All of Alia1d's Comments + Replies

Alia1d20

It’s been may years since I first saw this question, so my memories may not be accurate, but I think my internal thoughts went something like this: ‘Well 1.10 minus 1 is .10, but wait I know this is a trick question so … Ah! I also need to divide by 2. The answer is .05.’ And then I checked my answer by doing 1.05 + .05 and 1.05 - .05. Introspecting now on why I leaped to the idea of dividing by two, I think what I was seeing was something like: In this context “costs $1.00 more than” means Exactly $1 more than, so it’s saying that without the $1 the tw... (read more)

Alia1d00

This is one problems with the absurdity heuristic. Because of deliberately starting at a point with such a long inferential distance, It can be hard to see where the error has taken place.

Alia1d00

Sorry to be so long answering this. Not only was work busy but my husband was going through withdrawal again and that is always an all consuming time sink.

On Solomonoff induction: If we take a look at one of the facts this story proposes to explain, - We live in a world of decay, where humans and other animals have death as their destiny and the universe itself tends to disorder and destruction, but that this is bad and wrong and against the harmonies of logic and lawfulness and the timelessness of truth. This story’s proposal that the original and good s... (read more)

4gjm
Slowness not a problem. (You wouldn't believe how long I've sometimes taken.) I hope your husband is OK. You say "one fundamental change", but I'm pretty sure there is no way to fill in the details of that story so that it actually works. Increasing entropy is a consequence of the fundamental form of the laws of physics, plus the world being in a low-entropy state at the big bang. Make a small change to that and you get not a perfect world with no death and corruption, but a world where physics doesn't work. I don't think you get to call something "elegantly simple" just because you haven't thought about the details and therefore can't see how messy they are :-). (Maybe God designed a lawful universe where entropy increases, and then set Eden up with a hacked version where entropy doesn't increase because of constant divine intervention, and then just stopped doing that when Adam and Eve didn't obey his command. That would suggest that A&E were intended to fail all along, an idea that maybe gets some support from e.g. Revelation 13:8 and which strengthens my sense that in the standard Christian interpretation of the Eden story God is the bad guy.)
Alia1d00

I agree that not being a Uniformitarian makes the makes the evidence harder to deal with and is generally a headache for everyone. But it should not be used to let a historical theory get away with anomaly without any hit to its plausibility, it should just reduce the size of the plausibility hit. Also several anomalies that are being explained by the same rule change only make up one plausibility hit rather than being additive.

On Christological interpretations, I agree it can get out of hand, and I'm not sure they are very valid here, But if "and He ... (read more)

4gjm
(Sorry, this is rather long and I fear less clear than I would like.) Uniformitarianism We are in agreement that uniformitarianism is a matter of degree and that it's the complexity of the "rules" that matters, rather than of what happens. The most popular formulation of this idea around these parts is "Solomonoff induction": suppose that everything you observe is generated by a computer program, give higher initial probability to shorter programs, and then just do Bayesian inference as new observations come in. Aside from being totally uncomputable in theory and infeasibly expensive in practice and depending (finitely but hugely) on exactly what language you write your programs in and how you encode your observations, this is a really good way to decide what to believe :-). So you're probably right that you can avoid taking an extra plausibility hit from talking snakes as such, if instead you say something like "around the time of creation, living organisms worked by divine magic rather than biology" or "... living organisms were based around completely different biology". That sort of proposition generally incurs a really big cost in plausibility, for two reasons. If you're aiming for a theory that says "before, the rules were X; after, the rules were Y" then the problem is that now your program needs to contain both sets of rules. If you're never intending to go beyond "before, the rules were different; after, the rules were Y" then the problem is now your program needs to describe what happened "before" without the compression enabled by having those rules -- this is the "a witch did it" problem. (How big a problem the latter is depends on how much you observe actually depends on what happened "before".) It seems to me that "biology used to be completely different, in such a way as to make talking snakes not a problem" is obviously no improvement on "there was a (naturally) talking snake". And I think it is, actually, worse than just "biology used to be co
Alia1d00

It seems to me that one change at a fundamental level could have less Kolmogorov complexity then several special case exceptions at a surface level. And that is what the bringer change sounds like to me, something at a deep level, connected to death, propagating all through the system.

