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The issues you raised are interesting but actually make this a pretty good example of my problem - how do you account for weak evidence and assign it a proper likelihood. One way i am testing this is by taking an example which i think is agreed to be 'most likely' (that he existed as opposed to not existing). Then i want to work backwards and see if we there is a method for assessing probability that seems to work well on small scale questions, like probability's of minted coins and give me the expected answer when i add it all together.
At this point i am still trying to work out the objective priors issue. The method either needs to be immediately agreeable by all potential critics or have an open and fair way of arguing over how to formulate the answer. When i work that out i will move to the next stages although no guarantee i keep using the Alexander example.
I find it is more likely that the times it degenerates into a fight is due to the lack of ability on one of the debaters. The alternative is to believe that people like ourselves are somehow special. It is anecdotal but I used to be incredibly stubborn until i met some good teachers and mentors. Now i think the burden of proof lies on the claim that, despite our apparent similarities, a large portion of humans are incapable of being reasoned with no matter how good the teacher or delivery. Of course i expect some people physically cannot reason due to brain damage or whatever. But these are a far smaller group than what i imagine you are suggesting.
I would claim their main goal is not fitting in but achieving happiness which they do by fitting in (albeit this may not be the most optimum path). And i claim this is your goal as well. If you can accept that premise, we again have to ask if you are special in some way for valuing the truth so highly? Do you not aim to be happy? I think you and i also have the same core goal we just realize that its easier to navigate to happiness with a map that closely matches reality. Everybody benefits from a good map. That is why a good teacher can convert bull headed people like i used to be by starting with providing tools for mapping reality such education in fallacies and biases. When packaged in an easy to digest manner, tools that help improve reality maps are so useful that very few will reject them just like very few people reject how to add and subtract.
Yes I feel that you are talking in vague but positive generalities.
First, on a side note, what do you mean by "but positive"? As in idealistic? Excuse my vagueness. I think it comes from trying to cover too much at once. I am going to pick on a fundamental idea i have and see your response because if you update my opinion on this, it will cover much of the other issues you raised.
I wrote a small post (www.wikilogicfoundation.org/351-2/) on what i view as the starting point for building knowledge. In summary it says our only knowledge is that of our thought and the inputs that influence them. It is on a similar vein to "I think therefore i am" (although, maybe it should be "thoughts, therefore thoughts are" to keep the pedantics happy) . I did not mention it in the article but if we try and break it down like this, we can see that our only purpose is to satisfy our urges. For example, if we experience a God telling us we should worship them and be 'good' to be rewarded, we have no reason to do this unless we want to satisfy our urge to be rewarded. So no matter our believes, we all have the same core drive - to satisfy our internal demands. The next question is whether these are best satisfied cooperatively or competitively. However i imagine you have a lot of objections thus far so i will stop to see what you have to say about that. Feel free to link me to anything relevant explaining alternate points of view if you think a post will take too long.
Thanks for taking the time to write all that for me. This is exactly the nudge in the right direction i was looking for. I will need at least the next few months to cover all this and all the further Google searches it sends me down. Perfect, thanks again!
Thanks for the links and info. I actually missed this last time around, so cannot comment much more until i get a chance to research Jaynes and read that link.
Who decides on what information is relevant? If i said i want to use men without beards and Alexander never had one, that would be wrong (at least my intuition tells me it would be) as i am needless disregarding information that skews the results. You say use all the info but what about collecting info on items such as a sword or a crown. I feel that is not relevant and i think most would agree. But where to draw the line? Gram_Stone pointed me to the reference class problem which is exactly the issue i face.
From the correct perspective, it is more extraordinary that anyone agrees.
Correct by whose definition? In a consistent reality that is possible to make sense of, one would expect evolved beings to start coming to the same conclusions.
Corrected by whose definition of correct?
