I found the fact that Eliezer did not mention the classic “I think, therefore I am” argument in these essays odd as well. It does seem as though nothing I could experience could convince me that I do not exist because by experiencing it, I am existing. Therefore, assigning a probablitly of 1 to “I exist” seems perfectly reasonable.
That’s a very interesting condition, and I will agree that it indicates that it is possible I could come to the belief that I did not exist if some event of brain damage or other triggering event occurred to cause this delusion. However, I would only have that belief because my reasoning processes had been somehow broken. It would not be based on a Bayesian update because the only evidence for not existing would be ceasing to have experiences, which it seems axiomatic that I could not update upon. People with this condition seem to still have experiences, they just strangely believe that they are dead or don’t exist.
If you could come to the wrong belief because of brain damage, you could come to the other belief because of brain damage too; this is a general skeptical attack on the possibility of knowledge or using a priori proofs to convince yourself of something without making a lot of other assumptions about your intactness and sanity (akin to how it’s hard to come up with good arguments to believe anything about the world without including some basic assumptions like “induction works”), related to the Kripke/Wittgenstein attack on memory or Lewis Carroll’s rule-following paradox. So while the cogito may be true in the sense of ‘a person thinking implies their existence’, you can’t use it to bootstrap yourself out of total Cartesian doubt & immunity to the evil genius, much less into being a Bayesian reasoner who can assign P=1 to things.
Fair enough, I suppose there is a possibility that there is some way I could have experiences and somehow also not exist, even though I cannot imagine how. My inability to imagine how such evidence could be logically consistent does not mean that it is actually, certainly impossible that I will observe such evidence.
Which of Rossin’s statements was your “Cotard delusion” link intended to address? It does seem to rebut the statement that “nothing I could experience could convince me that I do not exist”, since experiencing the psychiatric condition mentioned in the link could presumably cause Rossin to believe that he/she does not exist.
However, the link does nothing to counter the overall message of Rossin’s post which is (it seems to me) that “I think, therefore I am” is a compelling argument for one’s own existence.
BTW, I agree with the general notion that from a Bayesian standpoint, one should not assign p=1 to anything, not even to “I exist”. However, the fact of a mental condition like the one described in your link does nothing (IMO) to reduce the effectiveness of the “I think, therefore I am” argument.
I found the fact that Eliezer did not mention the classic “I think, therefore I am” argument in these essays odd as well. It does seem as though nothing I could experience could convince me that I do not exist because by experiencing it, I am existing. Therefore, assigning a probablitly of 1 to “I exist” seems perfectly reasonable.
Thanks for the vote of confidence.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotard_delusion
That’s a very interesting condition, and I will agree that it indicates that it is possible I could come to the belief that I did not exist if some event of brain damage or other triggering event occurred to cause this delusion. However, I would only have that belief because my reasoning processes had been somehow broken. It would not be based on a Bayesian update because the only evidence for not existing would be ceasing to have experiences, which it seems axiomatic that I could not update upon. People with this condition seem to still have experiences, they just strangely believe that they are dead or don’t exist.
If you could come to the wrong belief because of brain damage, you could come to the other belief because of brain damage too; this is a general skeptical attack on the possibility of knowledge or using a priori proofs to convince yourself of something without making a lot of other assumptions about your intactness and sanity (akin to how it’s hard to come up with good arguments to believe anything about the world without including some basic assumptions like “induction works”), related to the Kripke/Wittgenstein attack on memory or Lewis Carroll’s rule-following paradox. So while the cogito may be true in the sense of ‘a person thinking implies their existence’, you can’t use it to bootstrap yourself out of total Cartesian doubt & immunity to the evil genius, much less into being a Bayesian reasoner who can assign P=1 to things.
Fair enough, I suppose there is a possibility that there is some way I could have experiences and somehow also not exist, even though I cannot imagine how. My inability to imagine how such evidence could be logically consistent does not mean that it is actually, certainly impossible that I will observe such evidence.
Which of Rossin’s statements was your “Cotard delusion” link intended to address? It does seem to rebut the statement that “nothing I could experience could convince me that I do not exist”, since experiencing the psychiatric condition mentioned in the link could presumably cause Rossin to believe that he/she does not exist.
However, the link does nothing to counter the overall message of Rossin’s post which is (it seems to me) that “I think, therefore I am” is a compelling argument for one’s own existence.
BTW, I agree with the general notion that from a Bayesian standpoint, one should not assign p=1 to anything, not even to “I exist”. However, the fact of a mental condition like the one described in your link does nothing (IMO) to reduce the effectiveness of the “I think, therefore I am” argument.