The probability of magic should make any effort on testing the hypothesis unjustified. Testing theories no matter how improbable is generally incorrect dogma. (One should distinguish improbable from silly though.)
I think you underestimate the real-world value of Just Testing It. If I got a mysterious letter in the mail and Mom told me I was a wizard and there was a simple way to test it, I’d test it. Of course I know even better than rationalist!Harry all the reasons that can’t possibly be how the ontologically lowest level of reality works, but if it’s cheap to run the test, why not just say “Screw it” and test it anyway?
Harry’s decision to try going out back and calling for an owl is completely defensible. You just never have to apologize for doing a quick, cheap experimental test, pretty much ever, but especially when people have started arguing about it and emotions are running high. Start flipping a coin to test if you have psychic powers, snap your fingers to see if you can make a banana, whatever. Just be ready to accept the result.
You just never have to apologize for doing a quick, cheap experimental test, pretty much ever
This (injunction?) is equivalent to ascribing much higher probability to the hypothesis (magic) than it deserves. It might be a good injunction, but we should realize that at the same time, it asserts inability of people to correctly judge impossibility of such hypotheses. That is, this rule suggests that probability of some hypothesis that managed to make it in your conscious thought isn’t (shouldn’t be believed to be) 10^-[gazillion], even if you believe it is 10^-[gazillion].
I guess it depends a bit on how you came to consider the proposition to be tested, but I’m not sure how to formalize it.
I wouldn’t waste a moment’s attention in general to some random person proposing anything like this. But if someone like my mother or father, or a few of my close friends, suddenly came with a story like this (which, mark you, is quite different from the usual silliness), I would spend a couple of minutes doing a test before calling a psychiatrist. (Though I’d check the calendar first, in case it’s April 1st.)
Especially if I were about that age. I was nowhere near as bright and well-read rationalist!Harry at that age (nor am I now). I read a lot though, and I had a pretty clear idea of the distinction between fact and fiction, but I remember I just didn’t have enough practical experience to classify new things as likely true or false at a glance.
I remember at one time (between 8 and 11 years old) I was pondering the feasibility of traveling to Florida (I grew up in Eastern Europe) to check if Jules Verne’s “From the Earth to the Moon” was real or not, by asking the locals and looking for remains of the big gun. It wasn’t an easy test, so I concluded it wasn’t worth it. However, I also remember I did check if I had psychic powers by trying to guess cards and the like; that took less than two minutes.
You mean the plot point that Harry Potter tested the Magic hypothesis? I don’t think most plot points in the introductions of stories really count as spoilers.
I agree, though I think the particular test chosen in the story didn’t make much sense—even if magic was real I wouldn’t have expected that to have any effect.
The most astonishing thing about spoilers, I find, is that they are often provided to you with exactly as much enthusiasm after you announce that you haven’t seen the story as before.
It was strongly implied that some element of Harry’s mind had skewed that prior dramatically. Perhaps his horcrux, perhaps infant memories, but either way it wasn’t as you’d expect. Even for an eleven-year-old.
He didn’t bite the bullet, didn’t truly disbelieve his corrupted hardware. This is a problem that has to be solved by introspection, better theory of decision-making. It’s not enough to patch it by observation in each particular case, letting the reality compute a correct conclusion above your defunct epistemology, even when you have all the data you might possibly need to infer the conclusion yourself.
Why not? I mean, granted, there might be occasions when you need the ability to disbelieve your hardware, but I’m having trouble thinking of any. It’s unlikely enough that you’ll go crazy; it’s still more unlikely that you’ll go crazy in such a way that your future depends on immediately and decisively noticing that you’re mad. if you enjoy running tests and have the resources for it, why not indulge?
It’s unlikely enough that you’ll go crazy; it’s still more unlikely that you’ll go crazy in such a way that your future depends on immediately and decisively noticing that you’re mad.
I’m talking about not interpreting intuitive “feel” for a belief as literally representing consciously endorsed level of belief. It’s perfectly normal for your emotion to be at odds with your beliefs (see scope insensitivity for example). This kind of madness doesn’t imply being less functional than average. We are all mad here. If you feel that “magic might be real”, but at the same time believe that “magic can’t be real, no chance”, you shouldn’t take the side of the feeling. The feeling might constitute new evidence for your beliefs to take into account, but the final judgment has to involve conscious interpretation, you shouldn’t act on emotion directly. And sometimes, this means acting against emotion (intuitive expectation). In this case in particular, intuition is weak evidence, so it doesn’t overpower a belief that magic isn’t real, even if it’s strong intuition.
