RE: Rightness and Utility of Patriotism

From: Harvey Newstrom (mail@HarveyNewstrom.com)
Date: Sun Jun 22 2003 - 08:42:10 MDT

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    Eliezer S. Yudkowsky wrote,
    > Harvey Newstrom wrote:
    > > Eliezer S. Yudkowsky wrote,
    > >
    > >> The difficulty here stems from two different senses of the word
    > >> "disagreement". Ideal Bayesians who "disagree about values" still
    > >> cannot "disagree about facts". That is, having different values does
    > >> not allow ideal Bayesians to disagree about facts, including the fact
    > >> of who assigns what values. Perhaps this means that the term
    > >> "disagreement" should not be used for differing values, and we should
    > >> simply say that Bayesians may "assign different values".
    > >
    > > This is an extremely important point, I think. Most of the
    > > "disagreements" on the list are not really disagreements. Different
    > > people have different data or assign different values. Most of the
    > > facts themselves are not in dispute. This may be the primary root of
    > > most if not all semantic misunderstandings. If this were recognized
    > > more often, perhaps more people would act in a more Bayesian manner?
    >
    > I disagree.
    >
    > :)
    >
    > The above point is what I wanted to warn against when I talked about the
    > danger of generalizing from ideal Bayesians to humans, because it is
    > possible to have simplified Bayesians that are missing a kind of
    > complexity that general Bayesians can have, i.e., nontrivial structure in
    > computing the utility function. It is possible to "disagree"
    > over values,
    > not just "assign different" values, but only if you are a certain
    > class of
    > mind, such that values can depend on probabilistic external facts or
    > probabilistic approximations of computations.

    OK, I must have misunderstood you and gone off on a tangent.

    But could you clarify which part you disagree with? that my point derives
    from yours? with my analysis of human disputes? or with my conclusion that
    maybe humans could act in a more Bayesian manner? or none of the above? 

    --
Harvey Newstrom, CISM, CISSP, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified InfoSec Manager, Certified IS Security Pro, NSA-certified
InfoSec Assessor, IBM-certified Security Consultant, SANS-cert GSEC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com>

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