Estarlio comments on Welcome to Less Wrong! (5th thread, March 2013) - Less Wrong

27 Post author: orthonormal 01 April 2013 04:19PM

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Comment author: Estarlio 14 April 2013 09:29:46PM -1 points [-]

The trouble with this heuristic is it fails when you aren't right to start with.

Disbelieving based on partial knowledge is different from disbelieving based on mistaken belief.

Comment author: MugaSofer comment score below threshold [+] (9 children)

Comment author: Estarlio 15 April 2013 08:19:13PM -1 points [-]

I'm not sure what you mean by this.

Being mistaken about something is different from not knowing everything there is to know about it.

If I'm wrong about a subject, then I don't know everything there is to know about it (assuming I'm reasoning correctly on what I know.)

But if I don't know everything there is to know about a subject, then I'm not necessarily wrong about that subject.

The former entails the latter, but the latter does not entail the former. One doesn't need a degree in biology to correct, or be corrected, about the frog thing - anymore than one needs a degree in sky wizardy to correct or be corrected about god.

Given that you can't know everything about even relatively narrow subject areas these days, (with ~7 billion humans on Earth we turn out a ridiculous amount of stuff,) what we're really dealing with here is an issue of trust: When someone says that you need to know more to make a decision, on what grounds do you decide whether or not they're just messing you around?

There's a major dis-analogy between how the Frog-based anti-evolutionist (AE) and the atheist (AT) 's questions are going to be addressed in that regard.

When the AE challenges evolution there are obvious touching stones, ideally he's told that the frog thing never happened and given a bunch of stuff he can go look up if he's interested. When the AT challenges theology he's told that he doesn't know enough, i.e. he hasn't exhausted the search space, but he's not actually pointed at anything that addresses his concern. It's more a sort of “Keep looking until you find something. Bwahahahaaa, sucker.” response.

That happens because of what evidence does and how we get it. Say, you're trying to decide whether the Earth is flat: To discover that it's vaguely spherical doesn't take a lot of evidence. I could drive to a couple of different locations and prove it to a reasonable degree of accuracy with sticks - it would not be difficult. (Or I could ask one of my friends in another city to take a measurement for me, but regardless the underlying methodology remains more or less the same.) That's an Eratosthenes level of understanding (~200BC). To discover the shape that the Earth actually is closer to an oblate spheroid, however, you need to have at least a Newton level of understanding (~1700 AD.) to predict that it being spun ought to make it bulge around the equator.

Evidence is something like, 'that which alters the conditional probability of something being observed.' But not all evidence alters the probability to the same degree. If you're off by a lot, a little bit of evidence should let you know. The more accurate you want to get the more evidence you need. Consequently, knowledge of search spaces tends to be ordered by weightiness of evidence unless the other person is playing as a hostile agent.

Even to ask the trickier questions that need that evidence requires a deep understanding that you have tuned in from a more general understanding. The odds that you'll ask a relevant question without that understanding, just by randomly mooshing concepts together, are slim.

Now the AT probably doesn't know a lot about religion. Assuming that the atheist is not a moron just randomly mooshing concepts together, her beliefs would off by a lot; she seems likely to disagree with the theist about something fairly fundamental about how evidence is meant to inform beliefs.

So, here the AT is sitting with her really weight super-massive black hole of a reason to disbelieve - and the response from the Christian is that he doesn't know everything about god. That response is missing the references that someone who actually had a reason they could point to would have. More importantly that response claims that you need deep knowledge to answer a question that was asked with shallow knowledge.

The response doesn't even look the same as the response to the frog problem. Everyone who knows even a little bit about evolution can correct the frog fella. Whereas, to my knowledge, no Christian has yet corrected a rational atheist on his or her point of disbelief. (And if they have why aren't they singing it from the rooftops - if they have as one might call it, a knock-down argument why aren't the door to door religion salesmen opening with that?)

Strictly speaking neither of them knows everything about their subjects, or likely even very much of the available knowledge. But one clearly knows more than the other and there are things that such knowledge lets him do that the other can't; point us towards proof, answer low level questions with fairly hefty answers; and is accorded an appropriately higher trust in areas that we've not yet tested ourselves.

