From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Sat Aug 18 2001 - 11:31:54 MDT
Peter McCluskey writes
>> But on other [crackpot] issues, I wouldn't be swayed (and on many
>> issues, neither would you).
>
> There may well be issues on which I ignore some people's opinions, but
> I don't think I should believe I am motivated by a desire to find the
> truth on those issues.
I see. We are disagreeing about the conditions under which the predicate
"desires to find the truth about" should be applied to us. I can see
furthermore that we are not likely to agree. Look, if a creationist
comes up to me with a great sheaf of papers proving that evolution is
a lie, and if I tell him to go stuff them in the bodily orafice (if a
trash can isn't conveniently available) and he says to me in return
"YOU are not a truth seeker about evolution!", then I say he's wrong.
Are you claiming that indeed, under these conditions where (like Harvey
Newstrom and Anders Sandberg) I don't want to waste the time with this
clown, that on this issue I am not truth-seeking?
>> For me, it wouldn't matter whether ten people believe in
>> UFOs or ten million do: my total "web of belief" about the supposed
>> reality of UFOs together with my beliefs about how gullible people are
>> concerning these issues that the skeptics routinely discuss, preclude
>> me from being influenced.
>
> Your reasoning here appears to be of the type that produces only probabalistic
> estimates, and the hypothesis that some UFO reports represent real alien
> contact does not appear to be an issue on which certainty is currently
> possible, so I am fairly confident that your certainty is strong evidence
> that you are not a truth-seeker on this issue.
Are we also disagreeing on what "certainty" means? Forgive me if this is
redundant, but many people hate using the word "certain" without qualifiers.
If you say that something is "certain" when talking to them, you'll receive
a mini-lecture about epistemology. So then you always say "almost certain"
when talking to these people, and they become very happy. They become
somewhat less happy when I point out that we should probably do a global
replacement on the term "almost certain" and substitute "certain" for it,
since---as we both agree---to be absolutely certain is inadmissable.
Ah! Here's what we can do: you say that I shouldn't be *certain* that
reports of UFO alien contact are erroneous. May I ask you of what you
are certain, (in the realm of false beliefs, say).
Thanks,
Lee
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