It was a comment on wedrifid’s implicit assumption that I should care about what annoys him and bizarre expectation that I would adjust my behavior because I was “prompted” (not asked politely mind you) by him. Not sure what part of that is not obvious to you.
Dpar
Karma: 19
Duly noted. God forbid I do something that annoys you. Won’t be able to live with myself.
Isn’t it an essential criteria of falsifiability to be able to design an experiment that can DEFINITIVELY prove the theory false?
Ok, I understand what you mean now. Now that you’ve clarified what Eliezer meant by anticipated experience my original objection to it is no longer applicable. Thank you for an interesting and thought provoking discussion.
So essentially what you and Eliezer are referring to as “anticipated experience” is just basic falsifiability then?
That’s really clever. I always thought that “credible evidence” was a bit redundant actually. I just used as a figure of speech without thinking about, but according to my definition of evidence that it has to be credible is pretty much implicit. It has been made abundantly clear to me, however, that this community’s definition differs substantially, so that’s the definition I will use when posting here going forward.
Alright, I think I see what you’re getting it, but I still can’t help but think that your definition of sensory experience is too broad to be really useful. I mean the only type of belief that it seems to filter out is absolute nonsense like “I have a third leg that I can never see or feel”, did I get that about right?
Well that clarifies things quite a bit. I find this definition of evidence surprising, especially in this community, but very interesting. I’ll have to sleep on it. Thank you for the references.
You’re not addressing my core point though. If the criteria of anticipated experience as you define it is as likely to be satisfied by fallacious beliefs as it is by valid ones, what purpose does it serve?
That’s fair enough. However, judging by what I’ve read, this community’s definition of evidence seems to constitute just about anything ever written about anything. How would you then differentiate evidence, from rumor, hearsay, speculation, etc.?
Well, what can I say? I simply don’t consider the vague recollection of reading something somewhere credible evidence of anything, and I stand by that. However, the amount of people that took issue with this statement did open my eyes to the fact that the definition of word “evidence” is not as clear cut as I thought it to be. Not sure if there’s any way to resolve this difference of opinion though.
At this point I’m not sure what we can do other than agree to disagree. I do not consider a random article from an obscure source on the internet to be evidence of anything.
All that is indisputably true. But you didn’t really answer my question on whether or not you give enough consideration to what’s written in a fairy tale (not whether or not it’s written, not who it’s written by, but the actual claims made therein) to truly consider it evidence to be incorporated into or excluded from your model of the world.
How would you learn that there are no ghosts? You form the belief “there are ghosts” which leads to the anticipated experience (by your definition of such) that “I will read about ghosts in a book”, you go and read about ghosts in a book. Criteria met, belief validated. Same goes for UFOs, psychics, astrology etc. What value does the concept of anticipated experience have if it fails to filter out even the most common fallacious beliefs?
You seem to place a good deal of value on the concept of anticipated experience, but you give it a definition that’s so broad that the overwhelming majority of beliefs will meet the criteria. If the belief in ghosts for instance can lead to the anticipated experience of reading about them in a book, what validity does the notion have as a means of evaluating beliefs?
So you would then agree that merely the fact that something is written SOMEWHERE, does not automatically qualify it as evidence?
(Incidentally that is my original point, which in spite of seeming as common sense as common sense can be, has attracted a surprising amount of disagreement.)
Vladimir, Cyan, and jimrandomh, since you essentially said the same thing, consider this reply to be addressed to all three of you.
Answer me honestly, when reading a fairy tale, do you really stop to consider what’s written there, qualify its worth as evidence, and compare it to everything else you know that might contradict it, before making the decision that the probability of the fairy tale being true is extremely low? Do you really not just dismiss it offhand as not true without a second thought?
I agree wholeheartedly that there are valid beliefs that don’t translate into anticipated experience. As a matter of fact what’s written there was pretty much the exact point that I was trying to make with my very first response in this topic.
Does that not, however, contradict the OP’s assertion that “Every guess of belief should begin by flowing to a specific guess of anticipation, and should continue to pay rent in future anticipations. If a belief turns deadbeat, evict it.”? That’s what I took issue with to begin with.
Well I didn’t think I needed to clarify that I’m not questioning whether or not something that’s written is really written. Of course, I’m questioning the truthfulness of the actual statement.
Or not so much it’s truthfulness, but rather whether or not it can be considered evidence. Though I realize that you take issue with arguing over word definitions, to me the word evidence has certain meaning that goes beyond every random written sentence, whisper or rumor that you encounter.
You’re absolutely right. I have no problem using indentation for quotes, as a matter of fact I was wondering how to do that, it’s his condescending tone that I took issue with. In retrospect though, I should have just ignored it, but let my temper get the best of me. I’ll try to keep counter-productive comments to a minimum in the future.