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JoshuaZ comments on The path of the rationalist - Less Wrong
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TYL: So8res is using the word "beliefs" in a slightly idiosyncratic way, to refer to things one simply treats as true and as fit subjects for logical rather than probabilistic inference.
(Though, even with this more reasonable reading of So8res's statements about "beliefs", I still don't think I agree. A perfect reasoner with unlimited resources would do everything probabilistically, but a human being with limited memory and attention span and calculating ability may often do best to adopt the approximation of just treating some things as true and some as false. With, of course, some policy of always being willing to revisit that when enough evidence against something "true" turns up -- but I don't think the corrigibility of a belief stops it being a belief, even in (what I take to be) So8res's sense.
I'm not sure this is idiosyncratic. As far as I can tell this is one of the most common colloquial meanings of beliefs.
Hmm, maybe. I'd have thought most people would say something is a "belief" if you assign it (say) 80% probability and act accordingly, but perhaps I'm wrong.
They also do that. "Believe" can mean both "confident of" and "somewhat doubtful of". The former contrasts the state of mind with ignorance, the latter with knowledge.
In which case, it isn't true that according to their usage rationalists are supposed not to have beliefs.