Richard_Hollerith comments on No One Can Exempt You From Rationality's Laws - Less Wrong

51 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 07 October 2007 05:24PM

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Comment author: Richard_Hollerith 09 October 2007 02:05:33PM 0 points [-]

People often consistently profess some belief, which their actions belie. But that is not what you mean. Do I understand you to maintain that there is a third aspect to every person's model of reality, namely, their "honest belief", that has no particular relationship to the model they profess or the model that can be inferred from their actions? What would you consider evidence that this "honest belief" does not exist?

What I most want to know: Do you believe the results imply or strongly suggest that if a large group of people share some model of reality which differs in an important detail from models shared by much smaller groups, the model of the large group usually contains more true information and less false information than every model shared by every smaller group? Even in academic psychology, academic sociology, principles of governance and how the government should intervene in the economy?

If yes, do you require the large group to consist only of experts or those with training in the domain to which the models pertain?