gjm comments on Is Spirituality Irrational? - Less Wrong

5 Post author: lisper 09 February 2016 01:42AM

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Comment author: gjm 23 February 2016 06:11:08PM 1 point [-]

I didn't say you [sc. Lumifer] were [sc. religious].

Hmm. I don't see how else to make sense of the exchange you and Lumifer have just had. Let me follow the steps backward, and you can tell me what I've got wrong. (Unless all you mean is that you only implied Lumifer is religious by saying things that don't make sense on other assumptions, and didn't explicitly say he is. In which case I agree but I'm not sure why it's relevant: Lumifer's denial of religiosity is just as relevant if you merely implied its contrary as if you explicitly stated it.)

  • You said "I guess I'm surprised to find religious people here".
  • That was in response to Lumifer's question "Why are you surprised about finding this attitude on LW?".
  • I infer that you were surprised about finding "this attitude" here because doing so amounts to finding religious people.
  • I infer that you consider that "this attitude" indicates that its holder is a religious person.
  • OK, so what's "this attitude"? Lumifer asked that question in response to your saying "I'm a little surprised that anyone here on LW would find this remarkable." (That wasn't the whole content of your comment, but I don't think any other part of it can reasonably be thought to be what Lumifer was referring to.)
  • So "this attitude" is evidently "find[ing] this remarkable". What's "this"?
  • You said that in response to Lumifer's statement "For a mere mortal you seem to be very sure of what God will or will not ever do."
  • I don't see how to take all this other than as saying that (1) you (reasonably) interpret that remark of Lumifer's as finding your confidence about what God will do remarkable, and (2) consider that attitude -- i.e., finding your confidence remarkable -- to indicate that its holder -- i.e., Lumifer -- is a religious person.
  • It could, I guess, be that "this attitude" was expressed by someone else other than Lumifer and you were commenting on them rather than Lumifer. But no one other than Lumifer replied to your comment about what God would not ever do.

I can't figure out any explanation of the conversation you and Lumifer have just had that doesn't involve you (mis)identifying Lumifer as a religious person.

What am I missing?

Comment author: lisper 23 February 2016 08:04:10PM 0 points [-]

My surprise at finding religious people on LW was not specifically a reaction to anything Lumifer said, it was more general than that. I guess my surprise was triggered more by something ChristianKi said in another branch of this discussion than anything Lumifer said. But this has become a very long and branchy discussion so it's very likely that any attempt on my part to reconstruct my past mental states will have some errors.

I tentatively concluded that Lumifer was religious because that seemed like the most charitable interpretation of his remarks to that point. When he told me he wasn't, I update my Bayesian posteriors and concluded that he's probably a troll. But I didn't want to say so because my Bayesian estimate on the possibility that he might have something worthwhile to teach me is not yet indistinguishable from zero. But it's getting damn close.

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