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This makes total sense, because of the assumption of common priors. Drop that assumption, and fully rational people can indeed agree to disagree. This is a lar

by rocqua 7y ago

This makes total sense, because of the assumption of common priors. Drop that assumption, and fully rational people can indeed agree to disagree. This is a large part of why rational people can look at the same evidence, and come to different conclusions.

Dylan16807 7y ago
> This makes total sense, because of the assumption of common priors. That's the Wiki article, yes. But scarejunba is going past that, to something more fundamental. If you have "pure minds untainted by experience, tabula rasa", then you remove the issue of priors. No longer is there any matrix of prejudices that have to agree. You start with observations about the world and logic, and nothing else, and everyone ends up in agreement. (To an extent you might bootstrap with priors, but over time you'd use observations and logic to replace them, especially when they disagree with someone else you're debating.)
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- smallnamespace 7y ago
  This seems unworkable because it ignores the role instincts have in living things, which are prior beliefs about the world put immediately into action. For example, an infant has an instinct to breathe right after birth. Is that a belief or an action? It’s both—a strategy to survive in the world encoded in genes attached to an implicit belief. An infant that tries to breathe two minutes later would suffer hypoxia and brain damage, while one that tries sooner will choke. There is no pure tabula rasa untainted by priors, as soon as you acknowledge minds are embedded in bodies shaped by millions of years of evolution and steeped in survival tactics, and what are tactics except a set of useful priors about good actions?
  - Dylan16807 7y ago
    Things your body does don't have to be integrated into the priors you use when performing logic. But "You need to breathe." and things like that would be the easiest priors to replace with observational data.

by rocqua 7y ago

Dylan16807 7y ago

> This makes total sense, because of the assumption of common priors. That's the Wiki article, yes. But scarejunba is going past that, to something more fundamental. If you have "pure minds untainted by experience, tabula rasa", then you remove the issue of priors. No longer is there any matrix of prejudices that have to agree. You start with observations about the world and logic, and nothing else, and everyone ends up in agreement. (To an extent you might bootstrap with priors, but over time you'd use observations and logic to replace them, especially when they disagree with someone else you're debating.)

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
smallnamespace 7y ago
This seems unworkable because it ignores the role instincts have in living things, which are prior beliefs about the world put immediately into action. For example, an infant has an instinct to breathe right after birth. Is that a belief or an action? It’s both—a strategy to survive in the world encoded in genes attached to an implicit belief. An infant that tries to breathe two minutes later would suffer hypoxia and brain damage, while one that tries sooner will choke. There is no pure tabula rasa untainted by priors, as soon as you acknowledge minds are embedded in bodies shaped by millions of years of evolution and steeped in survival tactics, and what are tactics except a set of useful priors about good actions?
- Dylan16807 7y ago
  Things your body does don't have to be integrated into the priors you use when performing logic. But "You need to breathe." and things like that would be the easiest priors to replace with observational data.