All of Michael_Rooney's Comments + Replies

A lot of truths in EY's post. Though I also agree with Hopefully Anon's observations -- as is so often the case, Eliezer reminds me of Descartes -- brilliant, mathematical, uncowed by dogma, has his finger on the most important problems, is aware of how terrifyingly daunting those problems are, thinks he has a universal method to solve those problems.

Eliezer, I don't think your comments would slight sensible philosophers, since many professional philosophers themselves make comparable or more biting criticisms about the discipline (Rorty, Dennett, Unger, now the experimental philosophy movement, et al., going back to the positivists, and, if you like, the Pyrrhonists and atomists). I'm afraid not only have philosophers already written extensively on meta-ethics, but they've also generated an extensive literature on anti-philosophy. They've been there, done that -- too! I think Tyrell McAllister is q... (read more)

but where is the equivalent statement by a (seventeenth-century) Western philosopher?

Descartes, ca. 1628:

Rules for the Direction of the Mind

Rule One The aim of our studies should be to direct the mind with a view to forming true and sound judgments about whatever comes before it.

[...] We have reason to propose this as our very first rule, since what makes us stray from the correct way of seeking the truth is chiefly our ignoring the general end of universal wisdom and directing our studies towards some particular ends. I do not mean vile and despicable... (read more)

Eliezer, I grasp the obvious utility of probability -- I pay for a variety of insurance policies, after all. But there are many claims (many of which you share with us on a daily basis) that you treat as having a probability of 1. About those claims, I find your assertion that you do not "believe" them to be a purely verbal distinction.

Eliezer said:

I'm a Bayesian. I assign probabilities, not "believe". I penalize hypotheses by their unshared complexity and update based on evidence. If probabilities come out even, then I don't "suspend judgment", I judge that the probabilities are even, and plan accordingly.

For an avowed admirer of Orwell's famous essay on English, I am surprised to see you resort to distinctions without differences. Whatever you call it (n.b. the euphemism "judge" in the last sentence quoted above), you draw a line between some claims yo... (read more)

Did you just believe that Descartes was modeling "cognitive-process flow" because some psychologist told you so? Or is possible that Descartes was, y'know, prescribing how rationalists should approach belief, rather than how we generally do?

You know, self-deception has attracted some inquiry already.

Rather than just "applause lights", sloganeering often is a cue to group-identification. Cf. postmodern text generators.

Eliezer: "How could anyone not notice this?"

Because the human brain -- like many simpler programs -- generally finds basic beliefs more practical than an infinite regress?

Elizer, your post above strikes me, at least, as a restatement of verificationism: roughly, the view that the truth of a claim is the set of observations that it predicts. While this view enjoyed considerable popularity in the first part of the last century (and has notable antecedents going back into the early 18th century), it faces considerable conceptual hurdles, all of which have been extensively discussed in philosophical circles. One of the most prominent (and noteworthy in light of some of your other views) is the conflict between verificationism... (read more)

I have to bet on every possible claim I (or any sentient entity capable of propositional attitudes in the universe) might entertain as a belief? That is highly implausible as a descriptive claim. Consider the claim "Xinwei has string in his pockets" (where Xinwei is a Chinese male I've never met). I have no choice but to assign probability to that claim? And all other claims, from "language is the house of being" to "a proof for Goldbach's conjecture will be found by an unaided human mind"? If Eliezer offers me a million ... (read more)

By "suspending judgment" I mean neither accepting a claim as true, nor rejecting it as false. Claims about the probability of a given claim being true, helpful as they may be in many cases, are distinct from the claim itself. So, pdf, when you say "The proper attitude towards the claim "Rooney has string in his pockets" is that it has about an X% chance of being true", where X is unknown, I don't see how this is materially different from saying "I don't know if Rooney has string in his pockets", which is to say tha... (read more)

Eliezer, I think we are misunderstanding each other, possibly merely about terminology.

When you (and pdf) say "reject", I am taking you to mean "regard as false". I may be mistaken about that.

I would hope that you don't mean that, for if so, your claim that "no evidence in favor -> almost always false" seems bound to lead to massive errors. For example, you have no evidence in favor of the claim "Rooney has string in his pockets". But you wouldn't on such grounds aver that such a claim is almost certainly false... (read more)

Eliezer, I agree that exactly even balances of evidence are rare. However, I would think suspending judgment to be rational in many situations where the balance of evidence is not exactly even. For example, if I roll a die, it would hardly be rational to believe "it will not come up 5 or 6", despite the balance of evidence being in favor of such a belief. If you are willing to make >50% the threshold of rational belief, you will hold numerous false and contradictory beliefs.

Also, I have some doubt about your claim that when "there is n... (read more)

The error here is similar to one I see all the time in beginning philosophy students: when confronted with reasons to be skeptics, they instead become relativists. That is, where the rational conclusion is to suspend judgment about an issue, all too many people instead conclude that any judgment is as plausible as any other.