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army1987 comments on Probability is Subjectively Objective - Less Wrong
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By that definition, stuff like the value of the US dollar aren't real.
Whether you personally believe it or not, most gas stations in the US will be happy to exchange $1.50 or thereabouts for a cup of sludgy, lukewarm coffee. That may not be grounded on par with Newton's laws of motion, but it still seems like a step up from, say, body thetans.
That's because the gas station owner still believes in the value of the dollar. But if all of you stopped believing in it...
Right, but if I had an effect that depended on massed belief, I'd be pretty sure that existed too.
Say, Discworld-style gods.
(Things that depend on individual belief generally have a low enough prior that I'm probably dreaming/hallucinating, and also I can't tell myself to stop believing in things so whatever it is I think I'm doing it's not "not believing in X".)
Sure. When we're looking at socially constructed stuff, though, I'm not sure it makes sense to treat its reality as discrete rather than continuous.
It's tempting to use money as a measure of social reality, actually, since it's valuable directly in proportion to people's belief in its value. Unfortunately it's hard to put a dollar value on, say, traffic laws, which share the same property (a point driven home for me the first time I encountered rush-hour traffic in Manila).
Of course.
Actually, all value (which exists solely inside minds) is not real.
...
Things that don't exist can't have effects.
Religion is real. God isn't, but the belief-in-god is and has effects.
Value - a shared pattern between brains - is real and has effects.
Look at the quote in the grandparent. For the purpose of this thread I'm using the word "real" in the sense of "existing outside and independently of your mind". By that approach beliefs are not real and sentences "X exists" and "X is real" have very different meanings.
If you stop believing in religion, that does not stop fundamentalists from existing.
If you stop thinking money has value, the economy will not collapse.
Even if you don't trust your own brain, a shared meme can still be "real."