Of course I acknowledge the possibility that a Christian, or whoever, might be able to pull off the same stunt. But since I've never seen it, and never heard of anyone who's seen it, and I'd expect to see it all over the place if there actually was an answer lurking out there.... And since I've talked two Christians out of their beliefs in the past who'd told me that I just needed to learn more about religion and know that someone who watched that debate lost their own faith as a consequence of being unable to justify their beliefs. (Admittedly I can't verify this to you so it's just a personal proof.) It seems improbable to me that they've actually got an answer.

Of course if they have such an answer all they have to do is show it to me. In the same manner as the frog-person.

(I can actually think of one reason that someone who could prove god might choose not to: If you don't know about god, under some theologies, you can't go to hell. You can't win a really nice version of heaven either but you get a reasonable existence. They had to pull that move because they didn't want to tell people that god sent their babies went to hell.

However, this latter type of person would seem mutually exclusive with the sort of person who would be interested in telling you to look more deeply into religion to begin with. I'd imagine someone who viewed your taking on more duties to not go to hell probably ought to be in the business of discouraging you joining or investigating religion.)

Anyway, yeah. I think you can subscribe to E's heuristic quite happily even in areas where you acknowledge that you're likely to be off by a long way.

Comment author: MugaSofer comment score below threshold [+] (7 children)

Comment author: MugaSofer 19 April 2013 02:20:34PM * -3 points [-]

When the AE challenges evolution there are obvious touching stones, ideally he's told that the frog thing never happened and given a bunch of stuff he can go look up if he's interested. When the AT challenges theology he's told that he doesn't know enough, i.e. he hasn't exhausted the search space, but he's not actually pointed at anything that addresses his concern. It's more a sort of “Keep looking until you find something. Bwahahahaaa, sucker.” response.

I can assure you, I have personally seen atheists make arguments that are just as misinformed as the frog thingie.

For that matter, I've seen people who don't know much about evolution but are arguing for it tell creationists that a counterpoint to their claim exists somewhere, even though they don't actually know of such a "knock-down argument". And they were right.

Also, you seem to be modelling religious people as engaging in bad faith. Am I misreading you here?

The response doesn't even look the same as the response to the frog problem. Everyone who knows even a little bit about evolution can correct the frog fella.

Sure, but that was what we call an example. Creationists often make far more complex and technical-seeming arguments, which may well be beyond the expertise of the man on the street.

Whereas, to my knowledge, no Christian has yet corrected a rational atheist on his or her point of disbelief.

Maybe I parsed this wrong. Are you saying no incorrect argument has ever been made for atheism?

(And if they have why aren't they singing it from the rooftops - if they have as one might call it, a knock-down argument why aren't the door to door religion salesmen opening with that?)

Well, many do open with what they consider to be knock-down arguments, of course. But many such arguments are, y'know, long, and require considerable background knowledge.

And since I've talked two Christians out of their beliefs in the past who'd told me that I just needed to learn more about religion and know that someone who watched that debate lost their own faith as a consequence of being unable to justify their beliefs. (Admittedly I can't verify this to you so it's just a personal proof.) It seems improbable to me that they've actually got an answer.

If you have such an unanswerable argument, why aren't you "singing it from the rooftops"?

I think you can subscribe to E's heuristic quite happily even in areas where you acknowledge that you're likely to be off by a long way.

Minor point, but you realize EY wasn't the first to make this argument? And while I did invent this counterargument, I'm far from the first to do so. For example, Yvain.

Comment author: Estarlio 19 April 2013 06:34:40PM -1 points [-]

I can assure you, I have personally seen atheists make arguments that are just as misinformed as the frog thingie.

For that matter, I've seen people who don't know much about evolution but are arguing for it tell creationists that a counterpoint to their claim exists somewhere, even though they don't actually know of such a "knock-down argument". And they were right.

