What is your position on the existence of an external reality independent from humans?
a) There is nothing outside me. I'm the only mind and the only entity in the universe.
b) It's not epistemically proper to assume a priori the existence of an external reality. We can hypothesize the existence of external entities as part of a model to explain our sensory experiences. It is not meaningful to discuss about the difference between entities that are part of the model (the "map") and entities that are part of an independent external reality (the "territory").
c) There exist an external reality independent from humans which determines our experiences. It's epistemically proper to assume this a priori rather than consider it an hypothesis. It's meaningful to discuss about the difference between between entities that are part of the model (the "map") and entities that are part of the independent external reality (the "territory").
d) Like c), but in addition to physical objects, the external reality also contains mathematical objects such as the natural numbers, Euclidean/Riemannian geometry, the Turing machine, etc.
Options b) and c) seem to be conflating two things, realism vs. instrumentalism and a priori vs. a posteriori. I would say that the most reasonable realist position combines elements of your b) and c). We could say that, e.g., electrons are independently existing entities, and that one can distinguish meaningfully between our theory or model of electrons and electrons themselves, while also saying that it is not epistemically proper to assume a priori that electrons exist, but one should only hypothesize their existence if this is part of the best explanation of our sensory experiences. The same happens for all "external reality".
The first draft of the 2012 Less Wrong Census/Survey is complete (see 2011 here). I will link it below if you promise not to try to take the survey because it's not done yet and this is just an example!
2012 Less Wrong Census/Survey Draft
I want three things from you.
First, please critique this draft. Tell me if any questions are unclear, misleading, offensive, confusing, or stupid. Tell me if the survey is so unbearably long that you would never possibly take it. Tell me if anything needs to be rephrased.
Second, I am willing to include any question you want in the Super Extra Bonus Questions section, as long as it is not offensive, super-long-and-involved, or really dumb. Please post any questions you want there. Please be specific - not "Ask something about abortion" but give the exact question you want me to ask as well as all answer choices.
Try not to add more than five or so questions per person, unless you're sure yours are really interesting. Please also don't add any questions that aren't very easily sort-able by a computer program like SPSS unless you can commit to sorting the answers yourself.
Third, please suggest a decent, quick, and at least somewhat accurate Internet IQ test I can stick in a new section, Unreasonably Long Bonus Questions.
I will probably post the survey to Main and officially open it for responses sometime early next week.