...wherein I channel Yudkowsky...
There are two goals one might have when engaging in an argument. The first is to defend one's own position, and/or score rhetorical points. The second is to better understand the opposing point of view.
In different words, when attempting to understanding the world, there tend to be three activities one might be doing. One might be attempting to discover what is interesting; one might be attempting to comprehend the opposing position; one might be trying to determine the limitations or truthiness of the position.
Of course, one also might be doing something else besides attempting to understand: defending, arguing, trying to win a discussion, advocating, playing social games, being polite, etc.
This blogger's inclination is to believe that (due in no large part to the extensive practice of rhetoric on the part of most arguers) once one shifts into the rhetorical/argumentative position, one has frequently exited the discovery and comprehension phases. Is this always true? No. Is it tremendously hard to manage simultenaity? Yeah. Roughly, I almost never see anyone do so.
Another point borrowed from Eliezer is that if one is to really pursue truth...it is insufficient to argue against your strawman parody of an opposing position, but rather against the most intelligent version of the opposition that you can conceive of. Sure, sucks for scoring cheap rhetorical points. But makes for a much more in depth pursuit of truth.
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I await the application of these principles on the side of the pursuit of truth. I believe I offered more than simple rhetoric.
Despite initial responses from readers, it was not an accusation. Rather...it was a claim about discourse in general, so as to position the rest of the discussion.
I'd certainly like to know whether the goal is to understand the internal complexities of the position, or to assume up front that the position has inherent reason (by virtue of Hansonian non-disagreeing projection) and try to discover it.
Purpose matters. And purpose is (in general) prior to the truth question.
I don't follow this!:
I'd certainly like to know whether the goal is to understand the internal complexities of the position, or to assume up front that the position has inherent reason (by virtue of Hansonian non-disagreeing projection) and try to discover it.
Do those map on to?,
One might be attempting to discover what is interesting; one might be attempting to comprehend the opposing position; one might be trying to determine the limitations or truthiness of the position.
...because I do follow that.
I think I'm almost always 'attempting to discover what is interesting' (this even directs most of what I DO in life -- especially at the computer), usually 'playing social games' (choosing wit, e.g.) of some sort whenever being at all social, and admittedly RARELY 'attempting to comprehend the opposing position' (because I usually think I understand it well enough!, or I just don't care!). Your mysterious anti-atheism leaning has piqued my curiosity, as has your 'left' rhetoric, so I'm exercising SOME of those 'attempting to comprehend' muscles; wouldn't want them to totally atrophy...
admittedly RARELY 'attempting to comprehend the opposing position' (because I usually think I understand it well enough!, or I just don't care!). Your mysterious anti-atheism leaning has piqued my curiosity
...curiosity which is 99%+ about 'how Aretae has gone wrong,' BTW...since I am consistently certain that you must have!
I sure don't pretend to be very Hansonian. I understand whatever I understand, and I don't much 'update' my beliefs based on others' revealed disagreements.
Andrew...
Yes.
The language is imperfect. I was indeed trying to map back to the original post.
And you can color me not shocked that you assume I'm mistaken.
Perhaps a peek back through my archives to the topic called Truthiness would get you a handle on my so-called anti-atheism. Though you might note that I haven't taken down my side-bar self-description.
And you can color me not shocked that you assume I'm mistaken.
Well. I had no choice!!
You commented here that you give God a probability 'greater than epsilon,' which I took as a clear reference to this e-mail from me:
[Rob:] what percentage chance do you give Christianity as being true?
[Andrew:] I call it precisely L-to-the-O-to-the-L...which only might be slightly greater than epsilon for some value of epsilon.
So. Since I'm at epsilon for a Xian God...and I thought you were declaring yourself greater than epsilon for that same Xian God...I have to believe you're 99+% mistaken.
The Xian God is not a kind of topic I give you enough special credit for to overcome ordinary rules of epsilon long division!
(Also, Rob, you might enjoy my new comment at the Truthiness post.)
Living in a simulation, or a world secretly dominated by powerful aliens, or everything I think I know being wrong by malicious intent...all that would indeed be a horse of a different color, and is way above epsilon in total. My confidence level on giving it a particular percentage is actually very low...huge error bars. See, I don't think I know EVERYTHING philosophical :P
It's rather hard to take Bayes seriously at all and not put rather impressive error bars on claims. But the size of the error bars themselves makes for consequences...and as per the truthiness bit, I was looking at p(stuff that would be experimentally indistinguishable from god).
