endoself comments on Holy Books (Or Rationalist Sequences) Don’t Implement Themselves - Less Wrong

32 Post author: calcsam 10 May 2011 07:15AM

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Comment author: [deleted] 10 May 2011 08:23:50PM *  0 points [-]

I can think of at least two other stable states - in one, you've had an experience that has acted as strong Bayesian evidence for you of the evidence of $DEITY, but which is either a purely subjective experience or which is non-repeatable. As an example of this class of event, if I were to pray "Oh Lord, give me enough money to never have to work again" and then two hundred thousand people were to buy copies of my books in the next five years, that would be enough evidence that it would be rational for me to believe in God.

Another stable state might be someone who has been convinced by Frank Tipler's Omega Point hypothesis. Tipler himself is now clearly extremely irrational, but the hypothesis itself is taken seriously enough by people like David Deutsch (who is one of the less obviously-egregiously-stupid public intellectuals) that it's not obviously dismissable out-of-hand.

I'm sure there are others, too.

EDIT - when I said "in the next five years" I meant to type "the next five minutes", which would of course be much stronger evidence.

Comment author: endoself 10 May 2011 11:11:32PM 1 point [-]

Even in that case, a very powerful being messing with you is more likely than an uncaused, ontologically fundamental very powerful being (and not just because of the conjunction - a caused, reducible very powerful being is far more likely). Or did you just mean that this point was less obvious, so it would be harder for someone to realize that they were wrong?