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Perplexed comments on I'm becoming intolerant. Help. - Less Wrong Discussion

26 Post author: loup-vaillant 30 June 2011 03:30PM

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Comment author: Perplexed 01 July 2011 03:54:41PM 2 points [-]

My implicit point was this: Nesov2006 probably did not realize that Nesov2006 was a fool and Nesov2008 probably did not judge himself to be a crackpot. Therefore, a naive extrapolation ("obvious prediction") suggests that Nesov2011 has some cognitive flaws which he doesn't yet recognize; he will recognize this, though, in a few years.

JoshuaZ, as I understood him, was suggesting that one improves ones tolerance by enlarging ones prior for the hypothesis that one is currently flawed oneself. He suggests the time-machine thought experiment as a way of doing so.

You, as I understood you, claimed that JoshuaZ's self-hack doesn't work on you. I'm still puzzled as to why not.

Comment author: Vladimir_Nesov 01 July 2011 04:04:11PM *  1 point [-]

My implicit point was this: Nesov2006 probably did not realize that Nesov2006 was a fool and Nesov2008 probably did not judge himself to be a crackpot.

To a significant extent, both would agree with my judgment. The problem was not so much inability to see the presence of a problem, they just didn't know its nature in enough detail to figure out how to get better. So the situation is not symmetric in the way you thought.

See The Modesty Argument for a discussion of why I won't believe myself crazy just because there are all those crazy people around who don't believe themselves crazy.