[extropy-chat] belief

[Brett Paatsch]

Scerir wrote:

>...'believe' is a very difficult topic. I remember that Beth 
> van Fraassen (1980) wrote there may be good 
> reasons for 'accepting' postulates of a (scientific) 
> theory (model) but we are never justified in 
> 'believing' more than their empirical consequences. 
> Many claimed there was no difference between 'acceptance' 
> and 'belief'. This debate is still going on, after 20 years,
> in the British Journal for Philosophy of Science and in 
> Philosophy of Science. (Yes, I know, it is not easy to
> apply all that to the Singularity, because of its own
> conceptual nature.)

Thanks for posting this. It makes sense to me that this is
a topic that would be of interest to philosophers of science.

It would be simultaneously a relief to discover others have
seen the same problem before me and a concern that they
were not able to fix it.  Logically I think it is not hard and
the actual domain of the topic is very very small. But politically
and psychologically it is one of the hardest things I have ever
tried to argue. 

If it is not possible to get smart people to voluntarily improve
(update if you like) their internal dialog simply to do away with
a word that is harmful and which they are propagating probably 
unintentionally every time they use it, how on earth can we do
any of the other stuff?  Language is the means by which we 
communicate with each other and it is about semantics.

When folk says things are "just semantics" they are dismissing
in a phrase all possibility of their acquiring political sophistication
and the non-destructive power to better persuade. 

If we can't communicate we cannot persuade. If we can't 
persuade we can't influence change except by force. And that
doesn't do more than small incremental changes usually at the
cost of the life of the person that tries it anyway so force is
not a satisfactory answer either.  

I watch politics closely. The rate of technological change can
and has been greatly reduced by the politics of fear aimed at
uncritical thinkers (believers). It has slowed stem cells, genetic
engineering, gmo foods, the nature of the quid pro quo in IP is in
urgent need of review so that stupid laws don't slow things down.

It is not only possible that there will be no singularity it is possible
that civilization can go backwards. It has happened before in the
dark ages. 

I would greatly appreciate any assistance you can give in honing
in any antecedents to this believing debate. Can you cite particular
issues of the journals? 

Regards,
Brett