In figuring out what would constitute good conduct and productive discourse, it’s important to appreciate how bizarre the human practice of “discourse” looks in light of Aumann’s dangerous idea.
Within the rationalsphere , Aumanns Theorem is simplified into something like “reasonable people can’t agree to differ”. Yet they can, because the conditions on AAT are much more stringent than an informal understanding of what it is to be reasonable. So AAT lacks real world applicability..
There is a further problem that prior beliefs can include beliefs about epistemology, about what constitutes evidence.
Controversies that are sufficiently deep, or which cut across cultural boundaries run into a problem where, not only do parties disagree about the object level issue, they also disagree about underlying questions of what constitutes truth, proof, evidence, etc. “Satan created the fossils to mislead people” is an example of one side rejecting the other sides evidence as even being evidence . Its a silly example, but there are much more robust ones.
It’s true that If there were more than one world, that would undercut the ability of different thinkers to come to a uniform conclusion about it, but there is no corollary that existence of a single world would guarantee anything epistemically. It’s a necessary condition for convergence, but not sufficient.
If there is one world, that doesn’t guarantee that there are agents capable of understanding it, within it ..and if there are intelligent and rational agents, their ability to converge on a single all encompassing truth could be impossible for a number of further reasons. Problems include the inadequacy of epistemic evidence to address all problems, the reliance of logic on axioms (the Munchausen trilemma) , the reliance of epistemology on epistemology (the problem of the criterion), etc.
None of those problems has anything to do with conflicts, dishonesty or different values—although they undoubtedly exist as well.
If I’m a Bayesian reasoner honestly reporting my beliefs about some question, and you’re also a Bayesian reasoner honestly reporting your beliefs about the same question, we should converge on the same answer, not because we’re cooperating with each other, but because it is the answer.
Bayes has both problems simultaneously. It is dependent on evidence, so it has all the problems of empiricism; and it has the problems of rationalism because it starts with priors. The argument for Bayesianism is that even agents with wildly differing priors can eventually agree, given sufficient evidence. But that is an argument about ideal Bayesians: in reality , the amount of evidence available might be too limited to allow convergence. The ability of realistic Bayesians to formulate hypotheses is also limited. Alice puts most of her credence on the one hypothesis that seems best supported to her, out of the hypotheses she has heard of, or thought up, but Bob might have a better hypothesis that’s not in her set.
No, that isn’t the inevitable conclusion, because there are so many other sources of disagreement.
That is to say: I do not understand how high-trust, high-cooperation dynamics work. I’ve never seen them. They are utterly outside my experience and beyond my comprehension
I find the black-and-white framing of that very odd. You’ve spent most of your life in business and academia, which seem to me high co-operation compared to politics and crime, for instance.
Within the rationalsphere , Aumanns Theorem is simplified into something like “reasonable people can’t agree to differ”. Yet they can, because the conditions on AAT are much more stringent than an informal understanding of what it is to be reasonable. So AAT lacks real world applicability..
There is a further problem that prior beliefs can include beliefs about epistemology, about what constitutes evidence.
Controversies that are sufficiently deep, or which cut across cultural boundaries run into a problem where, not only do parties disagree about the object level issue, they also disagree about underlying questions of what constitutes truth, proof, evidence, etc. “Satan created the fossils to mislead people” is an example of one side rejecting the other sides evidence as even being evidence . Its a silly example, but there are much more robust ones.
Why do people keep saying that?
It’s true that If there were more than one world, that would undercut the ability of different thinkers to come to a uniform conclusion about it, but there is no corollary that existence of a single world would guarantee anything epistemically. It’s a necessary condition for convergence, but not sufficient.
If there is one world, that doesn’t guarantee that there are agents capable of understanding it, within it ..and if there are intelligent and rational agents, their ability to converge on a single all encompassing truth could be impossible for a number of further reasons. Problems include the inadequacy of epistemic evidence to address all problems, the reliance of logic on axioms (the Munchausen trilemma) , the reliance of epistemology on epistemology (the problem of the criterion), etc.
None of those problems has anything to do with conflicts, dishonesty or different values—although they undoubtedly exist as well.
Bayes has both problems simultaneously. It is dependent on evidence, so it has all the problems of empiricism; and it has the problems of rationalism because it starts with priors. The argument for Bayesianism is that even agents with wildly differing priors can eventually agree, given sufficient evidence. But that is an argument about ideal Bayesians: in reality , the amount of evidence available might be too limited to allow convergence. The ability of realistic Bayesians to formulate hypotheses is also limited. Alice puts most of her credence on the one hypothesis that seems best supported to her, out of the hypotheses she has heard of, or thought up, but Bob might have a better hypothesis that’s not in her set.
No, that isn’t the inevitable conclusion, because there are so many other sources of disagreement.
I find the black-and-white framing of that very odd. You’ve spent most of your life in business and academia, which seem to me high co-operation compared to politics and crime, for instance.