nshepperd comments on Raising the Sanity Waterline - Less Wrong

112 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 12 March 2009 04:28AM

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Comment author: aceofspades 05 July 2012 06:29:37PM *  0 points [-]

If his interest resulted in actions that would provide evidence of his existence, then yes. Also, if libertarian free will existed then the world would be an even more different place.

Comment author: nshepperd 06 July 2012 07:05:31AM 1 point [-]

I'd argue that libertarian free will is an incoherent concept, and therefore there is no counterfactual world where it "exists", or if there is, that it is identical to any nondeterministic world without libertarian free will. On the other hand the existence of Thor might be exceedingly improbable, but it's not incoherent.

Comment author: aceofspades 19 July 2012 11:28:04PM 0 points [-]

In order to dissolve the disagreement: I think the first sentence of my original comment here was ill-posed. It makes sense to me because it serves as a convenient pointer for the type of "religion" espoused by a significant proportion of people which involves "belief" and "faith" and does not actually contain any differences in anticipated experience from a non-religious position. However, given only the original sentence it does not mean much. And even with elaboration it is pretty much going to be tautological. As to my second post I expect that contemplating that particular "counterfactual" is going to be along the lines of considering the "counterfactual" under which 2+2=5 which I do not anticipate being a particularly enlightening discussion based on what I've already read on the subject.