itaibn0 comments on Many Weak Arguments vs. One Relatively Strong Argument - Less Wrong

20 Post author: JonahSinick 04 June 2013 03:32AM

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Comment author: itaibn0 05 June 2013 10:45:07AM 9 points [-]

Penrose is a worrisome case to bring as an example, since he is in fact wrong, and therefore you're giving an example where your reasoning leads to the wrong conclusion.

JonahSinick is not saying that Penrose is right, only that based on his heuristic he adjusted the probability of that upwards. To judge this wrong, it's not enough to know that Penrose is wrong, you must also know the probability estimates JonahSinick gave before and after. To give an absurd example, if JonahSinick used to believe the probability was 10^(-15), he would be wise to adjust upwards.

By the way, this isn't the first time I see you use the meta-heuristic that when a heuristic adds support to a wrong conclusion it should be taken less seriously. While it is valid to some extent, I think you are overusing it.