You're looking at Less Wrong's discussion board. This includes all posts, including those that haven't been promoted to the front page yet. For more information, see About Less Wrong.

TheAncientGeek comments on Help with Bayesian priors - Less Wrong Discussion

4 Post author: WikiLogicOrg 14 August 2016 10:24AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Article Navigation

Comments (26)

Comments (26)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: TheAncientGeek 25 August 2016 08:19:48AM *  0 points [-]

Correct by whose definition? In a consistent reality that is possible to make sense of, one would expect evolved beings to start coming to the same conclusions.

I wouldn't necessarily expect that for the reasons given. You have given contrary opinion, not a counter argument.

From this question i assume you are getting at our inability to know things and the idea that what is correct for one, may not be for another. That is a big discussion but let me say that i premise this on the idea that a true skeptic realizes we can not know anything for sure and that is a great base to start building our knowledge of the world from.

I don't see how it addresses the circularity problem.

That vastly simplifies the world and allows us to build it up again from some very basic axioms. If

Or that. Is everyone going to be on the same axioms?

It is the case that your reality is fundamentally different from mine, we should learn this as we go. Remember that there is actually only one reality - that of the viewers.

The existence of a single reality isn't enough to guarantee convergence of beliefs for the reasons given.

Do you not see that you are assuming you will suddenly be able to solve the foundational problems that philosophers have been wrestling with for millennia.

There were many issues wrestled with for millennia that were suddenly solved. Why should this be any different?

That doesn't make sense. The fact that something was settled eventually doesn't mean that you probably problems are going to be settled at a time convenient for you.

I could ask me the opposite question of course but that attitude is not the one taken by any human who ever discover something worth while. Our chances of success may be tiny but they are better than zero, which is what they would be if no one tries. Ugh... i feel like i am writing inspirational greeting card quotes but the point still stands!

Yes I feel that you are talking in vague but positive generalities.

Comment author: WikiLogicOrg 27 August 2016 12:19:47PM 0 points [-]

Yes I feel that you are talking in vague but positive generalities.

First, on a side note, what do you mean by "but positive"? As in idealistic? Excuse my vagueness. I think it comes from trying to cover too much at once. I am going to pick on a fundamental idea i have and see your response because if you update my opinion on this, it will cover much of the other issues you raised.

I wrote a small post (www.wikilogicfoundation.org/351-2/) on what i view as the starting point for building knowledge. In summary it says our only knowledge is that of our thought and the inputs that influence them. It is on a similar vein to "I think therefore i am" (although, maybe it should be "thoughts, therefore thoughts are" to keep the pedantics happy) . I did not mention it in the article but if we try and break it down like this, we can see that our only purpose is to satisfy our urges. For example, if we experience a God telling us we should worship them and be 'good' to be rewarded, we have no reason to do this unless we want to satisfy our urge to be rewarded. So no matter our believes, we all have the same core drive - to satisfy our internal demands. The next question is whether these are best satisfied cooperatively or competitively. However i imagine you have a lot of objections thus far so i will stop to see what you have to say about that. Feel free to link me to anything relevant explaining alternate points of view if you think a post will take too long.

Comment author: TheAncientGeek 30 August 2016 09:38:39AM 0 points [-]

What I mean by "vague but positive" is that you keep saying there is no problem, but not saying why.

I wrote a small post (www.wikilogicfoundation.org/351-2/) on what i view as the starting point for building knowledge. In summary it says our only knowledge is that of our thought and the inputs that influence them.

That's a standard starting point. I am not seeing anything that dissolves the standard problems.

So no matter our believes, we all have the same core drive - to satisfy our internal demands.

We all have the same meta-desire, whilst having completely different object level desires. How is that helping?

Powered by Reddit Powered by Reddit