Vladimir_Nesov comments on Maybe Theism Is OK -- Part 2 - Less Wrong

-6 Post author: byrnema 11 April 2009 06:32AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (7)

You are viewing a single comment's thread.

Comment author: Vladimir_Nesov 11 April 2009 01:01:16PM *  7 points [-]

You are conflating religion in particular and irrationality in general in this post.

Answering your specific arguments:

(1) This is old hat, the resolution is basically that you can't efficiently (or, in many cases, at all) choose which irrational beliefs to hold or abandon and when, because to do so you'd need to hold rational beliefs to begin with.

(2) This depends on feasibility and cost explained in point (1), although this game sounds unappealing to me.

(3) To understand a rock, you don't need to become a rock, in fact doing so would not help, it will just make you permanently stupid and dead.

(4) Rational understanding of the world is not supposed to explain rainbows away, although this is a mistake common enough.

Comment author: dclayh 11 April 2009 03:09:22PM 3 points [-]

I think "Less Permanently-Stupid-And-Dead" would be a great name for this website.