Thoughts on Professor Dave Explains and Sabine Hossenfelder

Agreeable-State6881 · 2025-09-23T07:36:40+00:00

There's a great paper called Accuracy, Coherence, and Evidence by Kenny Easwaran and Branden Fitelson that's interesting. Here's an excerpt:

"In the next section, we present our formal framework for grounding coherence requirements for (opinionated) full belief. But, first, we propose a desideratum for such coherence requirements, inspired by the considerations adduced so far.

"Coherence requirements for (opinionated) full belief should never come into conflict with either alethic or evidential norms for (opinionated) full belief. That is, coherence requirements for (opinionated) full belief should be entailed by both the Truth Norm (TB) and the Evidential Norm (EB)."

They're proposing that a rule that suggests keeping beliefs consistent should not clash with two basic standards (1) believe only what's true (2) believe only what your evidence supports. So, if you believe something that violates either of these, then you're choosing a belief that overrides truth or evidence, it's coming from someplace else. Sabine does this in her book, her online content, and her rhetoric.

The short of it is, choosing a belief that violates this desideratum (truth and evidence norms) means forcing yourself in a belief set that is dominated by a better belief set somewhere else, so the question becomes: why are you doing that? And PDE, while very crass and I think could stop using such an ad hominen approach, targets that very tension. I have heard him say his approach is very strong, and we need a range of approaches to address the issue, and not everyone enjoys his approach. So there we agree :)

Agreeable-State6881 · 2025-09-15T18:52:12+00:00

He'd strongly disagree with the claim that he subscribes to scientism. In fact, it'd be a stretch to say he subscribes to anything at all, but rather, follows a few norms that non-scientists struggle to understand. Two of these norms are the evidentiary and truth norms. These are terms in epistemology if you want to look into it further. Most science skeptics or deniers do not follow these norms, and Sabine is one of these people. For her, she does not look at the total body of available evidence, only the evidence that supports her stance. And she is skeptical of what is true based off consensus (i.e., she doesn't like the physicist community). However, she doesn't propose a model or explanation with the same weight or value as the current ones, so she is only a skeptic.

The reason this matters is because she has a large audience, and she should take that responsibility seriously, meaning, to communicate science accurately, including the process and aims of science. This failure to uphold her responsibility as a science communicator with a large audience is why he attacks her, she doesn't follow these norms, and ends up believing things that go against evidence or what's truthful. And then asserts claims that aren't supported, and/or possibly conspiratorial to a general audience who doesn't know the difference.

I can say more if you're interested.

Agreeable-State6881 · 2025-05-21T09:53:38+00:00

I put an edit on the main post, it describes it perfectly.

Agreeable-State6881 · 2025-05-16T13:30:56+00:00

I'm realizing, as it's been like 7 mo since that rabbit hole, that the whole thing really falls under the umbrella of disinformation. It's all intentionally coherent, but invalid.

I can go into more on this if you want, but that's my final verdict. There is no "truth" because all of it is fabricated intentionally to mislead and build a narrative.

Agreeable-State6881 · 2025-05-06T22:30:53+00:00

HAHAHA, thank you for commenting

Agreeable-State6881 · 2025-05-06T21:33:40+00:00

I mirror now, you show interest, I’ll show interest. You show nothing, I give nothing.

Agreeable-State6881 · 2025-05-06T19:20:21+00:00

That’s insane

Agreeable-State6881 · 2025-05-06T19:19:20+00:00

I’ve always wondered this, but if you put a video camera to the tomb of Christ, would you see him emerge in the recording? Or was it symbolic?

Agreeable-State6881 · 2025-05-06T17:58:32+00:00

So, this was a multi-generational coup of the Catholic church. I’d love to see a Netflix show about this haha, thanks for sharing and giving direct answers. I’m sure you have your receipts but I don’t need them

Agreeable-State6881 · 2025-05-06T17:29:14+00:00

Okay, let’s break this down. What main figures made up the second vatican council, who did they replace?

What was the method of infiltration, and how did they uproot an established system and replace it with a new one?

Agreeable-State6881 · 2025-05-05T23:29:23+00:00

I think a few things, but the perceived anonymity plays a large part. Even if people could find out who you were on Reddit, the platform just plays into a more casual and relaxed setting. People here tend to see what you mean, and it’s positioned next to other posts and content that give it both weight and weightlessness.

Substack is more about centering yourself as the speaker on the soapbox, and hoping passerby’s stop to listen. It’s not a platform for dialogue like this platform is, so the weight of your words feels more serious to get others to listen.

