= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
Oligopsony comments on Making Beliefs Pay Rent (in Anticipated Experiences) - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (245)
So reading about something in a book is a sensory experience now? I beg to differ. A sensory experience of The Crusades would be witnessing them first hand. The sensory experience of reading about them is perceiving patterns of ink on a piece of paper.
DP
Edit: Also, I think that RobinZ didn't state that as something that she believed, she stated that as something that she believed the OP meant. It's that subjective interpretation of his position that I didn't want to debate. If you wish to adapt that position as your own and debate its substance, we certainly can.
What's important isn't the number of degrees of removal, but that the belief's being true corresponds to different expected sensory experiences of any kind at all than its being false. The sensory experience of perceiving patterns of ink on a piece of paper counts.
Now you could say: "reading about the Crusades in history books is strong evidence that 'the Crusades happened' is the current academic consensus," and you could hypothesize that the academic consensus was wrong. This further hypothesis would lead to further expected sensory data - for instance, examining the documents cited by historians and finding that they must have been forgeries, or whatever.
If you adapt that position, then the belief in ghosts for instance will result in the sensory experience of reading or hearing about them, no? Can you then point to ANY belief that doesn't result in a sensory experience other than something that you make up yourself out of thin air?
If the concept of sensory experience is to have any meaning at all, you can't just extrapolate it as you see fit. If you can't see, hear, smell, taste, or touch an object directly, you have not had sensory experience with that object. That does not mean that that object does not exist though.
DP
Yes, ghost stories are evidence for the existence of ghosts. Just not very strong evidence.
There can be indirect sensory evidence as well as direct.