Yes. Indeed it was so compelling that I feel the need to be wary of it. I need to read some rebuttals before deciding if I can really endorse what BB is saying here.
Yea, basically every book I read on topics that might interest this group of people - history, science, rationalism and things of that nature - has always came across as very convincing. This isn’t surprising! A 300 page book written by an expert complete with a battery of citations and papers can make basically anything sound convincing.
As you bring up, conspiracies are plentiful and a diverse range of them are believed by many people - organized religion, jews did 9/11, marxism and so on carry plenty of water because you can endlessly find pretty good evidence that they are correct.
being subject matter expert is unfortunately often only version 2 of this same hubristic trap. Expertise is only such in the bounds of some domain but that domain is but an abstracted silo based on prev general levels of knowledge(ignorance). Alas our minds contain not the mind of God, and our scratching forth out of ignorance lends 0 inherent credence to heuristics made from such selections. useful yes, affordable yes, but truthfulness only revealable over much more time
There are at least a few tired old arguments that all the experts know how to debunk. But this doesn’t prevent them from falling into groupthink and believing a few things that are probably wrong but harder to refute. And there are, of course, entire fields where there is no way to refute anything.
Part of the power of engineering/science is in coordinating people with different sets of expertise to achieve things together. The engineer doesn't *need* to rederive the pythagorean theorem: that's already been done by people the engineer is able to trust.
So you wouldn't ask the engineer about the pythagorean theorem: but you can ask him where he got the equation from, and figure out who to ask based on that.
This is why people are so easily bamboozled by fraudulent psychics (that is to say, all of them). People simply can't fathom how the psychic could have known non-obvious fact "x", or performed seemingly miraculous effect "y".
Yup. Which is probably why sensible people find philosophical arguments unconvincing: they know that even if they can’t find the flaw, that’s poor evidence that there’s no flaw.
Indeed. I now only skim the articles about anthropics, SIA, etc., as all the coin-flip analogies seem contrived and outlandish, even if there is no obvious flaw that I can immediately discover.
I find your thesis to apply well to philosophical topics. I see all sorts of intelligent philosophical argument on substack, but in virtually every case the argument is definitely deficient, as there are excellent counterarguments. Whether one is arguing about free will, consciousness, God, or whatever, I guarantee that there are thousands of more sophisticated and detailed arguments on the very same matter, usually with no clear winner or consensus. I did research in philosophy for 30 years, so my opinions are based on a lot of experience.
This is NOT to say that there is no consensus in philosophy; there definitely is. But when I see someone outside of the professional literature arguing that God exists, or doesn't exist, or we have free will, or we don't, I know that *at best* I'm reading a bumper sticker summary of a good argument.
This problem has been around for the lifetime of intellectual debate. Somehow us scientists managed to overcome it enough to land on the moon, create miniaturised computers, etc. The scientific method as actually practiced (by no means a simple matter to define) seems to succeed in defeating this problem, or at least defeating it enough to get shit done.
As critical rationalism explains, we can never have better than a current, critically-preferred, conjecture (even in mathematics and logic). But that is often an extremely useful thing to have, and it could be true. In any case, we do not choose whether we believe a theory or not (doxastic voluntarism appears to be introspectively false). Therefore, we should not regard it as a problem that we have been convinced by some cogent argument. But we should always remain alert to any criticisms of it. The great epistemological error is dogmatism.
That 30% probability seems quite reasonable to me. But what's your confidence that God exists now? if greater than 70%, does that mean that you think your views about God will become less correct over time?
Seems I have been overestimating your P(God), your value seems quite consistent with today's post and with your estimate of how likely you are to change your mind!
Nice post! You've made a compelling argument.
Yes. Indeed it was so compelling that I feel the need to be wary of it. I need to read some rebuttals before deciding if I can really endorse what BB is saying here.
Scott Alexander has made somewhat similar points here: https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/06/03/repost-epistemic-learned-helplessness/
And a related post titled "Getting Eulered":
https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/08/10/getting-eulered/
Thanks, I hadn't read that one before!