Well, that's why I said ideally. Lots of people believe evolution as a matter of faith rather than reason. I'd tend to say it's a far more easily justified faith - after all you can find the answers to the questions you're talking about very easily, or at least find the general direction they're in, and the more rational people seem almost universally to believe in it, and it networks into webs of trust that seem to allow you to actually do things with your beliefs, but it's true that many people engage with it only superficially. You'd be foolish to believe in evolution just because Joe Blogs heard that we evolved on TV. Joe Blogs isn't necessarily doing any more thinking, if that's all he'll give you to go on, than if he'd heard from his pastor that god did it all.

Joe Blogs may be able to give you good reasons for believing in something without giving you an answer on your exact point - but more generally you shouldn't believe it if all he's got in his favour is that he does and he's got unjustified faith that there must be an answer somewhere.

A heuristic tends towards truth, it's the way to bet. There are situations where you follow the heuristic and what you get is the wrong answer, but the best you can do with the information at hand.

Also, you seem to be modelling religious people as engaging in bad faith. Am I misreading you here?

I consider someone who, without good basis, tells you that there's an answer and doesn't even point you in its direction, to be acting in bad faith. That's not all religious people but it seems to me at the moment to be the set we'd be talking about here.

Sure, but that was what we call an example. Creationists often make far more complex and technical-seeming arguments, which may well be beyond the expertise of the man on the street.

Maybe so, but going back to our heuristics those arguments don't hook into a verifiable web of trust.

In case I wasn't clear earlier: I do believe that when many people believe in something with good basis they're often believing in the work of a community that produces truth according to certain methods - that what's being trusted is mostly people and little bits here and there that you can verify for yourself. What grounds do you have for trusting pastors, or whoever, know much about the world - that they're good and honest producers of truth?

Maybe I parsed this wrong. Are you saying no incorrect argument has ever been made for atheism?

No, I'm saying that to my knowledge no Christian has yet corrected someone who's reasonably rational on their reason for disbelieving.

Well, many do open with what they consider to be knock-down arguments, of course. But many such arguments are, y'know, long, and require considerable background knowledge.

Knockdown arguments about large differences of belief tend to be short, because they're saying that someone's really far off, and you don't need a lot of evidence to show that someone's a great distance out. Getting someone to buy into the argument may be more difficult if they don't believe that argument is a valid method, (and a great many people don't really,) but the argument itself should be quite small.

If someone's going to technicality you to death, that's a sign that their argument is less likely to be correct if they're applying it to a large difference of belief. Scientists noticeably don't differ on the large things - they might have different interpretations of precise matters but the weight of evidence when it comes to macroscopic things is fairly overwhelming.

If you have such an unanswerable argument, why aren't you "singing it from the rooftops"?

I don't think that people who believe in god are necessarily worse off than people who don't. If you could erase belief in god from the world, I doubt it would make a great deal of difference in terms of people behaving rationally. If anything I'd say that the reasons that religion is going out of favour have more to do with a changing moral character of society and the lack of an ability to provide a coherent narrative of hope than they do with a rise of more rationally based ideologies.

Consequently, it's not an efficient use of my time. While you can say 'low probability prior, no supporting evidence, no predictive power,' in five seconds, that's going to make people who don't have a lot of intellectual courage recoil from what you're suggesting - if they understand it at a gut level at all - and in any case teaching the tools to understand what that means can take hours. And teaching someone to bring their emotions in line with justified beliefs can take months or years on top of that. Especially if you're going to have to sit down with them and walk them through all the steps to come to a belief that they don't really want very much in the first place.

Okay, sure, 'that which can be destroyed by the truth should be' - but at what cost, in what order? Don't you have better things to do with your time than pick on Christians whose lives may even be made worse by your doing so if they don't subsequently become more rational and develop well actualised theories of happiness and so on? Can you really provide a better life than a belief in god does for them? Even if you assume that making someone disbelieve god is a low-effort task, it wouldn't be as simple as just having someone disbelieve if you were to do it to promote their interests.

If there are a more efficient way of doing it then I might be up for that, but I'm just more generally interested in raising the sanity waterline that I am with swating individual beliefs here and there.

