I don’t accept the logic behind “I think therefore I am” and I think there is a reasonable chance that I or even the universe doesn’t in any sense exist.
James_Miller
By in any sense I mean there might be “nothing” as most people would define it rather than as it is defined in quantum physics.
If you accept that the universe exists then the most remarkable think about the universe is that it does exist. So you should only accept that there is almost certainly something if you have an exceptionally large amount of evidence.
Economists’ plans relating to monetary policy do influence how the Federal Reserve Board acts (since it is run by economists) and this does influence the economy.
I published two academic articles showing the relationship between game theory and Greek Mythology. A somewhat objective test of the validity of this relationship is whether Greek mythology can be used to help students achieve a better (as measured by tests) understanding of game theory.
Perhaps a somewhat useful measure of the relationship between two languages is how much learning one helps you master the other.
We should learn how to identify trustworthy experts. Is there some general way, or do you have to rely on specific rules for each category of knowledge?
Two examples of rules are never trust someone’s advice about which specific stocks you should buy unless the advisor has material non-public information, and be extremely skeptical of statistical evidence presented in Women Studies’ journals. Although both rules are probably true you obviously couldn’t trust financial advisers or Women Studies’ professors to give them to you.
Economist Russ Roberts’ The Invisible Heart uses fiction to explain how to think logically about several economic issues. (I always assign the book to my intro micro students and they love it.)
“of someone who I wrote off as hopeless within 30 seconds of being introduced to them.”
Few college professors would do this because many students are unimpressive when you first talk with them but than do brilliantly on exams and papers.
Rather than just gambling with money, people could gamble with their lives. A global warming denier, for example, could announce that he is so sure that the earth will not be significantly warmer in ten years than it is today that if he is wrong about this he will kill himself. A legal system that enforced such a promise would, clearly, make it possible for someone to very credibly communicate the sincerity of his beliefs.
You wrote “True, the Catholic Church also goes around opposing the use of condoms in AIDS-ravaged Africa. ”
This might be the right rationalist position:
http://www.amconmag.com/blog/2009/03/18/a-dead-debate/
“That aside, the good news for the Catholic Church’s supporters is that–even if, inevitably, the Pope’s counterintuitive suggestion enraged the liberal establishment–many editorialists now accept at least part of the Catholic position that the best solution to AIDS in Africa is fundamental behavior change, rather than condoms.”
Passing out condoms increases the amount of sex but makes each sex act less dangerous. So theoretically it’s indeterminant whether it increases or decreases the spread of AIDS.
Deleting religion from the world would increase many peoples’ fear of death. Also, to reject all faiths you almost have to admit to yourself that after this life their is only eternal nothingness. Fear of death is so strong that many people try to convince themselves that a belief they “know” is irrational could be true.
So might an increase in the popularity of cryonics give a huge boost to rationalist organization builders?
As an academic let me tell you that (1) it takes a long time to do your footnotes, (2) working on footnotes is really boring, (3) almost none of the readers look at your footnotes, and (4) there are lots of errors in footnotes.
Academics use footnotes as a guide to build on other peoples’ work not (usually) as a means of verifying the accuracy of others’ writings.
You have left out one horrible option.
(6) Talk to the Nazis about Jews. Like many other Europeans of the time become convinced that they are right and gladly tell them where Anne Frank is hiding.
I live in South Deerfield, MA and work in Northampton
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If humans are imperfect actors then in situations (such as a game of chicken) in which it is better to (1) be irrational and seen as irrational then it is to (2) be rational and seen as rational
then the rational actor will lose.
Of course holding constant everyone else’s beliefs about you, you always gain by being more rational.
You are playing chicken with your irrational twin. Both of you would rather survive than win. Your twin, however, doesn’t understand that it’s possible to die when playing chicken. In the game your twin both survives and wins whereas you survive but lose.
No, if you are rational the best action is to convince your opponent that you have disabled your steering when in fact you have not done so.
There are lots of chicken like games that don’t involve death. For example, your boss wants some task done and either you or a co-worker can do it. The worst outcome for both you and the co-worker is for the task to not get done. The best is for the other person to do the task.
So with what probability should Barack Obama believe he is on a holodeck, and how should this belief influence his behavior?
The idea of eternal inflation might cut against this. Under eternal inflation new universes are always being created at an exponentially increasing rate so there are always far more young than old universes. So under this theory if you are uncertain of whether you are at a relatively early (pre-singularity) or relatively late (post-singularity) point in the universe you are almost certainly in the relatively early state because there are so many more universes in this state.
Note: Eliezer and Robin object to this idea for reasons I don’t understand.
The drug could make a user happier without changing the user’s preference ordering by bringing the user to a state he couldn’t have achieved without the drug. This state, for example, could involve having new “happy chemicals” in the brain.