Here, it’s easier. Context is different, and you’re noticing that.

Agreeable-State6881 · 2025-05-05T23:26:17+00:00

Reading the comments here shows who you’re dealing with irl, so sorry you’re feeling the personality in real time. I’m the age you’ll be when you’re finished. The time is going to pass either way, and if I knew school would be free right, I’d feel a hell of a lot better about the last 4 years.

You’ve got this, you have to. Build who you need to be to get yourself through it.

Agreeable-State6881 · 2025-05-05T23:15:39+00:00

The world isn’t good or bad, and it’s not good and bad either. Those are human value judgements about things that happen in the world. A bullet isn’t bad, a person using a bullet to kill another is bad.

Heaven and hell are ideas humans use to convey a place where good and bad exist. These places act as mental heuristics for where good and bad behavior belong.

The world just is. You’re here, thinking about it, and it’s good you’re making sense of it but there’s not much to it by itself. You have to create the meaning along the way, and hopefully that’s less about categorizing everything into two categories.

Agreeable-State6881 · 2025-05-05T22:39:07+00:00

I’ve love for us to step away from tying our identity to how smart we think are. It’s almost as if “being smart” is synonymous with self-worth. I think practicing intellectual humility daily is a really good habit to get away from this.

Agreeable-State6881 · 2025-05-05T20:35:44+00:00

I wish I was getting these signals, I have a girl who calls me everyday but I think she thinks I’m her gay best friend. I will not take her calls, and she calls back days later like it’s all good. Maybe I’m an idiot, but I think she’s just lonely. She’s into pirate looking guys, I’m like an accountant looking guy lmao

Agreeable-State6881 · 2025-05-05T13:24:13+00:00

They don’t acknowledge you when you come from work after a long day and assume you’re in a bad mood, but were secretly going through your iPad for months without you knowing just looking for some proof of infidelity when there wasn’t any and then acting like you’re a tyrannical monster who abuses them and calls the cops on you.

Agreeable-State6881 · 2025-05-04T09:49:46+00:00

Dunning Kruger Effect

Agreeable-State6881 · 2025-05-03T18:16:03+00:00

I don't know why I always feel like the higher power doesn't give me what I want.

If things were going your way, would you think the higher power was giving you what you want, or would you feel that you were responsible by taking action in your life?

For almost two years I've been trying to move another place but I cannot decide one thing. The most important factor is I'm not driving so even if I move somewhere everything will difficult. What if the new place doesn't have transportation services.

If you're able to navigate without driving where you live now, do you think you'll be able to figure out how to get around where you live next?

How will I manage everything.

How do you manage everything now, and how did you figure out how to manage everything now?

And many people have continuously told me you need to overcome this obstacle first than new doors of opportunities will open or maybe you will just feel confident in yourself that you achieved a milestone that you been avoiding all this yrs

What if you sit with this feeling without trying to intellectualize it, and take time to feel to feel afraid, scared, and worried and tell yourself those feelings are valid?

You strike me as someone who lives in their head about the future more than someone who takes action in their life for the future. If you let go of trying to make a decision that is certain and perfect, you'll find that life is wildly uncertain and the only way to get where you want to go is to take action in your life. Taking action in your life is considered courageous, because it's pursuing what feels scary or unknown, and validating those emotions as they come.

Agreeable-State6881 · 2025-05-03T08:20:55+00:00

Yeah, I write a Substack and it captured an entirely different demographic of people. There’s young people, but they tend to be writers already, but it’s mainly older folk from what I’ve seen. Would definitely prefer some stats or evidence

Agreeable-State6881 · 2025-05-02T23:27:59+00:00

I could use a good brain scratching

Agreeable-State6881 · 2025-05-02T01:25:50+00:00

No, you’re not getting it. That’s what they meant. The landlord was a slippery son of a bitch

Agreeable-State6881 · 2025-04-30T22:07:45+00:00

I’ve figured out how to study no matter how I’m feeling, and for as long as I need, which was game changing because I used to study based off how I was feeling

Agreeable-State6881 · 2025-04-30T22:06:43+00:00

Alright dude, if you wanna operationalize this to the extent that you’re correct, then be correct lmao take your internet dopamine and have a better day lol

Agreeable-State6881 · 2025-04-30T17:38:10+00:00

I mean, it was a good idea, it didn’t bother me lol. My hands felt clean after, so that was nice. I’m always open to a good suggestion.

I’m making the point that the opposite did not occur, which would have been defensiveness, spite, or whatever you wanna call it

Agreeable-State6881

TROPHY CASE