How would it work? As expected outcome is that no magic is real, we’d need to convince the believer (mother) to disbelieve. An experiment is usually an ineffective means to that end. Rather, we’d need to mend her epistemology.
Well, Harry did spend some time making sure that this experiment would convince either of his parents if it went the appropriate way, though he had his misgivings. As a child who isn’t respected by his parents, what better options does he have to stop the fight? (serious question)
Having no good options doesn’t make the remaining options any good. This is a serious problem, for example, when people try to explain apparent miracles they experience: they find the best explanation they are able to come up with, and decide to believe that explanation, even if it has no right to any plausibility, apart from the fact it happened to be the only one available.
So you think that the best response is to do nothing about the fight. Perhaps, but setting up the experiment didn’t take that much effort. What was Harry’s opportunity cost here? Is it that high?
It’s not completely out of the question that it was a fine rhetorical effort (though it’s not particularly plausible), but it’s still not concerned with finding out the truth, which was presented as the goal.
Then this activity shouldn’t be rationalized as being the right decision specifically for the reasons associated with the topic of rationality. For example, the father dismissing the suggestion to test the hypothesis is correct, given that the mere activity of testing it doesn’t present him with valuable experience.
You’ve just taken the conclusion presented in the story, and wrote above it a clever explanation that contradicts the spirit of the story.
The probability of magic should make any effort on testing the hypothesis unjustified. Testing theories no matter how improbable is generally incorrect dogma. (One should distinguish improbable from silly though.)
I think you underestimate the real-world value of Just Testing It. If I got a mysterious letter in the mail and Mom told me I was a wizard and there was a simple way to test it, I’d test it. Of course I know even better than rationalist!Harry all the reasons that can’t possibly be how the ontologically lowest level of reality works, but if it’s cheap to run the test, why not just say “Screw it” and test it anyway?
Harry’s decision to try going out back and calling for an owl is completely defensible. You just never have to apologize for doing a quick, cheap experimental test, pretty much ever, but especially when people have started arguing about it and emotions are running high. Start flipping a coin to test if you have psychic powers, snap your fingers to see if you can make a banana, whatever. Just be ready to accept the result.
This (injunction?) is equivalent to ascribing much higher probability to the hypothesis (magic) than it deserves. It might be a good injunction, but we should realize that at the same time, it asserts inability of people to correctly judge impossibility of such hypotheses. That is, this rule suggests that probability of some hypothesis that managed to make it in your conscious thought isn’t (shouldn’t be believed to be) 10^-[gazillion], even if you believe it is 10^-[gazillion].
I guess it depends a bit on how you came to consider the proposition to be tested, but I’m not sure how to formalize it.
I wouldn’t waste a moment’s attention in general to some random person proposing anything like this. But if someone like my mother or father, or a few of my close friends, suddenly came with a story like this (which, mark you, is quite different from the usual silliness), I would spend a couple of minutes doing a test before calling a psychiatrist. (Though I’d check the calendar first, in case it’s April 1st.)
Especially if I were about that age. I was nowhere near as bright and well-read rationalist!Harry at that age (nor am I now). I read a lot though, and I had a pretty clear idea of the distinction between fact and fiction, but I remember I just didn’t have enough practical experience to classify new things as likely true or false at a glance.
I remember at one time (between 8 and 11 years old) I was pondering the feasibility of traveling to Florida (I grew up in Eastern Europe) to check if Jules Verne’s “From the Earth to the Moon” was real or not, by asking the locals and looking for remains of the big gun. It wasn’t an easy test, so I concluded it wasn’t worth it. However, I also remember I did check if I had psychic powers by trying to guess cards and the like; that took less than two minutes.
The probability that you have no grasp on the situation is high enough to justify an easy, simple, harmless test.
And I’d appreciate it if spoilers for the story were ROT13′d or something—I haven’t read it.
You mean the plot point that Harry Potter tested the Magic hypothesis? I don’t think most plot points in the introductions of stories really count as spoilers.
Yeah, that’s not a spoiler any more than “Obi-Wan Kenobi is a Jedi” is a spoiler.