Since we are already talking about going from a legged animal to a legless one, I don't see that doing it on a more massive animal can make a significant change in the complexity penalty.

0hairyfigment
Your approach is wrong, and I don't know how it went wrong. (I assume the problem is deeper than "bringer change" being unknown to Google.) If you know what "Kolmogorov complexity" means, maybe think about how you would program a simulated world that allows such a change to be "fundamental" and yet produces the evidence that scientists continually find. On the much less important issue at hand: you seem to have skipped the question of why this God would take legs away from any "snake," and precisely what that entails. (Should I ask how many Chinese dragons or "seeds" thereof were affected? Or would that distract from the why?)
Alia1d20

I would agree that there are some Christians whose belief set could be vulnerable on the point of talking snakes. I can think of several different arguments depending on what other ideas they were holding in conjunction with their interpretation of Genesis. Using a blanket dismissal would have the advantage that you wouldn’t have to figure out which one would work on your target. But I think we would both agree it could also potentially backfire.

Concerning the issue you presented, that ”natural” snakes just can’t work like that. I think you have considera... (read more)

2entirelyuseless
You might have the impression (given certain things in that Wikipedia article; not everything there is entirely accurate) that uniformitarianism is a premise which is used to interpret the world. Historically, that's inaccurate. Geologists were young earth creationists in the first place, but changed their minds and adopted uniformitarianism as a conclusion, not as a premise, because the facts on the ground did not fit with creationism, not even if the rules have changed.
6gjm
That's a fair point. But it seems to me that it amounts to saying that nothing in the stories in your scriptures could count as much evidence against their accuracy. (Suppose it said "And Adam, when he heard the sentence that the LORD God had passed upon him, knelt down upon the red grass and laughed for sorrow and shame" -- well, it's only uniformitarianism that entitles us to expect the grass to have been green or laughter to have been an unlikely response to sorrow and shame. Etc.) In which case, you're also awfully limited in what conclusions you can draw from anything in those stories. "Genesis 3 indicates that God greatly values obedience to his commands." No, it indicates that he did; for all we know, he might want something very different from us now. "The story of the Great Flood indicates that God has authority over the weather on earth." No, it indicates that he did; for all we know, he might have somehow given up that authority since then. Do these stories actually have much value, if everything they describe might have changed utterly? (You might say that God's character and values are known to be stable, unlike the laws of physics or anything in biology. But the sources that tell you that are 2000 years old! That's, like, 25% of the entire age of the universe! If God's character and values were changing on that sort of timescale, it's perfectly possible that these ancient texts might declare them to be stable even though they aren't.) I don't think I was consciously or unconsciously assuming that. But I was assuming something that's recognizably the same sort of animal as today's snakes -- God says "upon your belly shall you go", etc., not "I shall replace you with something 1/4 the size which shall go upon its belly". I think I agree, though, that the Chinese-dragon interpretation is at least kinda tenable. OK, that's a good point. (In terms of what it says about where Christian interpretations of Genesis 3 come from; I don't think the Christian t
0hairyfigment
Not sure where to start regarding the oddly-named "Occam's Razor" - though we can immediately dismiss the idea that one could do Newtonian Science without it. Possibly we'll discuss this, and modern attempts to formalize simplicity, some other time. Let me quickly note that the Chinese dragon interpretation would make God's curse on the serpent even weirder.
Alia1d00

These are more gut feelings, I had already considered a lot of evidence for and against these before I found out about Bayesian updating, so the bottom line was really already written. If I tried to do a numerically rigorous calculation now, I would just end up double counting evidence. This is just a 'if I had to make a hundred statements of this type that I was this confident about, how often would I be right guess.

