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Peter3 comments on Dark Side Epistemology - Less Wrong
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Comments (110)
In general, beliefs require evidence.
In general? Which beliefs don't?
Think of what it would take to deny evolution or heliocentrism
Or what it would take to prove that the Moon doesn't exist.
As for listing common memes that were spawned by the Dark Side - would you care to take a stab at it, dear readers?
Cultural relativity. Such-and-such is unconstitutional. The founding fathers never intended... (various appeals to stick to the founding fathers original vision) Be reasonable (moderate) Show respect for your elders It's my private property _____ is human nature. Don't judge me. _____ is unnatural and therefore wrong. _____ is natural and therefore right. We need to switch to alternative energies such as wind, solar, and tidal. The poor are lazy The entire American political vocabulary (bordering on Orwellian) Animal rights
.. much more.
"'In general, beliefs require evidence.' In general? Which beliefs don't?"
This is a language problem. "In general" or "generally" to a scientist/mathematician/engineer means "always," whereas in everyday speech it means "sometimes."
For example I could tell you that a fence with 2 sections has 3 posts ( I=I=I ), or I could tell you that "in general" a fence with N sections has N+1 posts.
Where N >= 3 the fence can (and often does) have N posts.
Ya, if it wraps in on itself, for sure.
Or if the farmer uses a tree instead. ;)
“How many posts does a fence have, if you call the tree a post?”
"We need to switch to alternative energies such as wind, solar, and tidal. The poor are lazy ... Animal rights"
I don't think these fit. Regardless of whether you agree with them, they are specific assertions, not general claims about reasoning with consistently anti-epistemological effects.
The probability is the prior times the evidence ratio, so the higher the prior probability, the less evidence you need. If there's a lottery with one million numbers, and you have no evidence for anything, you'll think there's a 0.0001% chance of it getting 839772 exactly, a 50% chance of it getting 500000 or less, and a 99.9999% chance of it getting something other than 839772. Thus, you can be pretty sure it won't land on 839772 even without evidence.
I think knowing a prior constitutes evidence. If you know that the lottery has one million numbers, that is a piece of evidence.
You need a prior to take evidence into account. If the prior is evidence, then what is the prior?
Hm... You make a good point. I'm not sure I understand this conceptually well enough to have any sort of coherent response.
Your knowledge of the rules of probability is evidence. It's not evidence specific to this question, but it is evidence for this question, among others.