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What if I’m wrong? (2023)

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Re: What if I’m wrong? (2023)

#121

Post by haswell »

Jensson wrote: post #75
efitz wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Analogies are decorative writings, not arguments.

They can be arguments, for example if you want to show that the other person has inconsistent views due to feelings or bias an analogy between the two inconsistent scenarios can make that clearer. I've changed my mind thanks to analogies many times.

To split hairs a bit, analogies can support arguments, but are not considered a conclusive form of evidence/argumentation in and of themselves in formal logic.

While the analogy may have been instrumental in helping change your mind, it likely did so by helping you understand the actual underlying argument.

Re: What if I’m wrong? (2023)

#122

Post by randomdata »

Jensson wrote: post #103
randomdata wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps you missed the communication subtext? Once I'm certain I'm right I'm not going to talk it about it ever again. What would be the point? There's nothing left to learn. I'll have moved on to new topics where I don't yet know what is right – where I'm hopefully wrong so there is something to learn.

How would you go to right but unsure to right but sure without learning anything? I don't think that being right prevents you from learning, at least you had to learn something about other arguments so you could reject those.

By being right, sometimes. But I'd rather not be.

Re: What if I’m wrong? (2023)

#123

Post by backpackviolet »

gwd wrote: post #100
cksquare wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the tired kind of equivocating that's used by lazy Christians to claim atheism is a discrete and well-formed ideology. Atheism is just that, a-theism, a rejection of the notion of a supernatural dimension occupied by 'personal' god(s). What evidence (or counter-evidence) do you suggest I present to show that my disbelief in Thor or Odin is wrong?

"Unicorns exist" and "unicorns don't exist" are both factual statements of which one can have a belief. Right now you probably hold one or the other. Sure, if you'd never heard of unicorns, such a thing wouldn't enter your head; but you have heard of unicorns, and thus you do have an opinion on their existence. Similarly, if one lived all one's life in a rationalist bubble, and never even heard the mention of God or…

> Right now you probably hold one or the other.

No, right now you probably have no opinion on the subject. And depending on context are perfectly willing to entertain either or neither. The world will be a much better place when people stop having opinions on things just because someone asked them to pick a team.

Re: What if I’m wrong? (2023)

#124

Post by latency-guy2 »

randomdata wrote: post #40
paulpauper wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have grown accustomed to being wrong a lot as well, especially online, but it would be nice being right more often too. It's like "Am I really that far off the mark? Maybe I am. Downvotes coming." I like to think my opinions are not that bad. Yet when it comes to investing in other aspects in life ,where money is at stake or making income, I have been right more often than not. So I guess I right where it matters m…

I’d rather not ever be right. If I am that means I learned nothing, making it a waste of time.

If all you ever do is be wrong, I will promptly fire you.

Re: What if I’m wrong? (2023)

#125

Post by a_wild_dandan »

JonChesterfield wrote: post #20

> if this novelty is worth understanding, somebody I trust will soon explain it to me in terms I can readily digest That's unsound. It prevents learning anything which is not widely known and simply explained. I don't know the author. All the context I have is the article up to that point where I lost interest. However yes, if all you try to learn are the trivial things everyone agrees on, for some circular definitio…

You've mistaken a heuristic for a formal argument, making your disinterest is a self-inflicted wound. Everyone uses heuristics to manage their precious, finite time. Sifting through ideas via academic prescreening and the clarity of their expression are excellent heuristics -- especially for a famous philosopher.

Re: What if I’m wrong? (2023)

#126

Post by bpshaver »

mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote: post #25

Daniel Dennett is still the only modern philosopher I know of that is capable of explaining his ideas to non-philosophers without it devolving into meaningless(to me) babble, or even worse, an endless cataloguing of all the possible views one could hold on something, along with their names.

Who are some examples of the type of modern philosopher you mean?

Re: What if I’m wrong? (2023)

#127

Post by gwd »

backpackviolet wrote: post #123
gwd wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Unicorns exist" and "unicorns don't exist" are both factual statements of which one can have a belief. Right now you probably hold one or the other. Sure, if you'd never heard of unicorns, such a thing wouldn't enter your head; but you have heard of unicorns, and thus you do have an opinion on their existence. Similarly, if one lived all one's life in a rationalist bubble, and never even heard the mention of God or…

> Right now you probably hold one or the other. No, right now you probably have no opinion on the subject. And depending on context are perfectly willing to entertain either or neither. The world will be a much better place when people stop having opinions on things just because someone asked them to pick a team.

A reasonably mature thinker holds beliefs in terms of Bayesian estimates, and as Dennet says, one should always be willing to entertain evidence that contradicts your current Bayesian estimates. That doesn't mean you don't have beliefs.

Re: What if I’m wrong? (2023)

#128

Post by randomdata »

latency-guy2 wrote: post #124
randomdata wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d rather not ever be right. If I am that means I learned nothing, making it a waste of time.

If all you ever do is be wrong, I will promptly fire you.

An action (do) is never right or wrong, it just is.

A recount of an action may be wrong. e.g. "He did X" when in actuality he did Y.

Re: What if I’m wrong? (2023)

#129

Post by wombatpm »

ggm wrote: post #3

I've grown used to being corrected, to the point that it's a pleasant surprise to be told I might be right. What I notice more and more, is the "you're wrong" is used to buttress opinion masquerading as fact. If you preface "I think that.." to asserts it doesn't stop the "you're wrong" but it at least puts the discussion into the realms of conjecture about things, including facts, rather than simple asserts of facts…

My inner jerk likes to assert Hitchin’s razor: what can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence

Re: What if I’m wrong? (2023)

#130

Post by briHass »

pixl97 wrote: post #21
XorNot wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"best-practice" is a specific, over-used term in the tech industry. People instinctively give opinions and say "well best-practice is..." to fortify it against being criticized, and then lean heavily on the fact that if you actually ask them to support that notion then they imply or accuse the questioner of being hostile. "It's best practice" should invite the question of "according to who, in which publications? Wha…

I mean, not writing your own encryption library is best practice.

It's not clear, even, to what depth this 'best practice' applies. Writing your own crypto primitives is probably a bad idea, but what about combining them? AEAD approaches demonstrate there can be nuance even with battle-tested primitives and how they're combined or used in practice. Oh, but what about key derivation or protecting the keys in general? What good is that library's encrypt method if the DIY key secrecy/rotation/exchange is sloppy?
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