Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

What if I’m wrong? (2023)

behavioralscientist.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 294 posts

Re: What if I’m wrong? (2023)

#221

Post by knightoffaith »

sdht0 wrote: post #219
knightoffaith wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the context matters. The original context for all of this is whether from the perspective of the Christian, in thinking rationally for himself/herself, must have an argument for Christianity. I think the answer is no, just as the atheist, in thinking rationally for himself/herself, does not need an argument for atheism. I think the context of a generic discussion of Christianity is different - if we set the t…

> I think the context matters. Fair enough :) > He/she is, however, on the lookout for contradictions I'll just note that contradiction is not the right term in context of the premise. Rather, it'd be discrepancy that when studied further will become part of normal science: that the laws of physics evolve over time. > But does a scientist in doing science have some kind of burden of proving this premise To be a littl…

Well, "past resembling the future" doesn't seem to be something that's properly justified by empirical observation. What would that look like? "Since the past has resembled the future in the past many times, that gives us evidence that the past resembles the future." That's circular. And it's not a claim that's logically necessary. So our belief in it is justified by intuition, not by empirical evidence or logic.

>And at that point, one gets to basically pick and choose which faith-based answer feels the best.

Well, faith isn't just belief in arbitrary things for no reason, it's a belief grounded in spiritual experience that doesn't contradict our reason. (Though there are reasoned arguments for heaven/hell given certain premises.) Talking more broadly, there is a point at which your justifications for your beliefs bottom out, a point at which you believe in things not because of empirical or logical reasons, even if you reject all religions.

Re: What if I’m wrong? (2023)

#222

Post by sdht0 »

knightoffaith wrote: post #221
sdht0 wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think the context matters. Fair enough :) > He/she is, however, on the lookout for contradictions I'll just note that contradiction is not the right term in context of the premise. Rather, it'd be discrepancy that when studied further will become part of normal science: that the laws of physics evolve over time. > But does a scientist in doing science have some kind of burden of proving this premise To be a littl…

Well, "past resembling the future" doesn't seem to be something that's properly justified by empirical observation. What would that look like? "Since the past has resembled the future in the past many times, that gives us evidence that the past resembles the future." That's circular. And it's not a claim that's logically necessary. So our belief in it is justified by intuition, not by empirical evidence or logic. >An…

> Since the past has resembled the future in the past many times, that gives us evidence that the past resembles the future

Ah not evidence in the strict sense of the world. I mean in the sense of probabilistic Bayesian reasoning [0], which I think we all use in some form (consciously or subconsciously) in forming our beliefs of reality. Since the laws have been stable in the past, we can hold a strong credence (say 99%, but never 100%) they will continue to hold in the future, until new data proves otherwise. Same reason we don't think twice before stepping into an airplane, trusting the .

In general, our intuitions do develop from our empirical evidence and logic. How can it be otherwise? Even our evaluation of which religion is true depends heavily on our upbringing and which ideas we are exposed to the most, which feed our intuition.

[0] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology-bayesian/

Re: What if I’m wrong? (2023)

#223

Post by gwd »

Ensorceled wrote: post #189
gwd wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is inside out. What evidence was presented to you that made you believe Christianity was right? It sounds like maybe some people are taking this as a challenge from me to atheists. I'm not really; just like Dennet is in TFA, I'm talking about general principles for someone trying to live as a rational creature: each of us should examine our own beliefs, and not only ask "What if I'm wrong?" but "How would I kn…

> It sounds like maybe some people are taking this as a challenge from me to atheists. Not at all, I'm engaging in good faith here. > This seems a bit strange to me... so the Romans believed in supernatural beings, and the Christians also believed in supernatural beings (and of course so did the Greeks, and the Persians, and the Babylonians, and the Egyptians, and...); but instead of this being evidence that there we…

> Not at all, I'm engaging in good faith here.

OK, I think I see what you were getting at. The first thing you should do is ask, "Is there actually any reason to believe this?" I sort of took that as a given, because I went through that process in high school: "Is this something my parents believe, or is this something I believe?"

And that's certainly useful, but the problem is that you can find evidence for all sorts of things. It's simply not accurate, for instance, to say that "there's no evidence that [vaccines cause autism]". There is scientifically robust evidence against it; but there are tens of thousands of personally compelling "anecdata points" in favor of it. To wit: there are tens of thousands of people who had the experience that their child was given a vaccine, and within a month or so they noticed symptoms of autism. "X happened and then Y happened, so Y may have caused X" isn't a logical certainty, but it's certainly valid Bayesian operation to say that "there's a non-zero probability that Y caused X". If you eat something new and then you get sick, you would certainly do well to consider the possibility that the new thing you ate may have been the thing to make you sick; genes of people who did otherwise would quickly have died out in favor of people who do.

To believe in the scientific consensus over and against your own personally compelling anecdata point (and that of dozens of other people you've met online) takes a kind of faith in the unseen power of statistics (and the reliability of the all-too-well-seen scientific and medical establishments) which many people simply don't have.

There are loads of situations where there's implicit confirmation bias which makes non-things seem like evidence. Hence why it's important to move on to the second question: How would I know if this belief of mine were wrong?

> In an age where everyone has a very high quality video camera in their pocket the sasquatch, the loch ness monster and other such things have mostly disappeared but miracles have not appeared.