Minor point, but you realize EY wasn't the first to make this argument? And while I did invent this counterargument, I'm far from the first to do so. For example, Yvain.

I do yes, I was made to read Dawkin's awful book a few years back in school. =p

Comment author: MugaSofer 19 April 2013 07:56:05PM * -2 points [-]

Well, that's why I said ideally. Lots of people believe evolution as a matter of faith rather than reason.

Sorry, I was saying I agreed with them. You don't have to know every argument for a position to hold it, you just have to be right.

Mind you, I generally do learn the arguments, but I'm weird like that.

I consider someone who, without good basis, tells you that there's an answer and doesn't even point you in its direction, to be acting in bad faith. That's not all religious people but it seems to me at the moment to be the set we'd be talking about here.

I'm talking more about the set of everybody who tells you to read the literature. Sure, it's a perfectly good heuristic as long as you only use it when you're dealing with that particular subset.

What grounds do you have for trusting pastors, or whoever, know much about the world - that they're good and honest producers of truth?

Well, I was thinking more theologians, but to be fair they're as bad as philosophers. Still, they've spent millennia talking about this stuff.

No, I'm saying that to my knowledge no Christian has yet corrected someone who's reasonably rational on their reason for disbelieving.

Sorry, but I'm going to have to call No True Scotsman on this. How many theists who were rational in their reasons for believing have been corrected by atheists? How many creationists who were rational in their reasons for disbelieving in evolution have been corrected by evolutionists?

I don't think that people who believe in god are necessarily worse off than people who don't. If you could erase belief in god from the world, I doubt it would make a great deal of difference in terms of people behaving rationally.

Point.

Um ... as a rationalist and the kind of idiot who exposes themself to basilisks, could you tell me this argument? Maybe rot13 it if you're not interested in evangelizing.

I do yes, I was made to read Dawkin's awful book a few years back in school. =p

Man, I'd forgotten that was the first place I came across that. Ah, nosalgia ... terrible book, though.

Comment author: Estarlio 28 April 2013 09:24:48PM 0 points [-]

Comment too long - continued from last:

Point.

Um ... as a rationalist and the kind of idiot who exposes themself to basilisks, could you tell me this argument? Maybe rot13 it if you're not interested in evangelizing.

V fhccbfr gung'f bxnl.

Gur svefg guvat abgr vf gung vs lbh ybbx ng ubj lbh trg rivqrapr, jung vg ernyyl qbrf, gura V'ir nyernql tvira bar: Ybj cevbe, (r.t. uvtu pbzcyrkvgl,) ab fhccbegvat rivqrapr. Crefbanyyl gung'f irel pbaivapvat. V erzrzore jura V jnf lbhatre, naq zl cneragf jrer fgvyy va gurve 'Tbbq puvyqera tb gb Puhepu' cunfr, zl pbhfva, jub jnf xvaqn fjrrg ba zr, fnvq gb zr 'Jul qba'g lbh jnag gb tb gb Puhepu? Qba'g lbh jnag gb tb gb urnira?' naq V nfxrq gurz 'Qba'g lbh jnag gb tb gb Aneavn? Fnzr guvat.' N ovg cvguvre creuncf ohg lbh trg gur cbvag, gur vqrn bs oryvrivat vg jvgubhg fbzrbar cbalvat hc rivqrapr unf nyjnlf orra bqq gb zr - creuncf whfg orpnhfr V jnf fb hfrq gb nqhygf ylvat ol gur gvzr V jnf byq rabhtu gb haqrefgnaq gur vqrn bs tbq ng nyy.

Ohg gur cbvag vf, bs pbhefr, jung pbafgvghgrf rivqrapr? Vg zvtug frrz yvxr gurer'f jvttyr ebbz gurer, ng yrnfg vs lbh ernyyl jnag gb or pbaivaprq bs n tbq. Bar nafjre vf gung rivqrapr qbrf fbzrguvat gb gur cebonovyvgl bs na bofreingvba - vs lbh bhgchg gur fnzr cerqvpgrq bofreingvbaf ertneqyrff bs gur rivqrapr, gura vg'f whfg n phevbfvgl fgbccre engure guna rivqrapr.