Yea, basically every book I read on topics that might interest this group of people - history, science, rationalism and things of that nature - has always came across as very convincing. This isn’t surprising! A 300 page book written by an expert complete with a battery of citations and papers can make basically anything sound convincing.
As you bring up, conspiracies are plentiful and a diverse range of them are believed by many people - organized religion, jews did 9/11, marxism and so on carry plenty of water because you can endlessly find pretty good evidence that they are correct.
being subject matter expert is unfortunately often only version 2 of this same hubristic trap. Expertise is only such in the bounds of some domain but that domain is but an abstracted silo based on prev general levels of knowledge(ignorance). Alas our minds contain not the mind of God, and our scratching forth out of ignorance lends 0 inherent credence to heuristics made from such selections. useful yes, affordable yes, but truthfulness only revealable over much more time
There are at least a few tired old arguments that all the experts know how to debunk. But this doesn’t prevent them from falling into groupthink and believing a few things that are probably wrong but harder to refute. And there are, of course, entire fields where there is no way to refute anything.
Yeah, except that the success of technological advancements is strong evidence that the underlying science is true.
Part of the power of engineering/science is in coordinating people with different sets of expertise to achieve things together. The engineer doesn't *need* to rederive the pythagorean theorem: that's already been done by people the engineer is able to trust.
So you wouldn't ask the engineer about the pythagorean theorem: but you can ask him where he got the equation from, and figure out who to ask based on that.
This is why people are so easily bamboozled by fraudulent psychics (that is to say, all of them). People simply can't fathom how the psychic could have known non-obvious fact "x", or performed seemingly miraculous effect "y".
Yup. Which is probably why sensible people find philosophical arguments unconvincing: they know that even if they can’t find the flaw, that’s poor evidence that there’s no flaw.
Indeed. I now only skim the articles about anthropics, SIA, etc., as all the coin-flip analogies seem contrived and outlandish, even if there is no obvious flaw that I can immediately discover.
I find your thesis to apply well to philosophical topics. I see all sorts of intelligent philosophical argument on substack, but in virtually every case the argument is definitely deficient, as there are excellent counterarguments. Whether one is arguing about free will, consciousness, God, or whatever, I guarantee that there are thousands of more sophisticated and detailed arguments on the very same matter, usually with no clear winner or consensus. I did research in philosophy for 30 years, so my opinions are based on a lot of experience.
This is NOT to say that there is no consensus in philosophy; there definitely is. But when I see someone outside of the professional literature arguing that God exists, or doesn't exist, or we have free will, or we don't, I know that *at best* I'm reading a bumper sticker summary of a good argument.
Revised Standard Version
Proverbs 18:17
He who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him.
This problem has been around for the lifetime of intellectual debate. Somehow us scientists managed to overcome it enough to land on the moon, create miniaturised computers, etc. The scientific method as actually practiced (by no means a simple matter to define) seems to succeed in defeating this problem, or at least defeating it enough to get shit done.
As critical rationalism explains, we can never have better than a current, critically-preferred, conjecture (even in mathematics and logic). But that is often an extremely useful thing to have, and it could be true. In any case, we do not choose whether we believe a theory or not (doxastic voluntarism appears to be introspectively false). Therefore, we should not regard it as a problem that we have been convinced by some cogent argument. But we should always remain alert to any criticisms of it. The great epistemological error is dogmatism.
https://jclester.substack.com/p/critical-rationalism?utm_source=publication-search
https://jclester.substack.com/p/belief-and-libertarianism?utm_source=publication-search
1. This is why you need empirical testing of your claims about parameters. Hence, why economics is good.
2. Stop arguing for God, it's very silly.
Maybe 30% on God, 10% on anthropics (I might slightly tweak the formulation, but I'm pretty sure I won't abandon SIA).
I am a subject matter expert when it comes to theism and SIA.
That 30% probability seems quite reasonable to me. But what's your confidence that God exists now? if greater than 70%, does that mean that you think your views about God will become less correct over time?
63%.
Seems I have been overestimating your P(God), your value seems quite consistent with today's post and with your estimate of how likely you are to change your mind!