So...I just re-ran-across you saying,
religion: not surprised where you stand. I'm elsewhere. And still in the non-epsilon percentages.
I do not see how this squares with merely large error bars for wild scenarios experimentally indistinguishable from god. No extant religion* is interested in the 'truthiness' of those kind of scenarios...instead they are all about obsessive devotion to comically specific gods-and-spirits mythologies. You can't jump straight from caring about Living In A Simulation to specially enumerating the funky traditional (including CHILD INDOCTRINATION) rights of Islamicists. Absent much much more, that hand-waving is just bizarre fringe rationalization for the water we all happen to swim in today.
*'Religion' here having ordinary garden-variety grade-school meaning. Excludes 'mu'-ish easternisms + deist-or-better Universalism.
To respond, I have to quote me, from the original post...
"
it is insufficient to argue against your strawman parody of an opposing position, but rather [you must argue-- ed.] against the most intelligent version of the opposition that you can conceive of.
"
Since I find that statement obviously true...and I haven't supported islamicist indoctrination camps...I don't see where there is a problem.
Also, I don't buy that the wild scenarios are mostly 'experimentally indistinguishable' from ANY PARTICULAR fleshed-out traditional God legend. Unless you wanna say we should suddenly just GOUGE OUT OUR LYING EYES if it turns out there are Powers of any sort.
(I almost restrained myself from mentioning this, because I don't want arguing over bizarro hypothetical future discoveries to distract from more important epistemology etc.)
strawman parody [...] rather [you must argue-- ed.] against the most intelligent version of the opposition that you can conceive of.
I haven't gotten behind that new extreme 'argument' style!! I'm surely somewhere in between it and the American legal advocacy style. If only for the advancement of public knowledge, I wanna see the BEST ARGUMENTS for anything that the MOST INTERESTED folks can weave. I'm obv not much interested in defending Freedom Of Religion, and I DO respect you enough to think that you can do a better job than me since you claim to be so motivated :P
Also, I find it fun to argue.
If you ACTUALLY think I'm being uncharitable in interpreting YOUR words, you don't wanna see me when I'm angry.
(Hint: I turn lime-green, burst through my shirt and start a CrossFit affiliate in Arizona.)
Quibble about the wording here:
"I haven't gotten behind that new extreme 'argument' style!"
It's not an 'argument' style. It's a truth-seeking style. The whole point of this post was that there is a massive difference between argument and truth-seeking. And that if we're talking, we should be deciding which one to play.
I have a relatively simple position...which I put up in truthiness.
Bayes + limited knowledge can give you at best the weak atheist position against the set of modern computational deism equivalent propositions, and even then you are, under any reasonable rules for internal evidence usage, bound to recognize (significant) room for error due to insufficient information.
Perhaps we've been talking past one another though. You seem to be arguing about a YHWH that literally tortured Job to see what he can endure, and I'm talking about all creator or Sunstein/Thaler -type superintelligences.
And that if we're talking, we should be deciding which one to play.
I'd like to choose genuinely respectful (not merely tolerant!), trying-hard-to-help-interpret-each-other's-words-as-they-REALLY-MEAN-to-mean ARGUMENT. That is, once clash is identified. For finding and clarifying clash, I try to be even more mutually loving. (I don't always succeed...some would say I RARELY succeed.)
For INTERNAL probability estimates THAT ARE WORTH THE ATTENTION, yes, construct the absolute best arguments for all angles you can see. Because, as Eliezer says, reality doesn't care. You either win, or not. This is why Eliezer works at all angles of Friendliness...he feels he HAS to.
Bayes + limited knowledge can give you at best the weak atheist position against the set of modern computational deism equivalent propositions, and even then you are, under any reasonable rules for internal evidence usage, bound to recognize (significant) room for error due to insufficient information.
Sure! No clash here.
You seem to be arguing about a YHWH that literally tortured Job to see what he can endure,
YES.
YOU enumerated 'freedom of religion' as a TOP ISSUE WORTH CARING ABOUT. I find actual real-life religions always silly, sometimes cute, always dangerous. This incendiary historical curiosity does not a TOP ISSUE make, and if it IS a defining one for LeftLibs, then, well, so much the worse for the morally bankrupt intellectual vacuity of the Left.
Yes, that last sentence fragment screams out for Patri's troll tag :P
and I'm talking about all creator or Sunstein/Thaler -type superintelligences.