From this question i assume you are getting at our inability to know things and the idea that what is correct for one, may not be for another. That is a big discussion but let me say that i premise this on the idea that a true skeptic realizes we can not know anything for sure and that is a great base to start building our knowledge of the world from. That vastly simplifies the world and allows us to build it up again from some very basic axioms. If it is the case that your reality is fundamentally different from mine, we should learn this as we go. Remember that there is actually only one reality - that of the viewers.
Do you not see that you are assuming you will suddenly be able to solve the foundational problems that philosophers have been wrestling with for millennia.
There were many issues wrestled with for millennia that were suddenly solved. Why should this be any different? You could ask me the opposite question of course but that attitude is not the one taken by any human who ever discover something worth while. Our chances of success may be tiny but they are better than zero, which is what they would be if no one tries. Ugh... i feel like i am writing inspirational greeting card quotes but the point still stands!
Object level disagreements can maybe be solved by people who agree on an epistemology. But people aren't in complete agreement about epistemology. And there is no agreed meta epistemology to solve epistemological disputes..that's done with same epistemology as before. Is there any resources you would recommend for me as a beginner to learn about the different views or better yet, a comparison of all of them?
I think the probability is close to zero because trying to "drill down" to force agreement between people results in fights, not in agreement.
We are not in agreement here! Do you think its possible to discuss this and have one or both of us change our initial stance or will that attempt merely result in a fight? Note, i am sure it is possible to result in a fight but i do not think its a forgone conclusion. On the contrary, i think most worthwhile points of view were formed by hearing one or more opposing views on the topic.
they will each support their own position by reasons which are effective for them but not for the other person
Why must that be the case? On a shallow level it may seem so but i think if you delve deep, you can find a best case solution. Can you give an example where two people must fundamentally disagree? I suspect any example you come up with will have a "lower level" solution where they will find it is not in their best interest. I recognize that the hidden premise on my thinking that agreement is always possible, stems from the idea that we are all trying to reach a certain goal and a true(er) map of reality helps us get there and cooperation is the best long term strategy.
Thanks for the suggestion. Added to reading list and commented on the stats site.
Sure, but why will they disagree? If I say there is 60% chance of x and you say no it is more like 70% then i can ask you why you think its 10% more likely. I know many will say "its just a feeling" but what gives that feeling? If you ask enough questions, i am confident one can drill down to the reasoning behind the feeling of discomfort at a given estimate. Another benefit of WL is it should help people get better at recognizing and understanding their subconscious feelings so they can be properly evaluated and corrected. If you do not agree, it would be really interesting to hear your thoughts on this. Thanks
Thanks for an excellent, in-depth reply!
Brilliant resource! Thanks for pointing it out.
You bring up a few worries although i think you also realize how i plan to deal with them. (Whether i am successful or not is another matter!)
One problem here is that some people are simply better debaters even though their ideas may be unsound
One part of this project is to make some positive aspects of debating skills easy to pick up by newbies using the site. Charisma and confidence are worthless in a written format and even powerful prose are diluted to simple facts and reasoning in this particular medium.
It is significantly easier to find some niggling problem with your opponents argument than to actually address its core issues
In my mind, if a niggling issue can break an argument then it was crucial and not merely 'niggling'. If the argument was employing it but did not rely on it, then losing it wont change its status. Being aware of issues like the 'fallacy fallacy' is useful in time-limited oral debates but in this format its ok to attack a bad argument on an otherwise well supported theory. The usual issue is it allows ones bias to come into play and makes the opponent feel the whole argument is weak. But this is easily avoided when the node remains glowing green to signify it is still 'true'.
manpower is spent on wording and putting the argument precisely exactly right instead of dealing with the underlying facts
Is this so bad? We are used to being frugal with a resource like manpower because its traditionally been limited, but i believe you can overcome that with the world wide reach offered by the internet. People will only concentrate on what they are passionate about which means the most contentious of arguments will also get the most attention to detail. Most people accept gravity so it wont get or need as much attention. In the future if a new prominent school of thought is formed attacking it, then it may require a revisit from those looking to defend it.
