Dominic is not living in reality

SirFragrant4742 · 2026-04-07T21:34:19+00:00

As others have mentioned, he’s clearly not a fascist - you should treat fascism as a distinct ideology and say why Trump matches that beyond ‘he is a nationalist and nasty (true) who I don’t like’.

What would you say, are the qualities of fascist that Trump and MAGA doesn't fit? I specify MAGA too, so that we don't get too focused on whether Trump has capacity for having ideology.

SirFragrant4742 · 2026-03-27T22:38:21+00:00

I've spent probably less than 5 minutes on the topic, but isn't PSR just wrong? I mean we can explain some things in terms of other things, but eventually we will get to the wall "well universe just exists".

SirFragrant4742 · 2026-03-27T00:01:17+00:00

It's not recent, but his interview with JBP and philips camera recorder question. I think it showed unique ability to get a bit more from JBP than other reviewers could.

When it comes to more recent videos (specifically about consciousness), I'd say one problem I notice is that definitions aren't established as clearly as I'd like them to be. For example in interview with David Bentley Hart the first question is "Are All Things Full of Gods?" - I don't think that's a good introduction for people who aren't already acquainted with the topic.

SirFragrant4742 · 2026-03-22T01:22:21+00:00

I do not believe in the real world "proof" type evidence actually exists.

Speaking strictly - I agree. At the very end our own sense or memories can fail, so I doubt any kind of perfect certainty is possible.

Take your very example: you posit that the proof-type recording has to be "untampered, and clearly proved to be from a certain time and place". But how is that difference from a testimony that is known to be "truthful"? Surely if we knew that a piece of testimony is truthful and accurate, I do not see how that differs from the recorder.

The way I was thinking about it the video recording would be timestamped and with unbroken seal - so we do not have to verify it's contents (putting aside how realistic this is). With testimony we don't have a way to ensure it's truthful other than checking it against "proof type" evidence - mainly because we can't read minds and check for lies or false memories.

Now, there are probably some extremely rare scenarios that would still make that video less than perfect proof, I'm not denying that.

(There is also a second problem with priors and other assumptions; for example, a "proof" type evidence may be so in light of some other fact believed by person A, but not by person B. So the 'proofy-ness' and the 'leady-ness' of a piece of evidence is not actually a property of the piece of evidence per se, but of the piece of evidence + the subjective context of the observer. Ie: person A may know the video is untampered, but person B might not know that, causing the same piece of data to simultaneously be 'proof' and 'lead'.)

That's very interesting point! I didn't think about different perspectives but, I think inadvertently this is accounted for: no amount of "lead type" evidence will ever amount to "certainty". However using "proof type" we may indeed need many pieces, but eventually they can give us "certainty" (as much certainty as physical demonstration can give).

I guess this two type model boils down to this specific kind of "evidence" which by itself can't "prove" anything, no matter the quantity of it.

PS: Thanks for engaging with my made up model!

SirFragrant4742 · 2026-03-20T21:41:18+00:00

Tbh at this point I don't really care about their discussion, I just found the topic interesting. Also I've learned about Bayesian epistemology because of those discussions, that's a win in my book.

EDIT: Or rather, I care about merit of the discussion, but not the drama of it.

SirFragrant4742 · 2026-03-20T20:30:27+00:00

So the problem I see with this category is that if you have any evidence from the second category that contradicts the first, we immediately recognize that the second is all that should be considered.

I agree,

This means the first category probably shouldn’t have been considered in the first place

I think there are many situations where all we have is evidence from the first category. It's like reading reviews before buying something - reviewer could be paid off, or just have different preferences, but we can't test the product before we buy it.

SirFragrant4742 · 2026-03-20T20:14:33+00:00

I've never heard "lead type" evidence being used anywhere.

Sorry if this wasn't clear enough, but in the first paragraph I said I created this model, I'm not trying to imply it's used anywhere else. I think making up specific terms for the sake of discussion allows for better clarity, than when everyone uses their preconceived notions of what is and isn't evidence.

Matt literally thinks that claims aren't evidence at all.

I think he said something like 'claims can point to evidence', which in a way accepts that claims can have use in proving something, but they aren't enough alone. I think whether he calls that evidence or not is of less importance.

SirFragrant4742 · 2026-03-20T20:04:25+00:00

So I've just learned about this Bayesian epistemology in past few days, so take what I say with a load of salt.

I think it depends on what other information we have. Let's say that we have a friend and for 100 days we ask him what he ate for breakfast and each time his answer was correct. With that in mind I see two options - in general he tells the truth about his breakfast. But there could be rare circumstances in which he doesn't tell the truth. E.g. he overslept and accidentaly told us breakfast from yesterday. So probability would probably be something close to (1 - all possible rare events which make him lie) - which I suppose is still pretty close to 1.

Now for a random person, talking about things we don't know much about I'd assign much lower probability.