A “Jedi”? Obi-Wan Kenobi?
I wonder if you mean old Ben Kenobi. I don’t know anyone named Obi-Wan, but old Ben lives out beyond the dune sea. He’s kind of a strange old hermit.
Ah, of course. That’s fine, then.
Although you might want to let EY know that someone posted unobfusticated spoilers for … Chapter 10, was it? - in violation of community standards. ;)
I agree, though I think the particular test chosen in the story didn’t make much sense—even if magic was real I wouldn’t have expected that to have any effect.
The most astonishing thing about spoilers, I find, is that they are often provided to you with exactly as much enthusiasm after you announce that you haven’t seen the story as before.
This isn’t surprising at all.
People who give out spoilers when discussing a work generally don’t care that you don’t like to hear spoilers before you’ve experienced a work.
Considering you’ve read the rest of the posts in this thread, that’s not a spoiler, just my opinion about what you’ve already been discussing.
I haven’t.
Well, it was a bit silly to comment on it without context then. At any rate no major/obvious spoilers have been posted here.
That’s a relief.
It was strongly implied that some element of Harry’s mind had skewed that prior dramatically. Perhaps his horcrux, perhaps infant memories, but either way it wasn’t as you’d expect. Even for an eleven-year-old.
He didn’t bite the bullet, didn’t truly disbelieve his corrupted hardware. This is a problem that has to be solved by introspection, better theory of decision-making. It’s not enough to patch it by observation in each particular case, letting the reality compute a correct conclusion above your defunct epistemology, even when you have all the data you might possibly need to infer the conclusion yourself.
Why not? I mean, granted, there might be occasions when you need the ability to disbelieve your hardware, but I’m having trouble thinking of any. It’s unlikely enough that you’ll go crazy; it’s still more unlikely that you’ll go crazy in such a way that your future depends on immediately and decisively noticing that you’re mad. if you enjoy running tests and have the resources for it, why not indulge?
I’m talking about not interpreting intuitive “feel” for a belief as literally representing consciously endorsed level of belief. It’s perfectly normal for your emotion to be at odds with your beliefs (see scope insensitivity for example). This kind of madness doesn’t imply being less functional than average. We are all mad here. If you feel that “magic might be real”, but at the same time believe that “magic can’t be real, no chance”, you shouldn’t take the side of the feeling. The feeling might constitute new evidence for your beliefs to take into account, but the final judgment has to involve conscious interpretation, you shouldn’t act on emotion directly. And sometimes, this means acting against emotion (intuitive expectation). In this case in particular, intuition is weak evidence, so it doesn’t overpower a belief that magic isn’t real, even if it’s strong intuition.
Do you realize how many catgirls were killed because of you today?
One of the goals was to get his parents to stop fighting over whether or not magic was real.
How would it work? As expected outcome is that no magic is real, we’d need to convince the believer (mother) to disbelieve. An experiment is usually an ineffective means to that end. Rather, we’d need to mend her epistemology.
Well, Harry did spend some time making sure that this experiment would convince either of his parents if it went the appropriate way, though he had his misgivings. As a child who isn’t respected by his parents, what better options does he have to stop the fight? (serious question)
Having no good options doesn’t make the remaining options any good. This is a serious problem, for example, when people try to explain apparent miracles they experience: they find the best explanation they are able to come up with, and decide to believe that explanation, even if it has no right to any plausibility, apart from the fact it happened to be the only one available.
So you think that the best response is to do nothing about the fight. Perhaps, but setting up the experiment didn’t take that much effort. What was Harry’s opportunity cost here? Is it that high?
It’s not completely out of the question that it was a fine rhetorical effort (though it’s not particularly plausible), but it’s still not concerned with finding out the truth, which was presented as the goal.
There seemed to be two goals to me—finding the truth and stopping the fight. I’ll have to reread that section later.
A valid point.
You have not taken into account that testing magical hypotheses may be categorized as “play” and pay its rent on time and effort accordingly.
Then this activity shouldn’t be rationalized as being the right decision specifically for the reasons associated with the topic of rationality. For example, the father dismissing the suggestion to test the hypothesis is correct, given that the mere activity of testing it doesn’t present him with valuable experience.
You’ve just taken the conclusion presented in the story, and wrote above it a clever explanation that contradicts the spirit of the story.