All of Alia1d's Comments + Replies

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)

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.

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)

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)

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.

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)

Oops, thnks

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.

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.

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)

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.

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)

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

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)

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)

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)

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)

I have taken the survey

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)

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

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)

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.

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)