Blueberry comments on In defense of the outside view - Less Wrong

14 Post author: cousin_it 15 January 2010 11:01AM

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Comment author: ciphergoth 15 January 2010 12:50:07PM *  4 points [-]

This "outside view abuse" is getting a little extreme. Next it will tell you that Barack Obama isn't President, because people don't become President.

The outside view may be rephrased as "argument from typicality". If we'd just heard of this random dude named Barack Obama, we'd be perfectly justified in saying he won't become President!

So what you're saying is that the outside view quickly has to defer to information from the inside view, such as that Barack Obama is in fact President - or that for example the plausibility that Romney might be President is much higher than one in 300 million.

Comment author: cousin_it 15 January 2010 12:55:43PM *  2 points [-]

Yes, completely agreed about Romney. If someone shows how Dennett stands out from the crowd of philosophers who claim to understand consciousness (which includes Hofstadter and Penrose), or how the Singularity stands out from the crowd of failed tech predictions, this will convince me. But evidence of the "just believe me I'm special" variety won't, unless it's as impeccable as 2*2=4.

Comment author: Blueberry 15 January 2010 06:31:44PM 2 points [-]

Dennett and Hofstadter agree in large part, and even collaborated on a book about consciousness, so it's strange to lump them in with Penrose.

Comment author: komponisto 15 January 2010 10:11:01PM 0 points [-]

Penrose furthermore being a mathematical physicist...

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