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radical_negative_one comments on "Put It To The Test" - Less Wrong
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I read that line as saying, "you should have evidence for an claim in order to believe it". Which makes me think of, for example, the "chocolate cake in the asteroid belt" claim where we don't believe the claim, because we have no evidence for it.
right, but it seems to strongly imply that "there is no chocolate cake in the asteroid belt" is a fantasy as well, since it cannot be checked.
We do have evidence that there is no chocolate cake in the asteroid belt -- we have evidence that it would be very improbable for a cake of any flavor to generate spontaneously, and we have evidence that the special conditions that result in cake here on Earth are not present in the asteroid belt. And we can 'check' this evidence..
Is there a more definitive example of why it's not true that "A fact is just a fantasy, unless it can be checked"?
Hmm
I'm worried this might devolve into semantics: is the string of words under discussion on Our Side or not -- we must know!
Still, my intuitive interpretation would be to say that while we can 'check' each of those pieces of evidence, we still cannot 'check' whether there's chocolate cake, which seems to me to be what's meant by "unless it can be checked"
No worries, we agree. If by 'check' they meant 'check directly', then I agree the statement isn't right.
Another alternative reading is "can theoretically be checked". Obviously, this is strictly weaker, but still covers a large number of logical failures (e.g. creationism).
Belief in things that cannot be theoretically checked are fantasies. Do you think such beliefs are 'logical failures'?