4gjm
Much though this amuses atheist-curmudgeon me, may I suggest that you might want to fix the typo?
Alia1d10

Fairly typically fundamentalist, I believe in young earth creationism with a roughly estimated confidence level of 70%, a large fraction of the human race destined for eternal torment at about 85% and verbal plenary inspiration at about 90%.

I'm a little more theologically engaged then average but (as is typical in my circles) that mean's I'm more theologically conservative, not less.

3gjm
Are those figures derived from any sort of numerical evidence-weighing process, or are they quantifications of gut feelings? (I do not intend either of those as a value judgement. Different kinds of probability estimate are appropriate on different occasions.)
2gjm
Interesting! Thanks.
Alia1d20

I’ve found the Welcome thread!

Hi, I’m Alia and I live with my husband in San Jose, California. I found this site via SlateStarCodex and having read Rationality:From AI to Zombies I think this is a fascinating and useful set of concepts and that using this type of reasoning more often is something to aspire to. I want to do more Bayesian calculations so I get more of a feel for them.

I’m also a fundamentalist* Christian. I’m perfectly ready to discuss and defend these beliefs, but I wouldn’t always bring up these beliefs in threads. I’m not trying to deceiv... (read more)

0ChristianKl
Do you believe that both Black and White people who live currently descend from one individual that lived around 6000 years ago?
0johnlawrenceaspden
Welcome Alia! You sure sound like one of us. Hope you like it here.
6gjm
Welcome! I applaud your decision to embrace hostile terminology. I don't think you should feel any obligation to bring up your religious beliefs all the time. If you're interested in the interactions between unashamedly traditionalist religion and rationalism, you might want to drop into the ongoing discussion of talking snakes. Most of it lately, though, has been discussion between people who agree that the story in question is almost certainly hopelessly wrong and disagree about exactly which bits of it offer most evidence against the religion(s) it's a part of, which you might find merely annoying... [EDITED to add: Aha, I see you've already found that. My apologies for not having noticed that you were already participating actively there.] Just out of curiosity (and you should feel free not to answer), how "typically fundamentalist" are your positions? E.g., are you a young-earth creationist, do you believe that a large fraction of the human race is likely to spend eternity in torment, do you believe in "verbal plenary inspiration" of the Christian scriptures, etc.? (Meta-note that in a better world would be unnecessary: it happens that one disgruntled LessWronger has taken to downvoting almost everything I post, sometimes several times by means of sockpuppets. I mention this only so that if you see this comment sitting there with a negative score you don't take it to mean that the LW community generally disapproves of my welcoming you or disagrees with what I said above.)
Alia1d00

When you are

striving to avoid arousing emotions that will hinder updating beliefs and truth discovery

And otherwise being diplomatic where do you draw the line between that and motte-and-baileying them or otherwise being rhetorically manipulative?

When I'm talking with a view very different from my view, if I offer a watered down version of my view (that I still believe is true) so that there will be less inferential distance, am I being collaborative or deceptive? I fine this question particularly troublesome on the internet where it's hard to build up a deep understanding of someone's position.

0Gleb_Tsipursky
Yeah, this is a tough one. I think the key is to share your intent with your collaborators. Use Tell Culture, explain your uncertainties and your desire to avoid triggering problematic emotions, and work with her/him to figure out the best path forward.
Alia1d10

because there aren't any talking animals

Biologically speaking humans are animals and we talk. And since evolution resulted in one type of animal that talks couldn't it result in others, maybe even other that have since gone extinct? So there has to be an additional reason to dismiss the story other than talking animals being rationally impossible. You mention that the problem is the "magical" causation, which you see as a synonym for supernatural, whereas in Christian Theology it is closer to an antonym.