..which has WAY less relevance to actual 'religion' (or any disputable issues re: freedom thereof) than my quip about being PRO-discrimination had to your raising capital-D-Discrim...and I THINK you KNOW that.
You MAY be more charitable in interpreting others' words, but the bigger, more salient difference in your and my online discussion styles seems to me to be that you aren't nearly as self-critical (as I) in sculpting your own words to help reasonable others avoid misinterpretations in the first place!
Of course, your style can be good for starting conversations. As long as you don't sound TOO crazy, it draws in us vulgarians to pick at the raw meat edges you leave exposed.
Perhaps we've been talking past one another though. You seem to be arguing about a YHWH
Looking again, I can't believe it took you this long to come to that PERHAPS! If the above is REALLY the core of what you meant about religion (and I'm still not sure it is; not sure that you've made sufficient effort to draw yourself out on actual cares about existing religions)...I THINK I've been VERY clear for days that I'm talking about honest-to-Yahweh religions worshipped by real live people.
Ok. Clear talk past then.
1. My truthiness post clarified my position as being in the near-deist favorable interpretation camp before any of the recent comment-storm.
2. You clearly spelled out talking against Allah and company.
3. I missed your distinction because of having (so) clearly spelled out what I was talking about earlier, and assuming you were responding in the same space.
4. I don't have a lot of experience with "Actual" religions beyond UU superfluff, and extensive reading in the Eastern Tao/Buddhist space.
5. Freedom of religion (my original position) is much much less dangerous than state sponsored (gaiaist for instance) religion, provides a multi-centric power aggregation and oftentimes provides enough of a bulwark against state intrusion to constitute a positive good. Part of the pleasantness of living in Texas over California was that the theistic religionists were tremendously less unpleasant to live with than the environmentalist ones.
The 'near-deist favorable interpretation' camp (...a camp of ONE, I suspect, maybe two if nutty ol' Tyler Cowen or his evil twin Tyrone decides to join :P ) is still rather opaque to me. Why use THAT word? ('deist')
Again, I'm TOTALLY up with Tierney's "How To Live In A Simulation" summary. This and other scifi plausibilities have roughly ZERO in common with any non-GenCon-going deism in my quick judgment. (And, I have no personal reason to give it more than quick judgment. I invite you to intrigue me if you can! You started to, but now you're basically explaining you didn't mean to say anything actually interesting or controversial to me...)
5.
LOTS of interesting stuff in there, some of which I actually don't have a strong opinion on. Again, sometimes I'm Bayesian in your conservatively agnostic sense ;)
religion provides a multi-centric power aggregation and oftentimes provides enough of a bulwark against state intrusion to constitute a positive good.
I'm pleasantly surprised to discover I actually said some great stuff along these lines 16 months ago!
I also especially like Reichart's, selfishgene's, and simonfunk's (an obvious pseudonym! can you believe someone would use one of those?!?!) comments.
scifi plausibilities have roughly ZERO in common with any deism
The many possibilities would inform our choices (to guide our actions) entirely differently, depending on which one is real. A Cambrian explosion of Pascal's Wagers!!
I too have periodic impulses to find common cause (or at least to CONNECT) with 'normal' thinking people. I just think you're barking up wrong trees, at least 'cause they'd suss us out as weirdos before long anyway as long as we stay honest.
Imagine: "Hey, look at this, we BOTH think maybe this universe is just my 'future self' running curious experiments via simulation!!...errr, I mean we both consider that maybe there's SOMEthing bigger and smarter than humans that we have no sign of yet...kinda like your Creator idea I guess...oh nevermind!"
So...yeah...I understand wanting to switch to shorthands like 'computationally equivalent to theism'...but really! Sometimes bad PR is worse than no PR at all.
I of course suspect you're adopting that same strategy (consciously or not) with wanting to wave a LEFT banner. I cheerfully admit that I do that too when I identify RIGHTward...though I suspect I'm contrary enough that in practice any self-labeling leads me MORE to feeling different from leftists than being united with any actual garden-variety rightists...
I gave up on normal years ago. I think that parse is a bit off. However, I am indeed positioning.
The claim is that the focus of the normal libertarian (vulgar lost entertainment value a comment or 3 back) is unreasonably rightward. And that the psychic energy of the libs is perhaps imperfectly directed towards targets that are only nominally problematic.
"I gave up on normal years ago."
I am sorry sir but you had nothing to give up!
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