From: paul@i2.to
Date: Thu Jul 22 1999 - 19:11:22 MDT
On Thu, 22 July 1999, "Eliezer S. Yudkowsky" wrote:
> Paul Hughes, I strongly suspect that you and Crocker are using entirely
> different definitions of the word "belief". You're defining it as an
> assertion that is believed with 100% probability and is probably
> emotionally supported. Crocker is defining it as a probabilistic
> assertion, which probability is *not* necessarily 50% or greater, but
> which *is* more likely (to within, say, an order of magnitude) than any
> alternate assertions.
You might be right. The definition I'm using is equivalent to Webster's:
believe \Be*lieve"\, v. i. 1. To have a firm persuasion, esp. of the truths
of religion; to have a persuasion approaching to certainty; to exercise
belief or faith.
When both Crocker and yourself asserted that the 'Face on Mars' *is* a
load of crap and insist that it *is* just a pile of rocks -sounds like near
100% certainty to me. In this case, I may have mistakenly assumed that
you were operating within the dogmatic and emotionally based rigidity
of those you mentioned - namely James Randi and CSICOP. My
apologies if this was not the case.
> Do you believe that you can't believe in anything? This strikes me as
> being inconsistent.
Not necessarily, and as a mutual fan of Hofstadter you might appreciate this.
Yes, Language can become completely self-referential and inconsistent.
ex: This statement is False.
Godel's Incompleteness Theorem only bolsters this dilemma. Can
mathematics ever be complete, if it relies on itself for definition?
Godel doesn't seem to think so. So why not play the self-referential
game to our own advantage? I see no reason why we can't have
beliefs about beliefs themselves (metabeliefs, meta-meta-beliefs, etc.)
On the one hand, I do take on beliefs for their _operational_ efficacy.
The materialist paradigm has worked quite well so far. I see reason
to reject it, just on its practical grounds alone. Now, arguing wether
it *is* the true nature of reality is another matter altogether. Science is
a methodology of rational inquiry and has resulted in our knowledge of
Universe being subjected to a constant state of revision. To reject
something out-of-hand because it does not fit, is the opposite of
science and might as well be materialist superstition. Therefore...
Over the years, I have tried to use language loose enough to take into
account my limited ability to asses the true nature of reality. Lets face
it, to be certain of anything we'd have to run an infinite series of
experiments under an infinite set of conditions. So if someone
came up to me and asked me point blank "Is the 'Face on Mars
of ET origin?'. My answer would be phrased something like this:
"Based on the latest photographs, the evidence supporting the
ET hypothesis has lessened considerably since the original
Viking photo's. I admit the coincidence of the 'Mars face'
and the several 'pyramidal structures' is unusual enough
no to dismiss it out of hand, but until more compelling
evidence comes along, I remain skeptical of any ET
connection."
Cheers,
Paul Hughes
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