Really? I haven't looked, but I kind of assume that if I searched for "faith healing" on YouTube I'd see loads of videos of "miracles". Would this sort of thing count? If not, what kind of video would count?

(To be clear, my basic stance towards these would be skeptical as well.)

Re: What if I’m wrong? (2023)

#224

Post by ruszki »

haswell wrote: post #177
Jensson wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a human based their views solely on formal logic then they wouldn't have an inconsistent world view in the first place, so I don't see why you bring up formal logic here. > While the analogy may have been instrumental in helping change your mind, it likely did so by helping you understand the actual underlying argument. The world would be a much better place if that was true, but sadly people base their world view…

I agree that people are often swayed by feelings, and that we don’t operate as perfectly logical/rational beings. But if the only thing that convinced you of a thing is an analogy or emotional appeal, and if in being convinced you learned nothing about the underlying argument the analogy is supporting, you are susceptible to being convinced by similarly compelling analogies or emotional appeals that may or may not ha…

> beliefs for bad reasons

It’s easy to argue against and for “badness” of any reasons. It’s a totally valid, and good argument that somebody just feels it. All of us do this on some level. Just because I feel it that we should consider things “good” when they are generally good for world’s society in general in some specific metrics, and builds my thoughts about more topic solely on that, from how to handle cigarette buds to how to ask something from a waiter, it doesn’t mean that somebody has a less valid point when they didn’t made the effort to follow through every questions regarding that, and cut it at “I feel X way”. No matter what they think regarding any topic.

Of course, when they are expressing this feeling, they should be upfront about it. But they are almost never, and they almost never too far away from the feeling.

And even then, you can have internal conflicts. Just because of your feelings.

Case in point: eating beef. It’s not good to anybody. I still do it. I violate my core principles for it. All the time.

And of course some topics are way foggier. Like travelling. It’s definitely good for my state of mind, and my friendships, but it’s definitely not good for the society that I fly every other week and I travel to other countries by other means every week.

Everybody has these.

Re: What if I’m wrong? (2023)

#225

Post by knightoffaith »

sdht0 wrote: post #222
knightoffaith wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, "past resembling the future" doesn't seem to be something that's properly justified by empirical observation. What would that look like? "Since the past has resembled the future in the past many times, that gives us evidence that the past resembles the future." That's circular. And it's not a claim that's logically necessary. So our belief in it is justified by intuition, not by empirical evidence or logic. >An…

> Since the past has resembled the future in the past many times, that gives us evidence that the past resembles the future Ah not evidence in the strict sense of the world. I mean in the sense of probabilistic Bayesian reasoning [0], which I think we all use in some form (consciously or subconsciously) in forming our beliefs of reality. Since the laws have been stable in the past, we can hold a strong credence (say…

Right, but what's at stake is induction itself, which is what Bayesian reasoning is just a formalization of. I never understood why Bayesianism could be a solution to the problem of induction, it just seems to move the problem elsewhere - like, in Bayesian language, what justifies our choice of a particular prior (assuming a uniform prior is still a choice).

>How can it be otherwise?

Chains of reasoning have to bottom out somewhere right?

Re: What if I’m wrong? (2023)

#226

Post by ruszki »

namaria wrote: post #178
haswell wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I also notice that argument by analogy is being over-used This one seems especially pernicious, not because of extremely over-wrought comparisons, but because sometimes the analogy fits really well on the surface. But beyond the structural fit, it does not really help prove anything. Too often I'll encounter an analogy wielded as if it proves the underlying point, when the reality is that it breaks down quickly if…

Someone making a point through analogy is pretty much a caricature of bad reasoning. It's a pretty common trope.

So far I haven’t seen an argument in this thread for why it’s bad reasoning when you want to show that the reasons are not what’s stated. It was just stated that it’s bad. So why is that?

Re: What if I’m wrong? (2023)

#227

Post by ruszki »

The_Colonel wrote: post #171
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…

Arguing by analogy is indeed problematic. You can often find rough analogy which supports the argument, but also a different analogy which disproves it. Additionally, I think arguing by analogy is a sign that you lack real / structural arguments, real understanding.

If you can find analogies for both supporting and disproving something, then the reasons are not what’s stated. Isn’t it good to show that?

Re: What if I’m wrong? (2023)

#228

Post by ruszki »

Eisenstein wrote: post #60
pixl97 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

If someone asks you 'why?' can you tell them? If not, you are using it as a weasel word. If so, then you are using it as shorthand for 'I could explain it but I don't think I need to right now'.

Or literally that’s the only information what you really have. I haven’t met a single person except universities who knew more about this topic (ie they’re rare). Even the library/interface which is used is not well understood usually, even on the surface level.

Re: What if I’m wrong? (2023)

#229

Post by simonkagedal »

XorNot wrote: post #4
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…

"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…

Same goes for “anti-pattern”.

Re: What if I’m wrong? (2023)

#230

Post by namaria »

ruszki wrote: post #226
namaria wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone making a point through analogy is pretty much a caricature of bad reasoning. It's a pretty common trope.

So far I haven’t seen an argument in this thread for why it’s bad reasoning when you want to show that the reasons are not what’s stated. It was just stated that it’s bad. So why is that?

I've honestly tried but I can't make out what you mean here:

> you want to show that the reasons are not what’s stated

Post reply on HN