I think the problem is that you are trying to say too much and have ended up with a post that says nothing of any value. your first and third paragraphs are demonstrably false, which is why I ignored them. in the second paragraph you literally said: “If they couldn’t afford more, then they already made a mistake.” I don’t see that as being susceptible to nuance.
thank you.
I feel that you have a separate issue beyond the existence of scope insensitivity as a phenomenon...
the existence of scope insensitivity is not in doubt. in my original post I quite specifically said: “the point I want to discuss is whether it is entirely fair to describe scope insensitivity, as defined in this way, as a “systematic human brain error”?
it isn’t obvious to me what I should or could have done to make that point any more clear.
and that is that Yudkowsky committed a value judgement when he labelled the phenomenon a production of systematic error.
I think what he did was to claim that he knew the one specific reason why people did not donate more money, and with no data whatsoever he attributed that reason to all persons in the study. this is knowledge he could not possibly possess. his claim is therefore false.
and not only that, but he wants to extend that to all cases of scope insensitivity so that he can say of all persons who are insensitive to scope that they have or display a “systematic human brain error.”
I think it is obvious that his claim cannot possibly be correct.
thank you
If they couldn’t afford more, then they already made a mistake in donating their maximum to the first arbitrary opportunity presented.
if I understand you correctly, your position is: unless a person is able to donate more money to save more birds, it is a mistake to donate anything at all.
so a little old lady who has $60 to spare gives it to a wildlife charity, but according to you that is a human brain error because she doesn’t have another sixty bucks to spare. interesting, if true.
thank you.
In the classic study with birds and oil ponds, for example, people might spend a little money to make themself look good to the experimenter.
so you agree with me that there my be a rational reason for them not to donate more money. which implies that it is not logical or rational of Eliezer Yudkowsky to ascribe that reason to a human brain error.
thank you.
You can claim the respondents all had secret, rational reasons to answer the way they did, but there’s no evidence of that, and you haven’t even proposed what those reasons could be.
maybe you missed the last paragraph in my post, where I gave two possible reasons; “the original study did not allow for the possibility that folk did not pay more because they were unable to afford more, or because they would prefer to allocate their charitable spending to alleviate human suffering rather than animal suffering.”
the first reply from jimrandomh suggested that they might have initially donated a little to make themselves look good to the researcher, a possibility I had not considered. in that case donating more achieves no purpose and it is therefore entirely rational to stick with the lower amount.
but Eliezer Yudkowsky claims to know that it was due to a brain error. is it rational for him to claim to know that?
thank you.
I have already replied once but my post seems to have been deleted so I will try again.
I am unable to detect any nuance in your post. perhaps it would be simpler if you were to explicitly say exactly what you mean.
thank you.