Fb, ornevat gung va zvaq: Gurer ner znal jnlf bs cuenfvat gur nethzrag sbe tbq jura lbh'er gelvat gb svyy va gung rivqrapr - frafvgvivgl gb vavgvny pbaqvgvbaf vf creuncf gur zbfg erfcrpgnoyr bar gb zl zvaq - ohg abar bs gurz frrz gb zrna n guvat jvgubhg gur sbyybj nethzrag, be nethzragf gung ner erqhpvoyr gb vg, ubyqvat:

'Gurer vf n tbq orpnhfr rirelguvat gung rkvfgf unf n pnhfr & yvxr rssrpgf ner nyvxr va gurve pnhfrf.'

Vs lbh qba'g ohl vagb gung gura, juvyr lbh'ir fgvyy tbg inevbhf jnlf gb qrsvar tbq, lbh'ir tbg ab ernfba gb. (Naq vg'f abg vzzrqvngryl pyrne ubj gubfr bgure jnlf trgf lbh nalguvat erfrzoyvat rivqrapr gung lbh pna gura tb ba gb hfr.) Rira jvgu ernfba/checbfr onfrq gurbybtvrf, yvxr Yrvoavm, gur haqreylvat nffhzcgvba vf gb nffhzr gung guvatf ner gur fnzr - 'Jung vf gehr bs [ernfbaf sbe gur rkvfgrapr bs] obbxf vf nyfb gehr bs gur qvssrerag fgngrf bs gur jbeyq, sbe gur fgngr juvpu sbyybjf vf....' Gurer ur'f nffhzvat gung obbxf unir n ernfba naq gung gur jbeyq orunirf va gur fnzr jnl, uvf npghny nethzrag tbrf ba gb nffhzr n obbx jvgu ab nhgube naq rffragvnyyl eryvrf ba gur vaghvgvba gung jr unir gung guvf jbhyq or evqvphybhf, juvpu gb zl zvaq znxrf uvf nethzrag erqhpvoyr gb gur jngpuznxre nethzrag.

Nalubb.

Lbh pna trg nebhaq gur jngpuznxre guvatl yvxr guvf:

1) Rirelguvat gung rkvfgf unf n pnhfr.

Guvf bar'f abg jbegu nethvat bire. N cevzr zbire qbrfa'g, bs vgfrys, vzcyl n fragvrag tbq va gur frafr pbzzbayl zrnag. V qba'g xabj jurgure gurer jnf be jnfa'g n cevzr zbire, V fhfcrpg jr qba'g unir gur pbaprcghny ibpnohynel gb npghnyyl gnyx nobhg perngvba rk-avuvyb va n zrnavatshy jnl.

2) Yvxr rssrpgf ner nyvxr va gurve pnhfrf.

Guvf vf gur vzcbegnag bar.

Gur nffhzcgvba vf gung lbh'ir tbg n qrfvtare va gur fnzr jnl jr qrfvta negrsnpgf - uvtu pbzcyrkvgl cerffhcbfr bar, cerfhznoyl. Ubjrire, gung qbrfa'g ernyyl yvar hc jvgu ubj vairagvba jbexf:

Vs lbh jrer whfg erylvat ba trargvp tvsgf - VD be jung unir lbh - gura lbh'q trg n erthyne qvfgevohgvba jura lbh tencurq vairagvba ntnvafg VD. Ohg lbh qba'g. Lbh qba'g trg n Qnivapv jvgubhg n Syberapr. Be ng gur irel yrnfg jvgubhg gur vagryyrpghny raivebazrag bs n Syberapr. Gur vqrn gung crbcyr whfg fvg gurer naq pbzr hc jvgu vqrnf bhg bs guva nve vf abafrafr. Gur vqrn gung lbh hfr gb perngr fbzrguvat pbzr sebz lbhe rkcrevraprf va gur jbeyq vagrenpgvat jvgu gur fgehpgher bs lbhe oenva. Vs lbh ybpx fbzrbar va frafbel qrcevingvba sbe nyy gurve yvsr, gura lbh'er abg tbvat gb trg ahpyrne culfvpf bhg bs gurz ng gur bgure raq. Tneontr va tneontr bhg.

Vs yvxr rssrpgf ernyyl ner nyvxr va gurve pnhfrf, gura lbh qba'g trg n tbq jvgubhg n jbeyq. Gur vasbezngvba sbe perngvba qbrfa'g whfg zntvpnyyl nccrne hcba cbfvgvat n perngbe. Naq vs vasbezngvba vf va jbeyqf, engure guna perngbef, nf frrzf gb or gur pnfr vs lbh'er fnlvat yvxr rssrpgf yvxr pnhfrf, gura jul cbfvg n tbq ng nyy? Gur nffhzcgvba qbrfa'g qb nal jbex - abguvat zber unir orra rkcynvarq nobhg jurer gur vasbezngvba naq fgehpgher bs gur jbeyq pnzr sebz nsgre lbh'ir znqr gur nffhzcgvba guna jnf znqr orsber.

Vg'f n snveyl cbchyne zbir va gurbybtl gb pynvz gung lbh pna'g xabj gur zvaq bs tbq. Ohg rira pnyyvat vg n zvaq znxrf n ybg bs nffhzcgvbaf - naq jura lbh fgneg erzbivat gubfr nffhzcgvbaf naq fnlvat fghss gb trg bhg bs gur nobir nethzrag yvxr 'jryy, gur vqrn jnf nyjnlf gurer, va Tbq' jung ner lbh ernyyl qbvat gung'f qvssrerag gb cbfvgvat na haguvaxvat cevzr zbire? Ubj qbrf vasbezngvba va n fgngvp fgehpgher pbafgvghgr n zvaq ng nyy?

Jurer qvq gur vasbezngvba gb trg gur jbeyq pbzr sebz? V qba'g xabj, ohg hayrff lbh pna fnl ubj tbq znqr gur jbeyq - jurer ur tbg uvf vqrnf sebz - gur cerzvfr vf whfg... gur jbeyq jbhyq ybbx gur fnzr gb lbh jurgure tbq jnf gurer be abg, fb jung lbh'er gnyxvat nobhg qbrfa'g pbafgvghgr rivqrapr bs gurve rkvfgrapr. Lbh unir gb xabj gur angher bs tbq, rira vs whfg va trareny grezf, gb qvfgvathvfu vg sebz n cevzr zbire. Fhccbfvat na ntrag va gur svefg cynpr jnf zrnag gb or jung tbg lbh bhg bs gung ceboyrz naq jura vg qbrfa'g....

Gung gb zl zvaq vf n snveyl nofbyhgr nethzrag ntnvafg tbq. Gura lbh'ir whfg tbg uvf cevbe cebonovyvgl naq jungrire culfvpny cebbsf gung fcrpvsvp eryvtvbaf cerffhcbfr, gung lbh'q irevsl ba gurve bja zrevgf; v.r. ceviryvqtrq vasbezngvba gung pbhyq bayl unir pbzr sebz zrrgvat fbzrguvat tbqyl-cbjreshy, (abar bs juvpu frrzf gb unir ghearq hc lrg.)

V qba'g xabj, znlor lbh qba'g svaq gur nethzrag pbaivapvat - gur uvg engr va gung ertneq vfa'g cnegvphyneyl uvtu. Ohg V'ir abg sbhaq n aba-snvgu-onfrq nethzrag gung guvf qbrfa'g znc bagb va fbzr sbez be nabgure lrg.

Comment author: MugaSofer comment score below threshold [+] (2 children)

Comment author: Estarlio 28 April 2013 09:24:35PM * -1 points [-]

Sorry, it's taken so long to reply. I'm easily distracted by shiny objects and the prospect of work.

Let's see:

Sorry, I was saying I agreed with them. You don't have to know every argument for a position to hold it, you just have to be right.