So let me tell you a story I made up:

Tha... (read more)

5gjm
I think there are two separate questions here. First: does saying "hahaha, these guys believe in talking snakes, how ridiculous" sound like it demonstrates a lack of understanding and engagement? I think the answer to that is clearly yes, at least if you say it to thoughtful people with some understanding of this stuff. (But maybe not if you say it to people who are already convinced or to people who haven't given serious thought to these questions at all; so maybe Maher was preaching to the choir[1] and/or trying to shock unthinking believers into questioning their beliefs for the first time.) [1] A curious phrase, that. Some Christian churches -- I'm thinking e.g. of Anglican cathedrals and Oxbridge college chapels, where the music is a Big Deal -- have quite a lot of people in their choirs who are there only for the music and might be perfectly reasonable targets for preaching. Second: does saying "hahaha, these guys believe in talking snakes, how ridiculous" actually demonstrate a lack of understanding and engagement? I think it clearly does in some cases (and suspect Bill Maher is one), but I think (1) there really is an argument against (some versions of) Christianity based on the silliness of believing in talking snakes, and (2) some (rude) people may choose to express it in simple in-yer-face terms even though they're capable of making a more sophisticated version that isn't so liable to look like lack of understanding and engagement. The sophisticated version I have in mind, which I've sketched elsewhere in this thread, goes something like this. * The story in Genesis 3 doesn't in any way suggest that the talking snake is an incarnation or avatar of, or being remote-controlled by, or otherwise magically influenced by, any supernatural evil being. It's introduced by saying "Now the serpent was more subtle than any of the other animals God had made" or something of the kind; when God is pronouncing his sentences on the guilty parties, what he says to th
Alia1d00

I would say CarlJ is right about general Christian belief in the past from Historical Theology by Gregg R. Allison

Protestant theologians in the post-Reformation period exhibited the tendency ... to adhere closely to biblical teaching on the doctrine of angels, Satan, and demons.

For how this would apply to the snake in the garden see this: Jamieson

And also correct that the doctrine is important to many Christians today from Systematic Theology by Wayne Grudem

It is important to insist on the historical truthfulness of the narrative of the fall of Adam

... (read more)
4CarlJ
Thank you for the source! (I'd upvote but have a negative score.) If you interpret the story as plausibly as possible, then sure, the talking snake isn't that much different from a technologically superior species that created a big bang, terraformed the earth, implanted it with different animals (and placed misleading signs of an earlier race of animals and plants genetically related to the ones existing), and then created humans in a specially placed area where the trees and animals were micromanaged to suit the humans needs. All within the realm of the possible. But, the usual story isn't that it was created by technological means, but by supernatural means. God is supposed to have created the world from some magical ability. So, to criticize the christian story is to criticize it as being magical. And if one finds it difficult to believe one part of that story, then all parts should be equally contested. Regarding Yvain's point - I think it is true that one could just associate "stories about talking animals" with "other stories about animals that everyone knows are patently false" and then not believe in the first story as well. But, it is not just in the mind's map of the world that this connection occurs, because the second story is connected to the world. That is, when one things about Aesop's Fables you know (though not always consciously) that these stories are false. So, to trigger the mind to establish a connection between Eden and Aesop, the mind makes the connection that "Stories that people believe are false", but the mind has good arguments to not believe in Aesop's fables, because there aren't any talking animals, and if that idea is part of knocking down Eden, then it is a fully rational way to dismiss Christianity. Definitely not thorough, and, again, it's maybe not a reliable way of convincing others.
Alia1d00

Keeping in mind that I'm not part of the group and might even be cynical about them, here is my definition of Social Justice Activism:

The idea that everyone should be equal in the social sphere, That everyone should have equal access to being cool, to being popular, to being the center of attention, to feeling liked, to feeling part of any group they want to belong to, to being liked by anyone else, to feeling comfortable and at ease in any situation. That everyone should be welcomed and accepted into any group they encounter, regardless of their race, gen... (read more)

Lumifer140

The idea that everyone should be equal in the social sphere

Only eventually. In the meantime, right now, because there are terrible oppressive structures in place, SJ wants explicitly to take power away from some social groups and give it to other social groups. The goal is not NOT equality now, the goal is to create inequality which will compensate for the oppression and, to some extent, balance it.

