Molybdenumblue comments on Making your explicit reasoning trustworthy - Less Wrong

82 Post author: AnnaSalamon 29 October 2010 12:00AM

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Comment author: alexflint 29 October 2010 07:41:58AM *  11 points [-]

Thanks for a ton of great tips Anna, just wanted to nit pick on one:

Remember that if reading X-ist books will predictably move your beliefs toward X, and you know there are X-ist books out there, you should move your beliefs toward X already. Remember the Conservation of Expected Evidence more generally.

I suspect that reading enough X-ist books will affect my beliefs for any X (well, nearly any). The key word is enough -- I suspect that fully immersing myself in just about any subject, and surround myself entirely by people who advocate it, would significantly alter my beliefs, regardless of the validity of X.

Comment author: [deleted] 31 October 2010 04:30:48PM 1 point [-]

Seems to me that, for most questions where there is any real uncertainty, many books are written advocating multiple points of view. If I were to read any one of these books, I would probably move closer to the author's point of view (since the author will select evidence to support his/her belief), but to know what I would believe after reading all of the books, I would have to actually read them to compare the strength of their arguments.

Comment author: alexflint 31 October 2010 09:07:04PM 0 points [-]

Yes I think you're mostly right, but I just don't think I'm quite good enough to weigh the evidence just right, even when I'm explicitly trying to do. Especially in cases where there is real uncertainty.