[limited manpower] ...will make it difficult for minority views to look like they hold water
I think the opposite is true. In most other formats, such as a forum, the one comment can easily be drowned out. Here there will simply be two different ideas. More people working on one will help of course but they cannot conjure good arguments from nothing. We also have to have faith (the good kind) in people here and assume that they will be willing to remove bad arguments even if they support the overall idea. Furthermore they will be wiling to add and help grow an opposing argument if they can see the valid points for it.
What are we to do with equally credible citations that say opposing things?
I have lots of design issues noted in the wiki but it needs a bit of a cleanup. I will give a brief answer here instead of linking you to that mess! ;) If two ideas are expressed that contradict each other, a community member should link them with a 'contradiction' tag and they both become 'false'. This draws attention to the issue and promotes further inquiry - another benefit of WL. If its key to an argument and there is no other experiments then it shows what we need to fund to get our answers. If future studies result in continued contradiction we need to go the next level down and argue about the nature of the experiment and why x is better than y. If there is no disagreement about the methodology but still the results contradict, perhaps the phenomenon is not will enough understood yet and we are right to keep them false to prevent its use in backing other statements.
'Every argument ever made' is a huge goal.
Perhaps im exaggerating slightly... but only slightly! I think a connected knowledge base is important and i dream of a future where coming up with a new idea and adding it to the human knowledge pool is as natural as breathing. But as there are probably an infinite number of arguments to be made and mankind is so very finite, i have recognized my design must handle the inevitable gaps. Its easy to see how if WL becomes popular then gets made mandatory for transparent democracies, fair legal systems and reputable academies among many other areas, it will be easy to keep up to date. But the challenge, as you point out, will be in getting it that far!
Are you sure you've got something close to the right kind of format to deal with that? How many such formats have you tried? Why are you thinking of using this one over those?
Not 100% sure what you mean - can you suggest an example of an alternate format to clarify?
Has this resulted in your beliefs actually changing at any point? Has this actually improved the quality of arguments?
As it does not exist i cannot say, but thinking rationally and trying to map and scrutinize ideas like WL will, has changed me massively. When i was first exposed to critical thinking i struggled to update my 'high level' ideas to reflect massive changes in my basic beliefs. I was also keen to revisit all my past assumptions and re-examine their foundations. Attempting to solve these issues was what made me first conceive of a tool like WL. So WL is the solution i have come up with to all the problems with critical thinking in today world as i understand them. You mention changing minds a couple of times - Although this is of course highly desirable, i want to narrow my scope to making ideas available. I am sure this will result in other perks but it wont be my focus yet.
Have you tried testing them with totally random people off of the street versus nerds versus academics?
No, good idea! I am still playing with the 'rules', which has been my main procrastination excuse so far but i will need to do this. I have a Github page with a very basic web demo that should be ready soon too.
it needs to be thoroughly tested for effectiveness before it is actually implemented
Absolutely agree and the first experiment is to see what people with relevant areas of expertise think on the idea, so thank you for participating!
P.S I want to address some more of your points but this has taken me awhile to write, so i will leave that for a second comment another day.
Hello!
I am new to this site but judging from HPMOR and some articles I read here, I think I have come to the right place for some help.
I am working on the early stages of a project called WikiLogic which has many aims. Here are some that may interest LW readers specifically:
-Make skills such as logical thinking, argument construction and fallacy recognition accessible to the general public
-Provide a community created database of every argument ever made along with their issues and any existing solutions
-Highlight the dependencies between different fields in academic circles
The project requires knowledge of Bayes networks, linguistics and many more fields that I have little experience of although i am always learning. This is why I am looking for you guys to review the idea and let me know your thoughts. At this stage, unfiltered advise on any aspect of the project is welcome.
The general idea along with a short video can be found on the front page of the main site:
http://www.wikilogicfoundation.org/
Feel free to explore the site and wiki to get a better feel of what I am trying to do. Please forgive poorly written or unfinished parts of the site. It is early days and it seems unproductive to finish before I get feedback that may change its course...