The sixth in a series.
The sixth in a series with Mauricio on critical rationalism and bayesian epistemology. See one, two, three, four, five, six, and seven.
Nice, it looks like we agree much more than we disagree. On the two points you mention where we may disagree, this might be a little underwhelming, but I think my position is closer to disinterest than disagreement.
I’m unconvinced by most of your specific arguments unfortunately (insofar as I understood them all), because as you point out, in order to avoid circularity you have to invoke “weird” arguments involving parallel universes, perfect simulations of oneself, identifying as algorithms, and the average value density of the universe. All these claims just strike me as being so detached from actual human decision making that I’m not terribly eager to get into the weeds here. David Miller once called this the Maximization of Expected Futility, and I tend to agree.
So when you say that I’ve convinced you that CR is a great way of thinking about decision making, and that it’s often better than MEU as an explicit approach to decision making, honestly, that’s more than enough for me. I don’t really think of CR as competing for the title of “best normative ideal for decision making” - that’s not something I’m terribly interested in. It’s much more important to me that it works in practice, and that it describes what people actually do.
I’ll just end by circling back to the beginning, and give1 you the final word.
Decision theory was never my primary interest, but rather, that people take made up numbers very seriously when they’re called “subjective probabilities.” So I’m surprised and impressed and a little dismayed that you bit the bullet here, and allowed me to just declare myself an expert and state my credence in response to Ord, as if that settles the matter. Certainly when you say
When a credence is formed with little information, it’s best to only update a little on its basis, and—especially if the credence is highly relevant for an important decision—it’s very valuable to look for more information.
this is an improvement, but I can’t shake the feeling that this advice will just translate to “believe in the experts you already believe in” in practice. And of course CR doesn’t get out of this either, that’s the point. CR expects people to be biased and fallible and error-prone, and therefore recommends one seeks criticism - not experts.
Anyway, this has been an excellent exchange and you’ve taught me a great deal - so thank you for taking the time! I’ll end with this:
Oh, and I noticed that your list of book recommendations has a bunch I haven’t read from authors you’ve mentioned (Popper, Deutsch). Do you happen to have one or a few in particular that you’d recommend?
Ha, yes, certainly. I’m very influenced2 by the work of David Deutsch and Karl Popper. In particular I’d recommend: