hen 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: [deleted] 20 May 2013 05:33:55PM *  0 points [-]

That is, I don't think we disagree about what my brain is doing, merely what words to assign to what my brain is doing.

We agree on what our brains are doing. I think we disagree on whether or not our beliefs are limited to what our brains are or were doing: I suppose I'm saying that I should be said to believe right now what my brain would predictably do (belief/inference wise) on the basis of what it's doing and has already done (excluding any new information).

Suppose we divide my beliefs (on my view of 'belief') into my occurrent beliefs (stuff my brain has done or is doing) from my extrapolated beliefs (stuff it would predictably do excluding new information). If you grant that my extrapolated beliefs have some special status that differentiates them from, say, the beliefs I'll have about the episodes of The Americans I haven't watched yet, then we're debating semantics. If you don't think my extrapolated beliefs are importantly different from any old beliefs I'll have later on, then I think we're arguing about something substantial.

Nor would I say that I was explicitly aware that it followed from "car > 100kg" that "car > 12.141341 kg" prior to explicitly thinking about it.

I mean that supposing you're explicitly aware of a more general claim, say 'the car weighs more than any specific real number of kilograms less than 100kg', then you believe the (infinite) set of implied beliefs about the relation of the car's weight to every real number of kg below 100, even though your brain hasn't, and couldn't, run through all of those beliefs explicitly.

Comment author: TheOtherDave 20 May 2013 06:29:04PM 1 point [-]

Yes, I grant that beliefs which I can have in the future based on analysis of data I already have are importantly different from beliefs I can have in the future only if I'm given new inputs.
Yes, I agree that the infinite set of implied beliefs about the car's weight is in the former category, assuming I'm aware that the car weighs more than 100 kg and that numbers work the way they work.
I think we're just debating semantics.

Comment author: [deleted] 20 May 2013 06:30:34PM 0 points [-]

Okay, well, thanks for giving me the opportunity to think this through a bit more.