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felipec

unbelief

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felipec


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
unbelief

				
				
				

				

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					joined 2022 November 04 19:55:17 UTC
				


				
					

					
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				2+2 = not what you think
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
This is a smoke screen. You still haven't answered the question.


The most important ideas in civilization are not "clever". So what?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				2+2 = not what you think
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Finally, and most importantly, law in general and international law in particular is much less clearly defined and broadly agreed upon than simple arithmetic over the natural numbers.




This supports my argument. If I demonstrate that a rational agent should doubt something very "clearly defined" such as 2+2=4, then it logically follows that something much less clearly defined should be doubted as well.




if I say “Waffles are better than pancakes, that's as clear as the sky is blue”, would you start arguing that the sky isn't always blue?




Yes. I start with the claims that are more easy to dismantle because I know that people virtually never doubt their beliefs in real time. It would be very hard for me to convince that person that waffles are not necessarily better than pancakes, but it would be easy to dismantle the auxiliary claim.


This person may attempt to find another more unequivocally true auxiliary claim, but I would easily dismantle that too. And sooner or later this person would be forced to realize that it's not easy to find an unequivocally true claim. And if it's not easy to find an unequivocally true claim, perhaps the unequivocally true claim that waffles are better than pancakes is not so unequivocally true.


If a person says "Bob is as racist as Alice", and I show that Alice is not racist, then says, "OK. Bob is as racist as Mary", and I show Mary is not racist, "OK. Bob is as racist as Linda", Linda isn't racist. Wouldn't it make sense to doubt whether or not Bob is actually racist?


Using metaphors to tackle deep philosophical problems isn't even fringe. The notion of a black swan is nowadays common in order to explain that the fact that something has never happened before is not a valid reason to think it will never happen in the future. It tackles the deep philosophical problem of induction.


Instead of saying "as clear as the sky is blue", people in the past used to say "as impossible as a black swan". To say "actually, the fact that we haven't seen a black swan doesn't necessarily mean black swans don't exist" is not pedantry, it's in fact valid reasoning, a deep philosophical notion (problem of induction), and something that should have made people doubt their 100% certainty on "impossible" events.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for February 17, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


That's expected because your reactions to criticism here are self-absorbed




Did you actually read my reactions? Because this is what I actually said in reality:






If you want to talk about my style, my tone, or why I wrote that particular sentence, I would gladly discuss that somewhere else.






This clearly shows I am open to criticism (provided the person is open to criticism of their criticism).




You are not entitled to have your stuff liked, or even to have reasons for liking something more than your stuff explained.




Straw man fallacy. I never claimed I'm entitled to that.


This is why criticism itself can and should be criticized: it's often wrong.






It all serves to explain intuition as an imprecise mastery of a domain that is based on talent and experience and sometimes is made obsolete, even net negative with formal methods




But this is obviously false, as my example of chess grand masters clearly show: they rely on intuition.




That's more nuanced than your dismissive summary.




Nuancedly wrong. And it's his essay the one that dismissed intuition without even considering it valuable: it's exactly the other way around.




Your text feels narcissistic




And if it feels narcissistic it has to be narcissistic, right? If it glitters there's no other option: it must be gold. Once again the converse error fallacy.




Put another way, you fail to write for your audience.




If my audience is not interested in the link between intuition and consciousness, that's on them.




Third, people may disagree with your actual argument, or at least find it unpersuasive.




All contestants used variations of the same argument (System-1/2 thinking), which suggests there's some obvious truth to it.


But finally you might be on to something: the reason why this particular essay won is that Mottizens do not like intuition. So any essay giving any value to intuition was immediately dismissed.




Sure, analysis – when possible – might help guide and correct rote learning, but the acquired System-1 «intuitive» judgement is only a product of repetition, trial and error; it both makes predictions the same expert wouldn't necessarily be able to make through explicit reasoning, and fails in a way explicit reasoning does not.




You are ignoring the obvious counterfactual to your notion: what can a person do without System-1 thinking? The answer is nothing. Absolutely nobody is born with all that is necessary to do high-level "explicit reasoning".


Whatever important high-level "explicit reasoning" you have done of late, it would not have been possible without previous training.


You mentioned "mental practice" in this paragraph, why did you think that was related? Pure intuition.




You could have written on any of that




I could not have written about that before thinking about it. I only thought about it after writing my essay.


I could have deleted my essay and wrote a new one as you suggest, and I'll probably write that new essay at some point, but that would be more effort, effort that you yourself did not want to do, as you didn't enter the contest.


I find it rich that you criticize me for not doing something you yourself admitted were unable to do.




Actually now that I think of it, this is a fertile field for investigation.




And you realized that only after thinking about it, didn't you? So you realize it's not possible to think of something before you think of it.


This is one meta conclusion of my essay. And you finally see there's something interesting here, but that wouldn't have been possible without me first sitting down to write about it.


