Nice read, but perhaps you do not love philosophy as much as you think- Bah seems like an excellent conversation stopper! A resort to common sense, like a resort to logic, science, rationality, etc. are all parcel to the epistemological tradition of foundationalism. This leaves you with a series of other problems, I.e. how do you find which beliefs are foundational, but you may consider or ignore this at your own leisure.
It was obvious to many ancients that the world is flat, the Chinese didn't learn otherwise until visited by Jesuits. It was obvious to many who knew the world is round that it was the center of the universe, with other astral bodies rotating around it. It was obvious that the species which exist on Earth have always existed, and have always been separate. It was obvious to pre-modern people that medicine aided their health, and your colleague Robin Hanson has written about how we evolved to show that we care via medicine, even when it doesn't work (as was generally the case prior to the 20th century). It was obvious that solid objects were not mostly empty space before we discovered electrons. It was obvious to Aristotle that some humans are naturally slaves. Modern science overturned so many of these beliefs because it helps make more accurate predictions. Many of your philosophical beliefs don't do that, and skeptics can stand on no less solid ground.
To add, if there is a single obvious counterexample (you listed many) that shows that the Philosophy of Bah is false, then it is false (self-refuting).
I understand the temptation of literally saying "Bah!" to a stupid proposal. At the same time, I think I would prefer sticking with your follow-up, “The premises of your argument are much less obvious than [my alternative premises]." Or, in Bayesian terms, "Your priors are less reasonable than my priors."
I think Hitchens used “bah” for religion, when he said if an extraordinary claim (god exists) is made without evidence, it can be rejected without evidence.
Your point about proof of physical world vs we are living in the matrix is interesting.
I would have approached it as a claim about the matrix is itself a positive assertion that attracts the burden of proof. And that burden can’t be met. However, that would still leave 2 competing hypotheses which are both wanting of proof. But I would think that it would be possible to “prove” physical reality using an inanimate device measuring an inanimate object.
I have always found these challenges to be remarkable in their faith in the power of proof. Apart from the weaknesses of the postulates.
People who think proof is infallible have little acquaintance with the history of mathematics. Not the ancient history of mathematics; I am speaking strictly since Euler. Some theorems have been proved which, it turned out later (sometimes much later, in one case seventy-five years later if I have it exact) had not in fact been proved, and, in some cases, were not in fact true; only the mathematical community had to sharpen its ability to tell a proof from an almost-proof.
Why would you want something proved which was not only less doubtful than at least one of the postulates but even less doubtful than proof?
It's a good philosophy for avoiding paralysis, that's for sure. To add something, I would say that you toy around with those extremes is interesting. Philosophy is about justification, and I find people who just "Bah" at bad or incomplete arguments to be less interested in it. In other words: it matters if you started with "Bah" or concluded with "Bah".
If you just took the time to understand fallibilism properly you would spare yourself the need to struggle so hard to rationalise these unsatisfactory philosophies to justify your accurate intuitions.
The insinuation that existential risk from AI is a “secular miracle” is unfortunate, and is at odds with how both the median AI researcher and the CEOs of frontier labs have publicly characterized the risk.
Further, there is an obvious difference between existential risk and any other class of risk in how well base rates can help you in taking the outside view: whenever you ask “well how many times has the world ended before?” the answer will always necessarily be zero, no matter how risky the thing in question actually is.
Yes, I think anyone dismissing the idea that AI poses an existential risk is either dismissing the importance of intelligence or for some reason asserting that machine intelligence is impossible - which at this point is dismissing what anyone can see with their own eyes.
Nice read, but perhaps you do not love philosophy as much as you think- Bah seems like an excellent conversation stopper! A resort to common sense, like a resort to logic, science, rationality, etc. are all parcel to the epistemological tradition of foundationalism. This leaves you with a series of other problems, I.e. how do you find which beliefs are foundational, but you may consider or ignore this at your own leisure.
It was obvious to many ancients that the world is flat, the Chinese didn't learn otherwise until visited by Jesuits. It was obvious to many who knew the world is round that it was the center of the universe, with other astral bodies rotating around it. It was obvious that the species which exist on Earth have always existed, and have always been separate. It was obvious to pre-modern people that medicine aided their health, and your colleague Robin Hanson has written about how we evolved to show that we care via medicine, even when it doesn't work (as was generally the case prior to the 20th century). It was obvious that solid objects were not mostly empty space before we discovered electrons. It was obvious to Aristotle that some humans are naturally slaves. Modern science overturned so many of these beliefs because it helps make more accurate predictions. Many of your philosophical beliefs don't do that, and skeptics can stand on no less solid ground.
To add, if there is a single obvious counterexample (you listed many) that shows that the Philosophy of Bah is false, then it is false (self-refuting).
I understand the temptation of literally saying "Bah!" to a stupid proposal. At the same time, I think I would prefer sticking with your follow-up, “The premises of your argument are much less obvious than [my alternative premises]." Or, in Bayesian terms, "Your priors are less reasonable than my priors."
Did someone say "miracles"? Check out my pre-print "Evidence and Belief: David Hume in the Library of Babel": https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5243003
Interesting.
I think Hitchens used “bah” for religion, when he said if an extraordinary claim (god exists) is made without evidence, it can be rejected without evidence.
Your point about proof of physical world vs we are living in the matrix is interesting.
I would have approached it as a claim about the matrix is itself a positive assertion that attracts the burden of proof. And that burden can’t be met. However, that would still leave 2 competing hypotheses which are both wanting of proof. But I would think that it would be possible to “prove” physical reality using an inanimate device measuring an inanimate object.
I have always found these challenges to be remarkable in their faith in the power of proof. Apart from the weaknesses of the postulates.
People who think proof is infallible have little acquaintance with the history of mathematics. Not the ancient history of mathematics; I am speaking strictly since Euler. Some theorems have been proved which, it turned out later (sometimes much later, in one case seventy-five years later if I have it exact) had not in fact been proved, and, in some cases, were not in fact true; only the mathematical community had to sharpen its ability to tell a proof from an almost-proof.
Why would you want something proved which was not only less doubtful than at least one of the postulates but even less doubtful than proof?
It's a good philosophy for avoiding paralysis, that's for sure. To add something, I would say that you toy around with those extremes is interesting. Philosophy is about justification, and I find people who just "Bah" at bad or incomplete arguments to be less interested in it. In other words: it matters if you started with "Bah" or concluded with "Bah".
If you just took the time to understand fallibilism properly you would spare yourself the need to struggle so hard to rationalise these unsatisfactory philosophies to justify your accurate intuitions.
Plantinga's "properly basic beliefs?"
The insinuation that existential risk from AI is a “secular miracle” is unfortunate, and is at odds with how both the median AI researcher and the CEOs of frontier labs have publicly characterized the risk.
Further, there is an obvious difference between existential risk and any other class of risk in how well base rates can help you in taking the outside view: whenever you ask “well how many times has the world ended before?” the answer will always necessarily be zero, no matter how risky the thing in question actually is.
Yes, I think anyone dismissing the idea that AI poses an existential risk is either dismissing the importance of intelligence or for some reason asserting that machine intelligence is impossible - which at this point is dismissing what anyone can see with their own eyes.