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There's a difference between thinking something false and thinking the thing insufficiently likely to be taken into account in practice. Russell's teapot argum

There's a difference between thinking something false and thinking the thing insufficiently likely to be taken into account in practice. Russell's teapot argument is about so-called unfalsifiable theories, not about all things.

ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
> There's a difference between thinking something false and thinking the thing insufficiently likely to be taken into account in practice. That's just it – there isn't. There isn't any effective difference between "assume false" and "no evidence for it, so we assume false". The reason we assume it's false is tangential to the fact that we assume that both the teapot theory and the fighting staircase theory are false. > Russell's teapot argument is about so-called unfalsifiable theories, not about all things The point of Russell's teapot, as Russell explained, and I quoted, is that even though the teapot (like this myth) is neither proven nor disproven, we should, and do, treat it as false, because that is the default state until sufficient evidence arises. It's an argument against entertaining theories that have no evidence, against ignorant agnosticism towards any arbitrary theory. Either way, I think the fighting staircase theory, like the teapot theory, is not falsifiable, but anyone is free to show it is, by falsifying it.
- ncallaway 3y ago
  > That's just it – there isn't. Well, the next time I find myself in a melee battle within a castle and am deciding whether I should fight my way up the stairs, I'm going to draw a distinction between: "Is absolutely false", and "We don't know whether it was true or false", and I'm going to let someone else go up the stairs first...
- calderknight 3y ago
  > That's just it – there isn't. This is your position, but it's not a position presented in the Wikipedia article. > we should, and do, treat it unproven Do you mean disproved here, rather than unproven? I think that when we know something has been neither proved nor disproved we should treat it as unproven (because it is unproven), but that does not mean we should assume that it is false.
  - ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
    > This is your position, but it's not a position presented in the Wikipedia article. It actually is, it's Russell's position! :) You claimed that before, and I corrected you then, so here, again for you, is the relevant part: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37831693 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37831693 Also, you forgot the rest of that! It was probably an honest mistake on your part, so I'll include the full context here, including the parts you missed, and hopefully you can address the whole thing now: > That's just it – there isn't. There isn't any effective difference between "assume false" and "no evidence for it, so we assume false". The reason we assume it's false is tangential to the fact that we assume that both the teapot theory and the fighting staircase theory are false.
    - calderknight 3y ago
      > There isn't any effective difference between "assume false" and "no evidence for it, so we assume false". This is very unclear to me, but if what you mean is something like "There is no practical difference between supposing something to be false and supposing the thing to be so unlikely that it shouldn't be taken into account in one's decisions" I might agree with you - both that it is true and that something like it is present in the Wikipedia article - and we could go on from that point. >The reason we assume it's false is tangential to the fact that we assume that both the teapot theory and the fighting staircase theory are false. I'm not sure what the "it" is in the "it's" part of this sentence, so I can't respond to this part of your comment.
      - ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
        > > There isn't any effective difference between "assume false" and "no evidence for it, so we assume false" > This is very unclear to me, but if what you mean is something like "There is no practical difference between supposing something to be false and supposing the thing to be so unlikely that it shouldn't be taken into account in one's decisions" I might agree with you Not sure what part of that is unclear to you, but feel free to ask clarifying questions. I did indeed phrase what I said correctly. Your phrasing is also correct. To tie the two together, it is as likely, with our currently-zero affirmative evidence, that the teapot exists, as it is, with our currently-zero affirmative evidence, that the fighting staircase theory is true. Thus, if you effectively treat the teapot's existence as false, you should also effectively treat the fighting staircase theory as false. > > The reason we assume it's false is tangential to the fact that we assume that both the teapot theory and the fighting staircase theory are false. > I'm not sure what the "it" is in the "it's" part of this sentence, so I can't respond to this part of your comment. Again, you're always free to ask me questions if you don't understand something! In this case, "it" refers to the teapot theory and the fighting staircase theory, since the two are analogous here.

ImPostingOnHN 3y ago

> There's a difference between thinking something false and thinking the thing insufficiently likely to be taken into account in practice. That's just it – there isn't. There isn't any effective difference between "assume false" and "no evidence for it, so we assume false". The reason we assume it's false is tangential to the fact that we assume that both the teapot theory and the fighting staircase theory are false. > Russell's teapot argument is about so-called unfalsifiable theories, not about all things The point of Russell's teapot, as Russell explained, and I quoted, is that even though the teapot (like this myth) is neither proven nor disproven, we should, and do, treat it as false, because that is the default state until sufficient evidence arises. It's an argument against entertaining theories that have no evidence, against ignorant agnosticism towards any arbitrary theory. Either way, I think the fighting staircase theory, like the teapot theory, is not falsifiable, but anyone is free to show it is, by falsifying it.

ncallaway 3y ago
> That's just it – there isn't. Well, the next time I find myself in a melee battle within a castle and am deciding whether I should fight my way up the stairs, I'm going to draw a distinction between: "Is absolutely false", and "We don't know whether it was true or false", and I'm going to let someone else go up the stairs first...
calderknight 3y ago
> That's just it – there isn't. This is your position, but it's not a position presented in the Wikipedia article. > we should, and do, treat it unproven Do you mean disproved here, rather than unproven? I think that when we know something has been neither proved nor disproved we should treat it as unproven (because it is unproven), but that does not mean we should assume that it is false.
- ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
  > This is your position, but it's not a position presented in the Wikipedia article. It actually is, it's Russell's position! :) You claimed that before, and I corrected you then, so here, again for you, is the relevant part: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37831693 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37831693 Also, you forgot the rest of that! It was probably an honest mistake on your part, so I'll include the full context here, including the parts you missed, and hopefully you can address the whole thing now: > That's just it – there isn't. There isn't any effective difference between "assume false" and "no evidence for it, so we assume false". The reason we assume it's false is tangential to the fact that we assume that both the teapot theory and the fighting staircase theory are false.
  - calderknight 3y ago
    > There isn't any effective difference between "assume false" and "no evidence for it, so we assume false". This is very unclear to me, but if what you mean is something like "There is no practical difference between supposing something to be false and supposing the thing to be so unlikely that it shouldn't be taken into account in one's decisions" I might agree with you - both that it is true and that something like it is present in the Wikipedia article - and we could go on from that point. >The reason we assume it's false is tangential to the fact that we assume that both the teapot theory and the fighting staircase theory are false. I'm not sure what the "it" is in the "it's" part of this sentence, so I can't respond to this part of your comment.
    - ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
      > > There isn't any effective difference between "assume false" and "no evidence for it, so we assume false" > This is very unclear to me, but if what you mean is something like "There is no practical difference between supposing something to be false and supposing the thing to be so unlikely that it shouldn't be taken into account in one's decisions" I might agree with you Not sure what part of that is unclear to you, but feel free to ask clarifying questions. I did indeed phrase what I said correctly. Your phrasing is also correct. To tie the two together, it is as likely, with our currently-zero affirmative evidence, that the teapot exists, as it is, with our currently-zero affirmative evidence, that the fighting staircase theory is true. Thus, if you effectively treat the teapot's existence as false, you should also effectively treat the fighting staircase theory as false. > > The reason we assume it's false is tangential to the fact that we assume that both the teapot theory and the fighting staircase theory are false. > I'm not sure what the "it" is in the "it's" part of this sentence, so I can't respond to this part of your comment. Again, you're always free to ask me questions if you don't understand something! In this case, "it" refers to the teapot theory and the fighting staircase theory, since the two are analogous here.