This insight is now going to be part of your future intuitions, whether you accept the value of my essay or not, or even the value of intuition. You cannot unthink what you already thought.




Maybe give up on us, then?




That's obviously the correct decision if you are completely unable to look at arguments objectively, which was the whole selling point of the community, but time and time again isn't realized.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				not-guilty is not the same as innocent
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


For your coin example, your prior belief the coin is fair is most likely not 50%.




No, the probability that the next toss of a coin is going to land heads is 50%, regardless if the results have been 0/0, 50/50, or 500000/500000.




As for whether or not you divorce your wife, well that’s not Bayes Theorem that’s just how you choose to apply the beliefs you have.




My beliefs are binary. Either I believe in something or I don't. I believe everyone's beliefs are like that. But people who follow Bayesian thinking confuse certainty with belief.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Rationalists are too easily duped
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Your title doesn't seem to be related with most of what you wrote, and your conclusion comes out of left field 'here's a bunch of examples about some jokes




They aren't jokes. It seems you don't want to see what actually happened, the pattern I pointed out, and the significance I very clearly explained.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				2+2 = not what you think
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
So does the statement 2+2=0.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				2+2 = not what you think
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Do you have any source for that? All the sources I've found say the elements of the underlying set of integers modulo 4 are integers.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				2+2 = not what you think
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
That's kind of an accurate summary. But doesn't that apply everywhere in modern discourse? People assume that Kanye West said X, but "X" doesn't necessarily mean X.


Words like "censorship", "racism", "war", "vaccine" are used in different ways all the time, and when people with agendas use them, they feel 100% there is only one meaning.


So "censorship" doesn't always mean censorship.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				2+2 = not what you think
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


It's an assumption about the meaning of the question, not an assumption about the actual laws of arithmetic, which are not in question.




There is no "arithmetic", there's multiple arithmetics. You are assuming that the "laws" of one particular arithmetic apply to all arithmetics, which is not true.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				2+2 = not what you think
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


That's not how modular arithmetic works: 2+2=4 is still true




There is no 4 in modulo 4, you are confusing the modulo operation with modular arithmetic, they are two different concepts that lead to the same result.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 6, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
If you are going to moderate on the basis of how some people might interpret something, then nobody is going be able to say anything controversial. Policing language stifles freedom of expression.


A basic principle of fruitful conversations is to be charitable with what the writer might have meant.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				My intuition about intuition
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Look, I've heard this countless times for decades: "you shouldn't have said X", "you could have said X in a different way", "you come off as Y", etc. But the truth is that my writing style works: it attacks the right people, and repels the wrong people.


I'm not interested in my prose to be "better received", if popularity is what I was aiming for, I wouldn't say what I think at all. So I'm not interested in hearing what I could have said instead of what, or what I could have omitted.


If some readers are put off by one comment I made at the very end that I genuinely thought at the moment of writing that and as a result disregard the whole thing, so be it. I think the right readers could focus on what's important.


If you want to talk about my style, my tone, or why I wrote that particular sentence, I would gladly discuss that somewhere else. In this thread I would hope to discuss the meat of what I said, which unfortunately nobody has commented anything about yet.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				2+2 = not what you think
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The correctness of your position is a matter of fact.




According to you.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				not-guilty is not the same as innocent
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The single value is just the point estimate of your belief.




There is no "point estimate" of my belief because I don't believe anything.


You are trying pinpoint my belief on a continuum, or determine it with a probability function, but you can't, because I don't have any belief.




You seem to believe Bayesians only care about the point estimate and not the whole probability distribution.




Do you have any source for that? Do you have any source that explains the difference between a coin flip with 0/0 priors vs 50/50?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				not-guilty is not the same as innocent
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
But there is still zero evidence that such a teapot doesn't exist. Even if I were to grant you that your rationale is solid, that's not evidence.


I feel people have a hard time understanding that unlikelihood is not evidence. If someone tells me it's unlikely for me to lose in Russian roulette, that's not evidence that I'm going to win. Unlikely events happen all the time, and people don't seem to learn that.


What are the chances that the entire housing market is overpriced and it's about to collapse? Someone might have said "almost impossible" right before the financial crash of 2008, and in fact many did.


What are the chances that Bernie Madoff is running a Ponzi scheme given that his company has already passed an SEC exam? Again, "almost impossible" is what people said.


Black swans were considered impossible long time ago, and yet they existed, which is precisely why the term is used nowadays to describe things we have no evidence for, but yet could happen.


You can be considered right in thinking that black swans don't exist, that Bernie Madoff is legit, and that the housing market is not about to collapse (innocent), right until the moment the unlikely event happens and you are proven wrong. It turns out a cheeky Russian astronaut threw out a teapot in the 1970s and it has been floating since.


Why insist in believing the unlikely is not going to happen only to be proven wrong again and again when we can just be skeptical?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				2+2 = not what you think
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


If you prove Alice isn't racist, you haven't proven anything relevant. You're just nitpicking.




