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amit comments on Smart non-reductionists, philosophical vs. engineering mindsets, and religion - Less Wrong Discussion

13 Post author: Kaj_Sotala 04 August 2012 10:48AM

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Comment author: amit 05 August 2012 05:28:14PM *  0 points [-]

Our values determine our beliefs

I don't think the ugly duckling theorem (ie. the observation that any pair of elements from a finite set share exactly half of the powerset elements that they belong to) goes far towards proving that "our values determine our beliefs". Some offhand reasons why I think that:

  • It should be more like "our values determine our categories".
  • There's still solomonoff induction.
  • It seems like people with different values should still be able to have a bona fide factual disagreement that's not just caused by their differing values.
  • It could be true in a theoretical sense but have little bearing on beliefs, values and disagreements in an everyday human context.

(And even if we grant something like that, I see no reason to think that a "philosopher's mindset" would make you lean towards religion (because I don't know any convincing phiosophical arguments for religious propositions, for one).)