TakeOnIt: Database of Expert Opinions

17 Eliezer_Yudkowsky 05 January 2010 08:54PM

Ben Albahari wrote to tell us about TakeOnIt, which is trying to build a database of expert opinions.  This looks very similar to the data that would be required to locate the Correct Contrarian Cluster - though currently they're building the expert database collaboratively, using quotes, rather than by directly polling the experts on standard topics.  Searching for "many worlds" and "zombies" didn't turn up anything as yet; "God" was more productive.

The site is open to the public, you can help catalog expert opinions, and Ben says they're happy to export the data for the use of anyone interested in this research area.

Having this kind of database in standardized form is critical for assessing the track records of experts.  TakeOnIt is aware of this.

The Correct Contrarian Cluster

38 Eliezer_Yudkowsky 21 December 2009 10:01PM

Followup to: Contrarian Status Catch-22

Suppose you know someone believes that the World Trade Center was rigged with explosives on 9/11.  What else can you infer about them?  Are they more or less likely than average to believe in homeopathy?

I couldn't cite an experiment to verify it, but it seems likely that:

  • There are persistent character traits which contribute to someone being willing to state a contrarian point of view. 
  • All else being equal, if you know that someone advocates one contrarian view, you can infer that they are more likely than average to have other contrarian views.

All sorts of obvious disclaimers can be included here.  Someone who expresses an extreme-left contrarian view is less likely to have an extreme-right contrarian view.  Different character traits may contribute to expressing contrarian views that are counterintuitive vs. low-prestige vs. anti-establishment etcetera.  Nonetheless, it seems likely that you could usefully distinguish a c-factor, a general contrarian factor, in people and beliefs, even though it would break down further on closer examination; there would be a cluster of contrarian people and a cluster of contrarian beliefs, whatever the clusters of the subcluster.

(If you perform a statistical analysis of contrarian ideas and you find that they form distinct subclusters of ideologies that don't correlate with each other, then I'm wrong and no c-factor exists.)

Now, suppose that someone advocates the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics.  What else can you infer about them?

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The Contrarian Status Catch-22

49 Eliezer_Yudkowsky 19 December 2009 10:40PM

It used to puzzle me that Scott Aaronson still hasn't come to terms with the obvious absurdity of attempts to make quantum mechanics yield a single world.

I should have realized what was going on when I read Scott's blog post "The bullet-swallowers" in which Scott compares many-worlds to libertarianism.  But light didn't dawn until my recent diavlog with Scott, where, at 50 minutes and 20 seconds, Scott says:

"What you've forced me to realize, Eliezer, and I thank you for this:  What I'm uncomfortable with is not the many-worlds interpretation itself, it's the air of satisfaction that often comes with it."
        -- Scott Aaronson, 50:20 in our Bloggingheads dialogue.

It doesn't show on my face (I need to learn to reveal my expressions more, people complain that I'm eerily motionless during these diavlogs) but at this point I'm thinking, Didn't Scott just outright concede the argument?  (He didn't; I checked.)  I mean, to me this sounds an awful lot like:

Sure, many-worlds is the simplest explanation that fits the facts, but I don't like the people who believe it.

And I strongly suspect that a lot of people out there who would refuse to identify themselves as "atheists" would say almost exactly the same thing:

What I'm uncomfortable with isn't the idea of a god-free physical universe, it's the air of satisfaction that atheists give off.

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