In your opinion, which isn't infallible.




I'm listening to the supporting case and engaging with your arguments.




This is not enough. Open debate requires an open mind: you must accept the possibility that you might be wrong.


If you don't even accept the possibility that you might be wrong about anything, then there's no point in debating, not about Alice, not about Bob, not about anything. All you are doing is wasting the time of your interlocutor.


This in my view is arguing in bad faith. If there's absolutely no way you can be convinced otherwise, then what am I even doing?




You're mainly arguing he's as racist as Alice and I happen to know she isn't.




Therefore it's impossible for you to be convinced of anything (about Alice and even less of Bob), and there's no point in me even trying.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				2+2 = not what you think
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Conversely, if they say "Bob is as racist as Alice, because he's the author of the bobracial supremacy manifesto", pointing out Alice isn't racist just distracts from the point at hand. Yes, it's a bad metaphor, but the point stands.




Yes, but the premise of this line of thought is precisely the opposite: it's not easy to prove Bob isn't racist, other other hand it's extremely easy to prove Alice isn't racist.




I have refuted your argument that 2+2=4 is not unequivocally true, but I'm still willing to discuss the point you were trying to make without forcing you to come up with a new example.




But discussing is not accepting. You are arguing that Bob is a racist, but you are nowhere near accepting the possibility that he might not be.


You are not willing to accept that Alice might not be a racist, and Bob even less. Which proves my point.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				2+2 = not what you think
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I am not 100% certain it's impossible for someone (including myself) to be mistaken about the definitions or meanings of commonly used words or mathematical symbols.




That was not my claim. Please read my claim and then answer my question.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				2+2 = not what you think
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


In our case, informations isn't just limited, but artificially limited, i.e. omitted.




Wrong. Information by its very nature is limited. Nobody is "artificially" limiting the information that can fit in one bit, one bit can only fit one bit of information. Period.


This is the foundation of information theory.




The information is indeed still available, just by deriving it from context.




There is no context attached to information. One bit is one bit. You can try to do some clever tricks with two bits, or four bits, but at the end of the day the information is the information.




We both know monday after sunday is next week.




No, we don't. You are assuming where the week starts.




You're making an argument based on information you know is incomplete, and the missing information invalidates it.




All information is incomplete.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				2+2 = not what you think
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
You didn't answer my question.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				2+2 = not what you think
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


It’s not a fallacy because I assume the content of his argument is not the content of your argument.




But you are assuming his argument is valid merely on the basis of his credentials.


And you are assuming my argument is invalid merely on the basis of my credentials.


That's a fallacy.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				2+2 = not what you think
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
This is your claim:




This is usually covered in basic math courses or textbooks.




What is "this" in this context?


Also, you claimed that "this" is taught in basic math textbooks, but you din't provide an example of such textbook, you provided one of logic.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				2+2 = not what you think
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Literally everyone makes assumptions whenever they have literally any thought or take literally any action.




Yes, but not everyone realizes they are making an assumption. Just like virtually nobody realizes they are making an assumption when answering the 2+2 question.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				2+2 = not what you think
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


If it was three hours, then I wouldn't answer 1:00 like you're suggesting either. I'd say "01:00 the next day" because time isn't truly modular




But your clock would read 01:00.


We use this concept in programming all the time. If the week ends in Sunday we don't say that the day after that is Monday the next week, it's Monday (this doesn't change if the week ends in Saturday). In fact, many people consider Friday 23:00+02:00 to still be Friday night.




I'm not sure about more esoteric ones, but in spherical and hyperbolic geometries pairs of lines with constant distance simply don't exist.




Yes, I meant "two straight lines that indefinitely extended in a two-dimensional plane that are both perpendicular to a third line", like in this picture, which are kind of parallel. The point is the standard concept of "parallel" more or less only exists in Euclidean geometries.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				2+2 = not what you think
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
In the real world people do misinterpret, and they rarely (if ever) follow Grice's razor. They argue about what Trump said, rather than what Trump meant.


Semantics is in my opinion a huge problem in modern discourse. Russia claims what they did in Ukraine was a "special military operation", but other people claim it's a "war". Which is it? Meaning does matter.


Even in deep philosophical debates meaning is everything. A debate about "free will" entirely depends on what opposing sides mean by "free will", and there's at least three different definitions.


You say the meaning of meaning is "not extremely deep", but does it have to be? People fail extremely basic problems of logic (90% fail the Wason selection task), basic problems of probability (like the Monty Hall problem), I've also setup my own problems of probability of probability, and guess what?: most people get it wrong.


Maybe some ideas are too simple for you, but what about other people perhaps not so intellectually gifted? My objective is to arrive to a concept that even people with an IQ of 80 would be able to understand, and I'm not sure they would understand what modular arithmetic even means (not the modulo operator), so perhaps even though it's "not extremely deep" for you, it's a challenge for them.