It seems to me at the moment that you don't know if you're right. So while you don't have to know every argument for a position to hold it, if you're interested in producing truth, it's desirable to have evidence on your side - either via the beliefs of others who have a wider array of knowledge on the subject than yourself and are good at producing truth or via knowing the arguments yourself.

Mind you, I generally do learn the arguments, but I'm weird like that.

I never have the time to learn all the arguments. Though I tend to know a reasonable number by comparison to most people I meet I suppose - not that that's saying much.

I'm talking more about the set of everybody who tells you to read the literature. Sure, it's a perfectly good heuristic as long as you only use it when you're dealing with that particular subset.

Ah, more generally then that depends on who's telling you to do it and what literature they're telling you to read. If someone's asking you to put in a fairly hefty investment of time then it seems to me that requires a fairly hefty investment of trust, sort of like Let's see some cards before we start handing over money. You don't have to see the entirety of their proof up front but if they can't provide at least a short version and haven't given you any other reason to respect their ability to find truth....

Like if gwern or someone told me that there was a good proof of god in something - I've read gwern's website and respect their reasoning - that would make me inclined to do it. If I saw priests and the like regularly making coherent arguments and they had that visible evidence in their ability to find truth, then they'd get a similar allowance. But it's like they don't want to show their cards at the moment - or aren't holding any - and whenever I've given them the allowance anyway it's turned out to be a bit of a waste. So that trust's not there for them anymore.

Well, I was thinking more theologians, but to be fair they're as bad as philosophers. Still, they've spent millennia talking about this stuff.

That's true. I just wonder - it's not well ordered or homogenous.

If everyone was writting about trivial truths then you'd expect it to mostly agree with itself - lots of people saying more or less the same stuff. If it was deep knowledge then you'd expect the deep knowledge to be on the top of the heap. Insights relevant to a widely felt need impose an ordering effect on the search space. Which is to say, lots of people know about them because they're so useful.

It's entirely possible they've just spent millennia talking about not very much at all. I mean you read Malebranche, for instance, and he was considered at the time to be doing very good work. But when you read it, it's almost infantile in its misunderstandings. If that's what passed muster it does't imply good things about what they were doing with the rest of their two thousand years or so.

I'm not sure whether that's particularly clear, reading it back. When people are talking sense then the people from previous eras don't appear to pass muster to people from modern eras. They might appear smart, but they're demonstrably wrong. If Malebranche is transparently wrong to me, and I'm not especially familiar with Christian works, nor am I the smartest man who ever lived - I've met one or two people in my life I consider as smart as myself.... That's not something that looks like an argument that's the product of thousands of years of meaningful work, or that could survive as something respectable in an environment where thousands of years of work had been put in.

Sorry, but I'm going to have to call No True Scotsman on this. How many theists who were rational in their reasons for believing have been corrected by atheists? How many creationists who were rational in their reasons for disbelieving in evolution have been corrected by evolutionists?

What difference does either of those make to the claim about atheistic rationalists? I'm not making a universal claim that all rationalists are atheistic, I'm making a claim about the group of people who are rationalists and are atheistic.

NTS would be if I said no rational atheist had, to my knowledge, ever been corrected on their point of disbelief by a Christian and you said sometihng like,

"Well, Elizer is a rationalist and he's become a Christian after hearing my really awesome argument."

And then I was all, "Well obviously Elizer's a great big poopy-head rather than a rationalist."

To my mind, Elizer and a reasonable distribution of other respectable rationalists becoming Christians in response to an argument (so that we know it's not just a random mental breakdown,) would be very hefty evidence in favour of there being a good argument for being Christian out there.

However, to answer your questions: I don't know on the creationist front, but on the Christian front I personally know of ... actually now I think of it longer I know of four, one of my friends in the US changed his mind too.

I do know of one person who's gone the other way too. But not someone that I'd considered particularly rational before they did so.

Estarlio comments on Welcome to Less Wrong! (5th thread, March 2013) - Less Wrong

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