ChristianKl comments on The 9/11 Meta-Truther Conspiracy Theory - Less Wrong

43 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 22 December 2009 06:59PM

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Comment author: Kaj_Sotala 24 December 2009 10:57:08AM 1 point [-]

Kaj, are you serious? When you watch the WTC7 collapse and it's roof staying basically horizontal during the whole process can you imagine this to happen unless all columns are destroyed at exactly the same time?

Like I said before: Damage to just one column causing such a collapse does sound a bit counter-intuitive, but then it would be hardly the first thing in physics that would be a bit counter-intuitive. If a structural engineer told me that it is possible, I'd believe him, just as I believe scientists when they tell me about the bizarreness that is quantum mechanics. Certainly the prior probability for "physics is sometimes counterintuitive" is far higher than the prior for "there was a conspiracy to cause 9/11". Also, MatthewB's explanation sounds quite plausible to me.

But yes, providing these sources earlier would have been good.

Comment author: roland comment score below threshold [+] (16 children)

Comment author: Kaj_Sotala 24 December 2009 06:19:04PM 3 points [-]

what about the structural engineers who say that the collapse had to be due to a controlled demolition? You seem to totally discount that.

For this whole time, I've been commenting on whether or not your original comment deserved being downvoted or not, not whether I believe in 9/11 theories in general. I didn't mention the engineers that support your view, because I was responding to a comment where you implied that seeing the video should by itself convince anyone that something is up and that any report claiming otherwise is unscientific. By itself, meaning "even without the knowledge that there are engineers saying otherwise". Yes, structural engineers saying that the collapse had to be due to a controlled demolition is pretty strong evidence, far stronger than any intuitive interpretation about a single video - which is why you should have brought them up in the beginning.

(So what is my stance on 9/11 theories in general? Undecided. The issue doesn't really interest me enough that I'd spend time and energy researching it in the detail required to form a proper opinion. Sorry. :) )

Comment author: Vladimir_Nesov 24 December 2009 08:41:55PM 3 points [-]

So what is my stance on 9/11 theories in general? Undecided. The issue doesn't really interest me enough that I'd spend time and energy researching it in the detail required to form a proper opinion.

If all you have is weak evidence, you can only end up "uncertain" if your prior says "uncertain", that is you expect the building to have been detonated or not about equally, before taking into account the way it collapsed. Which doesn't sound right. It seems that while evidence is weak, you should remain pretty confident that the building wasn't detonated.

Comment author: Kaj_Sotala 24 December 2009 09:26:25PM 1 point [-]

I have several (well, two) relatively intelligent, mostly rational friends who have studied 9/11 theories in detail and come to the conclusion that there might actually be a conspiracy, so I'm setting my confidence intervals somewhat wide in this matter.

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 24 December 2009 09:57:08PM 0 points [-]

blinks

Of the "explosive in building" sort, or the "deliberately ignored intelligence" sort?

Comment author: Kaj_Sotala 24 December 2009 10:27:47PM * 0 points [-]

I think "explosive in the building" sort, though I haven't asked for the exact details.

Comment author: Vladimir_Nesov 24 December 2009 10:47:16PM * 1 point [-]

It's either strong evidence, or privileging the hypothesis. Uncertainty is half-way from disbelief to conviction, it's not a trivial milestone. If you allow for a likelihood ratio of 10 to go either way from "uncertain", you are already changing level of belief between 1% and 99%. This is the opposite side of this situation: if you've just dropped or introduced a strong piece of evidence (like recalling that you haven't asked the details of what exactly is being claimed by the presumably reliable source), you can't be uncertain both before and after that.

Comment author: Kaj_Sotala 25 December 2009 09:11:25AM 0 points [-]

I think we might have slightly different definitions for "undecided". I might consider a subjective belief of .95 for something not having happened as "undecided", if the associated weight of evidence isn't large.

Still, upon consideration, you're right. I've revised my estimate from "undecided" to "don't think there was a (malicious) conspiracy".

Comment author: Vladimir_Nesov 25 December 2009 09:19:31AM 3 points [-]

I might consider a subjective belief of .95 for something not having happened as "undecided", if the associated weight of evidence isn't large.

Right. So if you expect further investigation to change your belief (you can't know which way), you say it's undecided.

continue this thread »

Comment author: roland comment score below threshold [+] (5 children)

Comment author: Kaj_Sotala 24 December 2009 08:52:43PM 2 points [-]

You operate under the assumption that there is a scientific explanation

Sigh.

I got the assumption that there is a scientific explanation from you saying that there is a study which explains (or at least claims to explain) the collapse. From the context, one could deduce that it was written by people with a science background - presumably, if it was completely unscientific and obviously written by people with no background in engineering, you wouldn't have bothered mentioning it at all. Therefore it was presumably a scientific study.

When I say "scientific study", I don't mean that it would have to be correct. Obviously there is, and has always been, lots of scientific research that is outright wrong. Being scientific doesn't mean you're always correct, it means you employ the tools of science and therefore hopefully minimize your chances of being wrong. But if a layman says there is a study and the context implies that the study was made by people trained in the field, then that study has a higher prior probability of being correct than that same layman when he says the same study is wrong (because the layman cannot employ the scientific tools of the field that the experts are trained in). Especially if the layman in question supports his own case only by a video of an implosion and nothing else.

I see a contradiction. You cannot claim to be undecided and at the same time write "The official story is supported by science."

The official story seems to be supported by a scientific study, but I do not have the expertise to determine whether the science in that study is actually correct.

What are you sorry about?

The fact that you seem to have spent some effort digging up material in an effort to convince me of the conspiracy point of view, but I probably won't give most of it the attention it might deserve.

Comment author: roland comment score below threshold [+] (3 children)

Comment author: roland comment score below threshold [+] (0 children)

ChristianKl comments on The 9/11 Meta-Truther Conspiracy Theory - Less Wrong

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