Indeed, these vague questions that are meant to supposedly “capture the intuition” may have their uses, but not in this community. Instead, the vagueness just pollutes the interpretability of the results: For example, “anything which can be described at some level becomes a part of the natural laws just by including that definition, ergo nothing supernatural can exist” maps true beliebers and staunch Hitchensites to the same answer. Another thus ensuing problem: “There are parts about you which cannot be changed” can translate to ”… under any conceivable circumstances” or to “given a typical life trajectory”. Both are different questions with different intuitions.
Indeed, these vague questions that are meant to supposedly “capture the intuition” may have their uses, but not in this community. Instead, the vagueness just pollutes the interpretability of the results: For example, “anything which can be described at some level becomes a part of the natural laws just by including that definition, ergo nothing supernatural can exist” maps true beliebers and staunch Hitchensites to the same answer. Another thus ensuing problem: “There are parts about you which cannot be changed” can translate to ”… under any conceivable circumstances” or to “given a typical life trajectory”. Both are different questions with different intuitions.