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There is a problem with the invisible dragon. If your believer is aware that the strongest alternative to their belief that there is a dragon in the garage is
by msg 13y ago
There is a problem with the invisible dragon.
If your believer is aware that the strongest alternative to their belief that there is a dragon in the garage is that there is no dragon, they will tailor their explanations to your perspective. That doesn't prove they share your perspective deep down if they could just admit it to themselves, it just means they understand you.
- JoshTriplett 13y agoIt doesn't matter whether they understand the other person's beliefs or not; the question is, what do they actually believe experiments will show about the world, before performing the experiments? If they truly expect that there's a dragon in their garage, they'll expect results consistent with having a dragon in their garage; if they don't actually believe that, they'll make predictions consistent with not having a dragon in their garage.
- msg 13y agoThey believe that you will see X because you believe Y, while they will see P because they believe Q. They believe that Y-ers' worldviews cause them to interpret P as X, and blind them to seeing X as P. They don't believe that there is a neutral substrate of observation that everyone can agree on beforehand. I don't completely disagree with what you're saying, I am just trying to point out that the game goes many levels deep. A strategy that leads to victory on level 1, "tell me more about this dragon", is not going to work on level 2.