You’re right about the ‘seven literal days’ thing—seems like nonsense to me, but notably I haven’t seen it used much to justify action so I wouldn’t call it an important belief in the sense that it pays rent. More like an ornament, a piece of poetry or mythology.
‘believing in heaven’ is definitely an important one, but this is exactly the argument in the post? ‘believing in the beam of light’ doesn’t make the beam of light exist, but it does (seem to) make my arm stronger. Similarly, believing in heaven doesn’t create heaven [1] but it might help your society flourish.
It’s an important point though that it’s not that believing in A makes A happen, more like believing in some abstracted/idealized/extremized version of A makes A happen.
This does pose a bigger epistemic challenge than simple hyperstition, because the idealized claim never becomes true, and yet (in the least convenient possible world) you have to hold it as true in order to move directionally towards your goal.
well, humanity could plausibly build a pretty close approximation of heaven using uploads in the next 50 years, but that wasn’t reasonable to think 2000 years ago
You’re right about the ‘seven literal days’ thing—seems like nonsense to me, but notably I haven’t seen it used much to justify action so I wouldn’t call it an important belief in the sense that it pays rent. More like an ornament, a piece of poetry or mythology.
‘believing in heaven’ is definitely an important one, but this is exactly the argument in the post? ‘believing in the beam of light’ doesn’t make the beam of light exist, but it does (seem to) make my arm stronger. Similarly, believing in heaven doesn’t create heaven [1] but it might help your society flourish.
It’s an important point though that it’s not that believing in A makes A happen, more like believing in some abstracted/idealized/extremized version of A makes A happen.
This does pose a bigger epistemic challenge than simple hyperstition, because the idealized claim never becomes true, and yet (in the least convenient possible world) you have to hold it as true in order to move directionally towards your goal.
well, humanity could plausibly build a pretty close approximation of heaven using uploads in the next 50 years, but that wasn’t reasonable to think 2000 years ago