4 ms·

Are you consistent in your skepticism, or do you reserve it for mathematical answers only?

mistermann 2y ago
> Are you consistent in your skepticism I aspire to it, but the degree to which I am successful I cannot know. > or do you reserve it for mathematical answers only? I have no problems with math, it is science that bothers me (the "models" part above). How about yourself? Have you any doubts about the adequacy of your ~ideology?
- mannykannot 2y ago
  Would you care to articulate what's bothering you? I'm afraid I have been unable to discern anything that would be specific to science, even when taking into account the article on the difference between necessity and sufficiency that you linked to.
  - mistermann 2y ago
    Here's a hint: would you care to answer my question?
    - mannykannot 2y ago
      Oh, that's no bother at all: I try to keep an open mind, while expecting putative explanations of any sort to actually make some progress on explaining something. As far as I know, it's not a named ~ideology of any sort, just a reasonable response to incomplete knowledge. As it would be neither informative nor fair to speculate about what's on your mind, this isn't giving me any hint as to what's bothering you, so would you now care to answer my question?
      - mistermann 2y ago
        Thank you. And to be clear: your question is a fine one, and perfectly reasonable. > I try to keep an open mind... Not to be rude, but I consider this to be an (unrealized) "no" - to me, ~passivity cannot implement skepticism; true skepticism is extremely intellectually demanding. It's not possible to give you an object level description of my issues that would do them any sort of justice, but I think this points in the direction quite well: consider when religion ruled the world (controlled the memetic functioning of the majority of human minds) - this, for what are now obvious reasons, had many issues, and caused substantial harm to humans. Science was the way out of that delusion, and it has rewarded us well. But it too is yet another delusion/faith based ideology (to a lesser degree in volume, though not necessarily consequence[1]), there is another level of enlightenment available to humans, but the ideology of science/scientism is now behaving as religion did in the past, rather than adhering to its scriptures (a recurring problem with ideologies of any kind). [1] climate change is an existential threat in my books, and it was brought to our doorstep by science
        mannykannot 2y ago
        And thank you for your reply - I think we can agree to differ over where the optimal level of skepticism lies. Global warming is indeed a serious matter involving not only the use, abuse, and unintended consequences of applied knowledge, but also the abuse (for intended consequences) of skepticism. The same could be said for the lab-leak hypothesis of the origin of covid-19, at least for those of us (such as myself) who think there's a plausible case for it. As someone who thinks AI "doomerism" is similarly a justified concern, I suppose I should be concerned that if Philip Goff et. al. ever get around to explaining mental phenomena as being a consequence of consciousness being fundamental, then that could help bring about the doomer scenarios, but frankly, I am not so open-minded as to think there's any real prospect that they will (mainly because they don't seem at all interested in finding such explanations.) I feel there is a real possibility of humanity suffering a serious and possibly terminal setback in the relatively near future, either as a consequence of abusing something we know or not making use of something we know, but I have no opinion as to which way it will go, if indeed it does.
        2y ago

> Are you consistent in your skepticism I aspire to it, but the degree to which I am successful I cannot know. > or do you reserve it for mathematical answers only? I have no problems with math, it is science that bothers me (the "models" part above). How about yourself? Have you any doubts about the adequacy of your ~ideology?

mannykannot 2y ago
Would you care to articulate what's bothering you? I'm afraid I have been unable to discern anything that would be specific to science, even when taking into account the article on the difference between necessity and sufficiency that you linked to.
- mistermann 2y ago
  Here's a hint: would you care to answer my question?
  - mannykannot 2y ago
    Oh, that's no bother at all: I try to keep an open mind, while expecting putative explanations of any sort to actually make some progress on explaining something. As far as I know, it's not a named ~ideology of any sort, just a reasonable response to incomplete knowledge. As it would be neither informative nor fair to speculate about what's on your mind, this isn't giving me any hint as to what's bothering you, so would you now care to answer my question?
    - mistermann 2y ago
      Thank you. And to be clear: your question is a fine one, and perfectly reasonable. > I try to keep an open mind... Not to be rude, but I consider this to be an (unrealized) "no" - to me, ~passivity cannot implement skepticism; true skepticism is extremely intellectually demanding. It's not possible to give you an object level description of my issues that would do them any sort of justice, but I think this points in the direction quite well: consider when religion ruled the world (controlled the memetic functioning of the majority of human minds) - this, for what are now obvious reasons, had many issues, and caused substantial harm to humans. Science was the way out of that delusion, and it has rewarded us well. But it too is yet another delusion/faith based ideology (to a lesser degree in volume, though not necessarily consequence[1]), there is another level of enlightenment available to humans, but the ideology of science/scientism is now behaving as religion did in the past, rather than adhering to its scriptures (a recurring problem with ideologies of any kind). [1] climate change is an existential threat in my books, and it was brought to our doorstep by science
      - mannykannot 2y ago
        And thank you for your reply - I think we can agree to differ over where the optimal level of skepticism lies. Global warming is indeed a serious matter involving not only the use, abuse, and unintended consequences of applied knowledge, but also the abuse (for intended consequences) of skepticism. The same could be said for the lab-leak hypothesis of the origin of covid-19, at least for those of us (such as myself) who think there's a plausible case for it. As someone who thinks AI "doomerism" is similarly a justified concern, I suppose I should be concerned that if Philip Goff et. al. ever get around to explaining mental phenomena as being a consequence of consciousness being fundamental, then that could help bring about the doomer scenarios, but frankly, I am not so open-minded as to think there's any real prospect that they will (mainly because they don't seem at all interested in finding such explanations.) I feel there is a real possibility of humanity suffering a serious and possibly terminal setback in the relatively near future, either as a consequence of abusing something we know or not making use of something we know, but I have no opinion as to which way it will go, if indeed it does.
        2y ago