Moreover, I am not sure how much credence should I put on recent cosmological theories that they will not be updated the future, making my narrative set up obsolete. I also do not want to burden my reader with familiarity of cosmological theories.
This, and your links to Lob’s theory, is one of the most fear inducing piece of writing that I have ever read. Now I want to know if I have understand this properly. I found that the best way to do it is to first explain what I understand to myself, and then to other people. My explanation is below:
I suppose that rationalist would have some simple, intuitive and obvious presumptions a foundation (e.g. most of the time, my sensory organs reflect the world accurately). But apparently, it put its foundation on a very specific set of statement, the most powerful, wild and dangerous of them all: self-referential statement:
Rationalist presume Occam’s razor because it proof itself Rationalist presume Induction razor because it proof itself *etc.
And a collection of these self-referential statement (if you collect the right elements) would reinforce one another. Upon this collection, the whole field of rationality is built.
To the best of my understanding, this train of thought is nearly identical to the Presuppositionalism school of Reformed Christian Apologetics.
The reformed / Presbyterian understanding of the Judeo-Christian God (from here on simply referred to as God), is that God is a self-referential entity, owing to their interpretation of the famous Tetragrammaton. They believe that God is true for many reasons, but chief among all, is that it attest itself to be the truth.
Now I am not making any statement about rationality or presuppositionalism, but it seems to me that there is a logical veil that we cannot get to the bottom of and it is called self-reference.
The best that we can do is to get a non-contradicting collection of self-referential statement that covers the epistemology and axiology and by that point, everyone is rational.
What are rationalist presumptions?
I am new to this rationality and Bayesian ways of thinking. I am reading the sequence, but I have few questions along the way. These questions is from the first article (http://lesswrong.com/lw/31/what_do_we_mean_by_rationality/)
Epistemic rationality
I suppose we do presume things, like we are not dreaming/under global and permanent illusion by a demon/a brain in a vat/in a Truman show/in a matrix. And, sufficiently frequently, you mean what I think you meant. I am wondering, if there is a list of things that rationalist presume and take for granted without further proof. Are there anything that is self evident?
Instrumental rationality
Sometimes a value could derive from other value. (e.g. I do not value monarchy because I hold the value that all men are created equal). But either we have circular values or we take some value to be evident (We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal). I think circular values make no sense. So my question is, what are the values that most rationalists agree to be intrinsically valuable, or self evident, or could be presumed to be valuable in and of itself?
Thank you for the reply.
My personal answer to the 3 questions is 3 yes. But I am not confident of my own reasoning, that’s why I’m here, looking for confirmation. So, thank you for the confirmation.
If we let Eve say “I still think he didn’t do it because of his character, and I will keep believing this until I see evidence to the contrary—and if such evidence doesn’t exist, I will keep believing this forever”—then yes, Eve is rational
That is exactly what I meant her to say. I just thought I could simplify it, but apparently I lose important points along the way.
Yes, it can be extended to belief in God. Provided we restrict “God” to a REALLY TINY thing.
I am a theist, but I am appalled by the lack of rational apologetic, the abundance of poor ones, and the disinterest to develop a good one. So here I am, making baby steps.
unfalsifiability and lack of evidence, even an extreme one, are orthogonal concern.
That is a very novel concept for me. I understand what you are trying to say, but I am struggling to see if it is true.
Can you give me few examples where something is “physically unfalsifiable” but “logically falsifiable” and the distinction is of great import?
human-granularity
I don’t understand what does it mean, even after a google search, so please enlighten me.
For epistemic rationality
I think so. I think she has exhausted all the possible avenue to reach the truth. So she is epistemically rational. Do you agree?
For instrumental rationality
Now this is confusing to me as well. Let us forget about the extension for the moment and focus solely on the narrative as presented in the OP. I am not familiar how does value and rationality goes together, but, I think there is nothing wrong if her value is “Adam’s innocence” and that it is inherently valuable, and end to it self. Am my making any mistake in my train of thought?
Second language might still be necessary for the cognitive development effect.