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Carinthium comments on Skepticism about Probability - Less Wrong Discussion

-8 Post author: Carinthium 27 January 2014 09:49AM

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Comment author: Carinthium 27 January 2014 02:00:44PM 0 points [-]

I explained my context was the refutation of philosophical scepticism in general- what I was after should have been clear.

1- You assume that the criterion of self-evidence should be based on being universally convincing. Why should this necessarily be so? Self-evidence comes when the contrary proposition simply doesn't make sense, as it were (simplistic example: free will). The question is how to deal with that with regards to demonstrating the validity of probability/induction. 2- Because the fundamental starting assumption is unjustified, we are no more justified in believing we know the truth than the people who believe in God on faith.

Comment author: RichardKennaway 27 January 2014 02:08:46PM 0 points [-]

Self-evidence comes when the contrary proposition simply doesn't make sense, as it were (simplistic example: free will).

"Free will" is a concept, not a proposition. What is the proposition about free will that you are claiming to be self-evident, and its opposite "not making sense"?

Comment author: Carinthium comment score below threshold [+] (10 children)

Comment author: asr 28 January 2014 03:02:51AM 0 points [-]

I don't think "the concept of free will" refers to any particular concept. Different people use that phrase to mean different things, some of which are coherent, some of which are not. I don't think it's useful to discuss without a precise definition, and I suspect given a definition, it won't be necessary.

Comment author: RichardKennaway 27 January 2014 02:52:16PM 0 points [-]

The concept of free will doesn't make sense, so the proposition of its truth turns out to be self-evidently wrong after a certain amont of thought.

It does make sense to Daniel Dennett and Sam Harris, who have both given it more than "a certain amount of thought".

I think that's all that need be said here.

Comment author: Carinthium 27 January 2014 02:56:56PM 0 points [-]

Not true- Sam Harris concludes it's incoherent. That's at the VERY START of what you linked to.

Comment author: RichardKennaway 27 January 2014 07:50:12PM 0 points [-]

So he does (though not at the very start of what I linked to). My mistake. Nevertheless, Dennett does take it seriously, as do various other philosophers, as indeed does Eliezer right here. So on what grounds do you dismiss it as "self-evidently" wrong? Merely an inability to say why it seems wrong to you?

Comment author: Carinthium 28 January 2014 02:56:54AM * 0 points [-]

Sam Harris, for a start, gives very good reasons. Maybe you should read him- he puts it better.

Comment author: RichardKennaway 28 January 2014 12:24:24PM 0 points [-]

Not so self-evident, then? Sam Harris puts out a bunch of arguments, and Dennett puts out a bunch taking a different view, and lots of other philosophers argue these and other points of view, and you agree with Harris, but what role is "self-evidence" playing here? It looks like any other sort of argument, where people put forth evidence of the ordinary sort, and deductions, and intuition pumps, and so on, and because it's philosophy, no-one is persuaded by anything (except for graduate students adopting the dominant views of wherever they're studying).

You've read Harris, and it seems have had some sort of conversion experience. That is, you have acquired a belief without being able to access the reasons that you hold it, and take this to be a fact about the belief, its "self-evidence". But lots of other people -- Dennett, for example -- have read Harris and had a completely different experience, and find his view not self-evident at all.

Comment author: Carinthium 28 January 2014 12:59:53PM 0 points [-]

It is self-evident in that it follows logically without any sort of assumptions whatsoever, merely by examining the concept of free will. Perhaps you mean something different.

Comment author: RichardKennaway 28 January 2014 01:07:45PM 0 points [-]

The concept and the thing conceived of are two different things. Sunrises did not cease when heliocentrism began. That someone conceptualises something in a way that can easily be knocked down does not mean that there was nothing there. Dennett makes this point in his review.

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Carinthium comments on Skepticism about Probability - Less Wrong Discussion

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