Your assessment makes the assumption that the knowledge that we are missing is “not that important”.
Better to call it a rational estimate than an assumption.
It is perfectly rational to say to onesself “but if I refuse to look into anything which takes a lot of effort to get any evidence for, then I will probably miss out.” We can put math to that sentiment and use it to help decide how much time to spend investigating unlikely claims. Solutions along these lines are sometimes called “taking the outside view”.
To my eyes your further analysis makes the assumption that the only strategy we can follow would be to randomly try out beliefs.
For the sake of engaging with your points 1 thru 5, ProofOfLogic, Kindly, et al. are supposing the existence of a class of claims for which there exists roughly the same amount of evidence pro and con as exists for lucid dreaming. This includes how much we trust the person making the claim, how well the claim itself fits with our existing beliefs, how simple the claim is (ie, Occam’s Razor), how many other people make similar claims, and any other information we might get our hands on. So the assumption for the sake of argument is that these claims look just about equally plausible once everything we know or even suspect is taken into account.
It seems very reasonable to conclude that the best one can do in such a case is choose randomly, if one does in fact want to test out some claim within the class.
But suggestions as to what else might be counted as evidence are certainly welcome.
That is actually very clear :) Thanks. As I was saying to ProofOfLogic this post is about the identification of the difficult space which I think we are all in agreement. The way you explain it I see why you would suggest that choosing at random is the best rational strategy. I would prefer to explore associated topics in a different post so we keep this one self contained (and because I have to think about it!).
Better to call it a rational estimate than an assumption.
It is perfectly rational to say to onesself “but if I refuse to look into anything which takes a lot of effort to get any evidence for, then I will probably miss out.” We can put math to that sentiment and use it to help decide how much time to spend investigating unlikely claims. Solutions along these lines are sometimes called “taking the outside view”.
For the sake of engaging with your points 1 thru 5, ProofOfLogic, Kindly, et al. are supposing the existence of a class of claims for which there exists roughly the same amount of evidence pro and con as exists for lucid dreaming. This includes how much we trust the person making the claim, how well the claim itself fits with our existing beliefs, how simple the claim is (ie, Occam’s Razor), how many other people make similar claims, and any other information we might get our hands on. So the assumption for the sake of argument is that these claims look just about equally plausible once everything we know or even suspect is taken into account.
It seems very reasonable to conclude that the best one can do in such a case is choose randomly, if one does in fact want to test out some claim within the class.
But suggestions as to what else might be counted as evidence are certainly welcome.
That is actually very clear :) Thanks. As I was saying to ProofOfLogic this post is about the identification of the difficult space which I think we are all in agreement. The way you explain it I see why you would suggest that choosing at random is the best rational strategy. I would prefer to explore associated topics in a different post so we keep this one self contained (and because I have to think about it!).
Thanks for engaging!