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G0W51 comments on My Skepticism - Less Wrong Discussion

2 Post author: G0W51 31 January 2015 02:00AM

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Comment author: G0W51 01 February 2015 02:17:25AM -1 points [-]

Certainly, if you decide to ignore probability theory, Occam's Razor, and a whole host of other things. It's not advisable, but it's possible if you choose your axioms that way. If you decide to live your life under such an assumption, be sure to tell me how it turns out.

Why would one need to ignore probability theory and Occam's Razor? Believing that the world is stagnant and that the memories one is currently thinking of are false, and that the memory of having more memories is false, seems to be a simple explanation to the universe.

At this point, I'd say you're maybe a bit confused about the meaning of the word "better". For something to be "better" requires a criterion by which to judge that something; you can't just use the word "better" in a vacuum and expect the other person to be able to immediately answer you. In most contexts, this isn't a problem because both participants generally understand and have a single accepted definition of "better", but since you're advocating throwing out pretty much everything, you're going to need to define (or better yet, Taboo) "better" before I can answer your main question about a certain set of axioms being better than any other.

By better, I mean "more likely to result in true beliefs." Or if you want to taboo true, "more likely to result in beliefs that accurately predict percepts."

Comment author: ike 01 February 2015 02:56:05AM *  0 points [-]

Or if you want to taboo true, "more likely to result in beliefs that accurately predict percepts."

If I were to point out that my memories say that making some assumptions tend to lead to better perception predictions (and presumably yours also), would you accept that?

Are you actually proposing a new paradigm that you think results in systematically "better" (using your definition) beliefs? Or are you just saying that you don't see that the paradigm of accepting these assumptions is better at a glance, and would like a more rigorous take on it? (Either is fine, I'd just respond differently depending on what you're actually saying.)

Comment author: G0W51 01 February 2015 04:20:33AM *  -1 points [-]

If I were to point out that my memories say that making some assumptions tend to lead to better perception predictions (and presumably yours also), would you accept that?

I'd only believe it if you gave evidence to support it.

Are you actually proposing a new paradigm that you think results in systematically "better" (using your definition) beliefs? Or are you just saying that you don't see that the paradigm of accepting these assumptions is better at a glance, and would like a more rigorous take on it? (Either is fine, I'd just respond differently depending on what you're actually saying.)

The latter. What gave you the suggestion that I was proposing an improved paradigm?

Comment author: ike 01 February 2015 04:30:21AM *  0 points [-]

What gave you the suggestion that I was proposing an improved paradigm?

You seemed to think that not taking some assumptions could lead to better beliefs, and it wasn't clear to me how strong your "could" was.

You seem to accept induction, so I'll refer you to http://lesswrong.com/lw/gyf/you_only_need_faith_in_two_things/

Comment author: G0W51 01 February 2015 05:38:02PM 0 points [-]

Though the linked article stated that one only needs to believe that induction has a non-super-exponentially small chance of working and that a single large ordinal is well-ordered, but it did really justify this. It spoke nothing about why belief in one's percepts and reasoning skills is needed.

Comment author: dxu 01 February 2015 06:24:13AM -1 points [-]

Believing that the world is stagnant and that the memories one is currently thinking of are false, and that the memory of having more memories is false, seems to be a simple explanation to the universe.

Not in the sense that I have in mind.

"more likely to result in true beliefs."

Unfortunately, this still doesn't solve the problem. You're trying to doubt everything, even logic itself. What makes you think the concept of "truth" is even meaningful?

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