From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Sun Jan 12 2003 - 20:01:50 MST
Brett writes
> Lee Corbin sets up a test as follows:
>
> > Brett Paatsch claims that the two extended statements
> >
> > A. "I believe that life begins at conception. I believe
> > that any other points we might choose are essentially
> > arbitrary and uncertain. And I believe that this is
> > a view founded not in religion, not in faith, but on
> > the logic of the matter.
> >
> > B. "My working hypothesis is that human existence begins
> > at conception, and I contend that this is a view founded
> > not in religion, not in faith, but on logic."
> >
> > are not equivalent. I claim that they *are* equivalent.
> >
> > Who is correct?
>
> Good idea to put the proposition to a test in this way
> Lee. Your quite right, we should be able to determine
> empirically whether extropians as a whole perceive
> a difference between A and B.
Well, obviously there are differences. The question is
what are they, and how significant are they.
> As Eliezer pointed out, B, as set up, is missing a sentence
> (or A has an extra one), so that confounds the test a little.
Oh, not at all. That sentence is IMO completely redundant.
That the other dividing points between human and non-human
are "essentially arbitrary and uncertain" follows from the
guy's claim that his view is based on logic.
> Also its possible that by putting names on the options
> there might be subtle "allegiance effects" that have little
> to do with the question being tested. I hope not, but its
> not impossible, so I'd have preferred the propositions
> not potentially confound a choice involving support or
> opposition of either one of our views.
Yes, you're right. I'm in favor of openness almost instinctively,
but this is a case where the names may have hurt (or could have
hurt). Never underestimate the unconscious power of ideology,
even on top of the way "having a judicial temperament" is beyond
most people capabilities (or desires). But I also confess to
some annoyance with you, and unkindly strove in pique to expose
your fallacy to the world at your expense :-)
> It's possible that some people would not want to "dump on" the
> less favored proposition in deference to whoever happened to
> be holding it and so may not "vote" or express an opinion.
> I'm sure both you and I would not mind (well not much :-)
> but not everyone would know that we have such healthy
> ego ;-) and some might be "gentle" on us.
Alas. Yes. It could happen, even if you were to state
an arithmetic problem and attach people's names, I guess.
> I would argue that *if* a difference is perceived and more
> people see the variant without belief as more open to
> further discussion then I've made much but not all of the
> case I need to make to get some extropes to voluntarily
> give up reinforcing the believing meme (which competes
> head to head with the more sociable reasoning meme) by
> using it.
Efforts to change other people's verbal habits are, IMO,
doomed. One is already *very* lucky if he makes progress
in changing someone's ontology, though usually even that
can only happen unconsciously in the target after months
or years of unconscious processing.
(Example: Jeff Davis asserts that the "American Holocaust"
is in full swing now, as is as bad as any other one of the
20th century. Since he has planted this idea in our minds,
the *best* possible outcome for him is for some of us to
admit years from now that the Americans have directly or
indirectly been responsible for as many megadeaths as those
previous regimes, and this will occur when people have long
ago forgotten where they heard any accusation as "American
Holocaust".)
(Example: I hope that people's verbal behavior will indeed
change from blithely throwing the word "rights" around, and
instead will either say that X approves (X may be a society)
or speak of "legal rights". But what I am after is completely
different than what you are after, I think. I want to change
their belief about what exists, and then have their verbal
behavior change as a consequence of that. You just want 'em
to drop the word and say "I think" instead of "I believe"
or something.)
> Lots of other word memes and phrases could then be tested
> [like on a web site] including "human life" and
> "human beings" and we'd have a useful empirical tool easily
> adapted.
This is what focus groups do for politicians. The
campaign managers and PR specialists do try out
various phrases on focus groups to see what goes
over best. I find it all abhorrent. If one's position
has not really changed, i.e., actual judgments as to
the states of affairs, then just using different words
seems quite dishonest to me.
Lee
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