Rationality Quotes Thread September 2015

elharo

Another month, another rationality quotes thread. The rules are:

Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be upvoted or downvoted separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
Do not quote yourself.
Do not quote from Less Wrong itself, HPMoR, Eliezer Yudkowsky, or Robin Hanson. If you'd like to revive an old quote from one of those sources, please do so here.
No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.
Provide sufficient information (URL, title, date, page number, etc.) to enable a reader to find the place where you read the quote, or its original source if available. Do not quote with only a name.

Another month, another rationality quotes thread. The rules are:

Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be upvoted or downvoted separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
Do not quote yourself.
Do not quote from Less Wrong itself, HPMoR, Eliezer Yudkowsky, or Robin Hanson. If you'd like to revive an old quote from one of those sources, please do so here.
No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.
Provide sufficient information (URL, title, date, page number, etc.) to enable a reader to find the place where you read the quote, or its original source if available. Do not quote with only a name.

I would expect heavier tails than that. (For other questions besides that of gods, too.) I'd expect that there might be dozens of reasons providing half a bit or so.

Fair enough. That 80% figure was kindof pulled out of nowhere, really.

For what it's worth, I might rate it at maybe 7 bits. Whether I'm a reasonable and intelligent person isn't for me to say :-).

You think the theistic explanation might be as much as a hundred times more complex?

...there may be some element of my current position biasing my estimate, but that does seem a little excessive.

Whether I'm a reasonable and intelligent person isn't for me to say :-).

So far as this debate goes, my impression is that you either are both reasonable and intelligent or you're really good at faking it.

as much as a hundred times more complex?

No, as much as seven bits more complex. (More precisely, I think it's probably a lot more more-complex than that, but I'm quite uncertain about my estimates.)

really good at faking it

Damn, you caught me. (Seriously: I'm pretty sure that being really good at faking intelligence requires intelligence. I'm not so sure about reasonable-ness.)