Re: Open Letter to Lee Crocker

Eliezer S. Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Thu, 22 Jul 1999 17:35:09 -0500

Paul Hughes, I strongly suspect that you and Crocker are using entirely different definitions of the word "belief". You're defining it as an assertion that is believed with 100% probability and is probably emotionally supported. Crocker is defining it as a probabilistic assertion, which probability is *not* necessarily 50% or greater, but which *is* more likely (to within, say, an order of magnitude) than any alternate assertions.

That's why I said that neither Crocker nor I "believed" in anything, and why Crocker said that refusing to believe in anything is a form of moral cowardice. I meant that certainties are unnecessary, and Crocker meant that claiming to refuse all judgement (as to which of two assertions is
*more* plausible) is being afraid to say anything because you might be
proved wrong. (It's also dishonest; you can't avoid such judgements and remain functional.)

Do you believe that you can't believe in anything? This strikes me as being inconsistent. 

-- 
           sentience@pobox.com          Eliezer S. Yudkowsky
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