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Subjectively, I may prefer the risk of the false positive scenario to the risk of the missed diagnosis and early death. This is not reflected in statistics, bec

Subjectively, I may prefer the risk of the false positive scenario to the risk of the missed diagnosis and early death. This is not reflected in statistics, because it is a personal preference. That may or may not be informed by additional information, for instance a person close to me may have had an early death from colon cancer and therefore I value the relief of having done the screening higher than someone else.

kerkeslager 6y ago
> This is not reflected in statistics, because it is a personal preference. What makes you think that personal preferences can't be studied? I'll tell you they can be studied because they are being studied.
- gridlockd 6y ago
  You asked a similarly misguided question in the other part of the thread. I answered there as well, I'll give you another angle here. There is no "recommendation system" that can predict the right course of action based on my personal preference. There isn't even a good system to record and measure personal preference, because expression of perception is by itself highly subjective. A doctor might ask you "how bad is the pain on a scale of one to ten?" or something of those sorts. That is informed by your entire history of pain experience. You're likely to rate the worst pain you ever felt as 10 - every time. Then, pain does not equal suffering. A child might start crying and get upset about a finger prick. A trained martial artist might be able to emotionally ignore the sensation of most pain stimuli, even though it's felt just as strongly. Could a system measuring and accounting for all this exist in principle? Perhaps. It doesn't exist though, so your point is moot.
  - kerkeslager 6y ago
    > A doctor might ask you "how bad is the pain on a scale of one to ten?" or something of those sorts. That is informed by your entire history of pain experience. You're likely to rate the worst pain you ever felt as 10 - every time. Okay, referencing studies showing that people don't accurately report pain in pain assessments is the second time you've obliquely referenced well-known groups of studies (the first time being a roundabout reference to How Doctors Die[1]). Think about how bad this logic is: you're referencing papers which gather objective evidence on personal perceptions around treatment, and using those papers as evidence that it's impossible to gather objective evidence on personal perceptions. Do you not see how the very evidence you're referencing refutes your point? One fix being studied for pain assessments is to additionally add a question about what the worst pain the patient has ever suffered previously is, and compare that to their rating of the current pain. [1] https://hms.harvard.edu/news/how-doctors-die https://hms.harvard.edu/news/how-doctors-die
    - gridlockd 6y ago
      I am not obliquely referencing any study. You are mind reading. So you have a statistic that says doctors choose to die differently than the patients they are treating. That is interesting, but merely descriptive, not prescriptive. It does not tell you which treatments works best for someone who happens to be a doctor. If you are talking about fixes being studied for problems borne out of subjectivity, you admit that objectivity is at odds with the individual.
      - kerkeslager 6y ago
        > If you are talking about fixes being studied for problems borne out of subjectivity, you admit that objectivity is at odds with the individual. I really don't even know what we're talking about any more. What are "problems borne out of subjectivity"?
        gridlockd 6y ago
        For instance, you can not make an objective assessment on whether prescribing a pain drug to patient is the right thing to do, because pain and suffering is a subjective experience. There is no pain meter that gives an objective reading of the patients experience and outlook and then tells you if some medication is statistically justified, relative to the harm it causes.
        kerkeslager 6y ago
        > For instance, you can not make an objective assessment on whether prescribing a pain drug to patient is the right thing to do, because pain and suffering is a subjective experience. Yes, pain and suffering are subjective experiences, but they are also objective phenomena. We know, to some extent, how pain works, and can see it happening on brain scans. I think the core of our disagreement here is that you seem to think that experience is somehow supernatural and therefore can't be studied, but it isn't: experience happens in the physical world, via physical and chemical processes, and can absolutely be studied via normal scientific means.

kerkeslager 6y ago

> This is not reflected in statistics, because it is a personal preference. What makes you think that personal preferences can't be studied? I'll tell you they can be studied because they are being studied.

gridlockd 6y ago
You asked a similarly misguided question in the other part of the thread. I answered there as well, I'll give you another angle here. There is no "recommendation system" that can predict the right course of action based on my personal preference. There isn't even a good system to record and measure personal preference, because expression of perception is by itself highly subjective. A doctor might ask you "how bad is the pain on a scale of one to ten?" or something of those sorts. That is informed by your entire history of pain experience. You're likely to rate the worst pain you ever felt as 10 - every time. Then, pain does not equal suffering. A child might start crying and get upset about a finger prick. A trained martial artist might be able to emotionally ignore the sensation of most pain stimuli, even though it's felt just as strongly. Could a system measuring and accounting for all this exist in principle? Perhaps. It doesn't exist though, so your point is moot.
- kerkeslager 6y ago
  > A doctor might ask you "how bad is the pain on a scale of one to ten?" or something of those sorts. That is informed by your entire history of pain experience. You're likely to rate the worst pain you ever felt as 10 - every time. Okay, referencing studies showing that people don't accurately report pain in pain assessments is the second time you've obliquely referenced well-known groups of studies (the first time being a roundabout reference to How Doctors Die[1]). Think about how bad this logic is: you're referencing papers which gather objective evidence on personal perceptions around treatment, and using those papers as evidence that it's impossible to gather objective evidence on personal perceptions. Do you not see how the very evidence you're referencing refutes your point? One fix being studied for pain assessments is to additionally add a question about what the worst pain the patient has ever suffered previously is, and compare that to their rating of the current pain. [1] https://hms.harvard.edu/news/how-doctors-die https://hms.harvard.edu/news/how-doctors-die
  - gridlockd 6y ago
    I am not obliquely referencing any study. You are mind reading. So you have a statistic that says doctors choose to die differently than the patients they are treating. That is interesting, but merely descriptive, not prescriptive. It does not tell you which treatments works best for someone who happens to be a doctor. If you are talking about fixes being studied for problems borne out of subjectivity, you admit that objectivity is at odds with the individual.
    - kerkeslager 6y ago
      > If you are talking about fixes being studied for problems borne out of subjectivity, you admit that objectivity is at odds with the individual. I really don't even know what we're talking about any more. What are "problems borne out of subjectivity"?
      - gridlockd 6y ago
        For instance, you can not make an objective assessment on whether prescribing a pain drug to patient is the right thing to do, because pain and suffering is a subjective experience. There is no pain meter that gives an objective reading of the patients experience and outlook and then tells you if some medication is statistically justified, relative to the harm it causes.
        kerkeslager 6y ago
        > For instance, you can not make an objective assessment on whether prescribing a pain drug to patient is the right thing to do, because pain and suffering is a subjective experience. Yes, pain and suffering are subjective experiences, but they are also objective phenomena. We know, to some extent, how pain works, and can see it happening on brain scans. I think the core of our disagreement here is that you seem to think that experience is somehow supernatural and therefore can't be studied, but it isn't: experience happens in the physical world, via physical and chemical processes, and can absolutely be studied via normal scientific means.