Rationality Quotes April 2014

elharo

Another month has passed and here is a new rationality quotes thread. The usual rules are:

Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be upvoted or downvoted separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
Do not quote yourself.
Do not quote from Less Wrong itself, HPMoR, Eliezer Yudkowsky, or Robin Hanson. If you'd like to revive an old quote from one of those sources, please do so here.
No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.

And one new rule:

Provide sufficient information (URL, title, date, page number, etc.) to enable a reader to find the place where you read the quote, or its original source if available. Do not quote with only a name.

Another month has passed and here is a new rationality quotes thread. The usual rules are:

Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be upvoted or downvoted separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
Do not quote yourself.
Do not quote from Less Wrong itself, HPMoR, Eliezer Yudkowsky, or Robin Hanson. If you'd like to revive an old quote from one of those sources, please do so here.
No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.

And one new rule:

Provide sufficient information (URL, title, date, page number, etc.) to enable a reader to find the place where you read the quote, or its original source if available. Do not quote with only a name.

It looks to me to be rather clear that what is being said ("myths are not evidence for Zeus") translates roughly to "myths are very weak evidence for Zeus, and so my beliefs are changed very little by them". Is there still a real misunderstanding here?

It looks to me to be rather clear that what is being said ("myths are not evidence for Zeus") translates roughly to "myths are very weak evidence for Zeus, and so my beliefs are changed very little by them". Is there still a real misunderstanding here?

You are making a mistake in reasoning if you don't change your belief through that evidence. Your belief should change by orders of magnitude. A change from 10^{-18} to 10^{-15} is a strong change.

The central reason to believe that Zeus doesn't exist are weak priors.

Skeptics have ideas... (read more)