LESSWRONG
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All of Joseph_Ward's Comments + Replies

37 Ways That Words Can Be Wrong
Joseph_Ward10

I would disagree with this, from personal experience. I am intelligent enough that I could have figured out these things if I thought about it hard enough and long enough, but I had not focused my attention here until I read these articles. Eliezer did a great job of expressing things that I had not thought about yet, in ways that I can understand.

Of course, I'm not a random person on the Internet (literally random, that is), so that is worth taking into account when deciding whether the person you are talking to is likely to understand. Some posts are easier to understand than others, but overall I have been impressed with how accessible the Sequences are.

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No Universally Compelling Arguments
Joseph_Ward10

"He later speaks of evidence, but what he takes as evidence is religious visions not further described. Whatever this experience was, on his own account no process of rationality played any role in his conversion."

I am a theist in the process of (possibly) deconverting, and I wanted to chime in on this point. I obviously can't speak for John C. Wright, but his evidence sounds quite reasonable to me.

One thing I am doing in my search for truth is praying for recognizable, repeated evidence that God exists. I am testing the hypothesis that Go... (read more)

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1TAG
What counts as evidence is open to dispute , and what evidence can bring to bear on that question? That is a much better reason for believing there are no universally compelling arguments.
Chapter 36: Status Differentials
Joseph_Ward50

We do know that Lily gave Petunia a very strong potion to change her appearance, and it worked. It seems reasonable for Harry to assume that that potion would only work on Squibs, not Muggles.

Also, from chapter 7: " There were no questions about his father accompanying him to the magical side of King's Cross Station. Dad had trouble just looking at Harry's trunk directly. Magic ran in families, and Michael Verres-Evans couldn't even walk." The fact that Michael is singled out here suggests that Petunia doesn't have the same problems interacting with magic.

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2TobyBartels
I remembered the bit about the chest, and I accepted that as showing that Michael's a Muggle, but it's vaguer about Petunia. But I forgot about the potion that had already worked on Petunia; that seems pretty clear. So thanks!
The Prediction Problem: A Variant on Newcomb's
Joseph_Ward40

Thank you for posting this! I'm posting here for the first time, although I've spent a significant amount of time reading the Sequences already (I just finished Seeing with Fresh Eyes). The comments on determinism cleared up a few uncertainties about Newcomb's Problem for me.

When I have explained the problem to others, I have usually used the phrasing where Alpha is significantly better than average at predicting what you will choose, but not perfect. (This helps reduce incredulity on the part of the average listener.) I have also used t... (read more)

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1Chris_Leong
Well that would work for a predictor that 100% predicts your most likely strategy. If the predictor has even a slight chance of predicting the 49% strategy instead of the 51% strategy, you'll lose out as you're risking a million to gain a thousand. But yes, the discussion in my post assumes that the predictor can predict any sources of randomness that you have access to.