Look at the lists of demands made by SJ students at colleges (Missouri, Yale, etc.). They don't want to be race-blind, for example. They want to be very very... (read more)

Alia1d00

To clarify I wouldn't expect most people in a Christian country to help without an alterative motive either. ( this study comes to mind though I think my option was formed more from general experience.) I have met a few people how genuinely like to help for helping's sake but I think a larger percentage need some additional motivation like an expectation of a likelihood of reciprocation or perceiving the person to be helped as in-group like.

Also, I apologize but my dyslexia kicked in and I mis-read 19th canter as 21st century. If you're willing to settle... (read more)

Alia1d20

I’m not saying that a little more rationality wouldn’t be helpful. I’m saying the pointing to this and saying it’s irrational and maybe stupid is not the most interesting thing that can be said about it. It is more fascinating to look for what is incentivizing the irrationality.

There’s a very rational (in the sence of effective for getting what you want) negotiating tactic I heard about in one of Eric Flint’s books. The negotiator points at Crazy Joe muttering to himself in the corner and says ‘He and his friends are saying that if you don’t double their s... (read more)

Alia1d10

That's an interesting observation given that SJWs are very... forceful about separating everyone into sheep and goats. They have come to heavily depend upon the existence of "the enemy" fighting which constitutes most of their raison d'etre

Of course people of good will come to agree with them, isn't it self evident that if any normal person realizes here is someone who as had a life accident and is doing the emotional equivalent of bleeding, of course they would stop and help, giving what ever validation and encouragement that want. It's hard ... (read more)

1Lumifer
The SJ movements tends to target what they see as large oppressive systems. Cis white men is not a particularly small group, for example. Or take the commonly expressed sentiment that everyone has a racist inside so we have to be constantly on guard and fight it (a very Christian notion, by the way). That's curious. I would encourage a bit of self-reflection about how you came to believe that :-/ To remove the "rich westerner" part, let's replace China with Japan, for example. That might be so, but given that I lack the inside view, I don't know. However the militant left-wing streak is just too strong to be compatible with straight XIX century liberalism...
1Jiro
Why? Is there something special about non-Christians in this regard which makes them less likely to help you after an accident?
Alia1d390

I have taken the survey

Alia1d10

Do you think it was a sort of convergent evolution or there's actually a traceable line of descent from this bit of Protestant theology to SJWs?

Yes, they weren't the only influence but they were an influential and founding one. All the seven sisters have on going involvement with Social Justice today.

I read it as, basically, refusal to consider the consequences

There is certainly a lot of that, especially among the more extreme radicals, which Pham's article is certainly part of. But the reason this can flourish in the discourse community is that it... (read more)

Lumifer140

'men of good will can always come to a reasonable agreement' article of faith

That's an interesting observation given that SJWs are very... forceful about separating everyone into sheep and goats. They have come to heavily depend upon the existence of "the enemy" fighting which constitutes most of their raison d'etre. There are, of course, parallels with the devil, but the machinations of Satan figure much more prominently in Catholicism and are (almost?) completely absent in the UU doctrine.

this is an ancient value with regards to my family/

... (read more)
3Viliam
I see it as a set of originally well-meant goals that later spiralled into virtue-signalling competition. Now they run on the classical cultish behavioral patterns.
Alia1d40

You are right that there is commonly an implicate argument for action on someone else’s part that is irrational. There was originally an argument from Mainline Protestantism* that somewhat bridged the gap from. But most SJWs don’t want the rest of the baggage from Christianity and so don’t want to examine that foundation. But SJWs do commonly carry forward as assumptions ideas like “true” desires aren’t going to be contradictory and therefor don’t need to be put in a hierarchy:

This is not to say that there are many roles [sic] to be filled among those wh

... (read more)
0PhilGoetz
There is a simpler and stronger argument to that end from evolution.
2Lumifer
Interesting. Do you think it was a sort of convergent evolution or there's actually a traceable line of descent from this bit of Protestant theology to SJWs? Yes, but I read it as, basically, refusal to consider the consequences. It's like you make a list of what you want and pay no attention to the costs or likelihood or even whether things you like are compatible with each other. SJWs certainly do have utopian tendencies and utopias rarely tolerate close scrutiny. I think this value is deeper and more ancient that Christianity -- it's a consequence of being social animals. If I scratch your back, I make it more probable that you'll scratch mine when I need it. As long at the cost is not high, sure, whatever makes you happy. But I don't think that's what SJWs are all about.
Alia1d240

I think there is another reason SJWs (and others) may dislike “rationality” that is getting buried here:

  1. The author is not a good reasoner, and while arguing over these experiences, often says stupid things, and gets told ze is irrational

There is a difference between an argument not being phrased in a reasonable way and the argument itself being stupid. When my husband and I were first married I would win must of the arguments NOT because I was necessarily right (as later came to realize) but because I was a better rhetorician. I could lay out my case... (read more)

2bogus
This is the difference between simple epistemic rationality (having good arguments) and the virtue of actuzlly being a good negotiator (and 'good' encompasses both a narrowly instrumental and an ethical viewpoint, as you've learned. Norms of all sorts and at all scales tend to align incentives - who would've thought!). But to the extent that good negotiation skills lead to good consequences for oneself, being a good negotiator is rational in an instrumental sense. Politics is really just the real-world art of negotiation writ large, so this sort of instrumental rationality (what some people would perhaps call 'the art of the deal') is nearly as important there.

To the extent that some SJWs seem to want to say “I really, really want X,” and leave their argument at that, then rationality is irrelevant to them.

Rationality is also irrelevant to my daughter, and for the same reason, as for example in this exchange:

Daughter: I want TV. Me: No more TV now. Daughter: But I want it!

This is rather a common 'argument' of hers; from the outside it looks like she models me as not having understood her preference, and tries to clarify the preference. To be sure, she has the excuse of being four.

Lumifer290

To the extent that some SJWs seem to want to say “I really, really want X,” and leave their argument at that, then rationality is irrelevant to them.

The problem is that some SJWs say "I really, really want you/everyone to do X" but the rest of the world is not married to them and is not particularly interested in their hedonic preferences. This means that they need to negotiate for what they want and at this point rationality jumps right back in.

"I really want X and don't care about anything else" is the attitude of a small child.

Alia1d00

Yes, theologians of all strips, and philosophers and logicians of all perspectives. As long a they are willing to respond to my questions as well as having me respond to their's. (Though if someone is rude, engages in rhetorical hyperbola, etc. I reserve the right to do those things back to them.)

I'll try to check back here to see if anyone wants to do that or e-mail me at alia1dx@gmail.com and I'll give you my private e-mail to carry on a dialog.

0thrawnca
Email sent about a week ago. Did it get spam-filtered?
Alia1d10

I’m an evangelical protestant and I’d like to give my answer to the ‘what would it take to convince me to become a Muslim’ question. This is going to be a narrative example and thus show only one of many possible routes. I’ve chosen a rout that does not depend on private knowledge, fresh miracle in the present day, or even or even changed facts in things it would be inconceivable for me to be wrong about, because I see this rout as the hardest and therefore most revealing.

Muslim scholars propose a competitor to the Documentary Hypothesis (JEPD) for the Pen... (read more)

0thrawnca
"if, for example, there was an Islamic theologian who offered to debate the issues with me then I would be inclined to do it and follow where the belief updates lead." Is that an open offer to theologians of all stripes?