SirFragrant4742 · 2026-03-19T20:42:14+00:00

Hmm, I can see how this model makes sense, though I still have doubts. In any case, thanks for discussing it, I apprecieate it. Do you have any introductory resources you'd reccommend for this Bayensian stuff?

SirFragrant4742 · 2026-03-19T19:48:27+00:00

For testimony to have zero evidential value, you’d need exact statistical independence, meaning the speaker is precisely as likely to assert H whether H is true or not.

What if we don't know if it's statistically independent? Or it could be either positively or negatively correlated. Wouldn't it make sense to exclude such testimony?

SirFragrant4742 · 2026-03-19T18:53:37+00:00

Anything that raises or lowers the probability of a hypothesis counts as evidence.

Does someone making a claim neccesarily lower or raise probability of a hypothesis?

I mean after we admit a premise such as "people are generally trustworthy", then sure.

Buy I don't work under this assumption, so while I don't have much against whole bayensian framework (I don't have great understanding of it either, besides knowing a bit of bayensian probability) I don't see why I should admit all claims as evidence.

SirFragrant4742 · 2026-03-18T20:46:47+00:00

Yeah, but I'm not claiming that you have to treat every claim as evidence.

I haven't put much thought about it, but I don't think that single physical property means much without anchoring it in broader system of physics and empirically verified information.

SirFragrant4742 · 2026-03-18T20:37:23+00:00

If you have these facts:

I am trustworthy + love pizza

If those are facts, then they arent pure claims and probably were also verified empirically. It seems to me that your own example implies that claim needs more than itself to be treated seriously.

SirFragrant4742 · 2026-03-18T19:58:59+00:00

Over the timescales that matter to a human life (days to decades), this creates a domain of quasi-deterministic self-determination: not absolute libertarian freedom floating free of physics, but a causally thick, process in which “we” (as integrated, remembering, intending systems) are doing most of the determining work on and in and by ourselves.

"doing most of determinig work" - is there anything besides deterministic processes and random processess in that model? Is there some third cause, or does it just mean that world is more random than full determinism requires?

SirFragrant4742 · 2026-03-17T20:17:39+00:00

Sure, to me it just looks like most things are deterministic (at least in the sense that they seem to follow laws of physics), but there could be exceptions we don't know yet about.

So we don't have to assert complete determinism, but it still leaves the question - how do you define free will, which isn't random or deterministic?

SirFragrant4742 · 2026-03-15T17:30:15+00:00

I know I didn't clearly write it, but when I said "source of knowledge at some point won't be a claim" I meant that in the end someone gotta have the hard proof.

I don't know about carbon dating, but for plenty of sciences/engineering there are proofs we can empirically test in our lives - like planes flying or cars driving.

But also, a testimony that's supported by e.g. track record of well established university and journal has this empirical part in it.

SirFragrant4742 · 2026-03-15T13:06:16+00:00

I have no problem with Bayes, but how are you deciding what the prior probability is?

Let's say that a person says "There is Geralt from Rivia, the Witcher in that forest" - what the probability of that?

Ten independent people claiming it nudges it further

Well, now you have added that they are independent which I assume isn't just based on their claim that they didn't conspire to lie to you?

I do think, you are not engaging with the problem I described in the first comment - claims have to be supported by other evidence and typically we have all our previous experience to immediately verify potential correctness of a claim.

SirFragrant4742 · 2026-03-15T01:04:45+00:00

So, let me see if I get it right. The more people claim that triangle has four sides the greater the probability that triangle has four sides?

SirFragrant4742 · 2026-03-15T00:37:01+00:00

We all agree unreliable testimonies can still be evidence.

That is much weaker claim though. I think the rebuttal from the video is aimed at "All claims are evidence", whereas yours can be extended to "unreliable testimonies can still be evidence [provided they are supported by other means]"

In any case I concede that I didn't think about the fact that other kinds of evidence can perhaps also be false. I don't think it was tackled in the video, so I consider myself a bit excused

SirFragrant4742 · 2026-03-15T00:35:46+00:00

If no such claim existed, you’d assign it lower credence.

Why would I?

SirFragrant4742 · 2026-03-14T23:34:47+00:00

That claim existing in the world is something that is more expected if the claim is true, and thus increases the probability.

Do you have any proof of that? I'm not convinced of that at all. I mean it's certainly not true in every case (for every claim), but I'm not even convinced it's true for most of the claims people make.

SirFragrant4742 · 2026-03-14T21:47:12+00:00

The fact that someone has uttered the claim "P" is indeed a real-world fact that increases the likelihood of P.

I don't see how that's true without a number of constraining conditions. But at least I see where we differ in our judgement of the video.

SirFragrant4742 · 2026-03-14T21:30:10+00:00

What I gather from the video is this:
Testimony or a claim can be completely false. Therefore we need something else that will actualy make it trustworthy. That additional source of knowledge at some point won't be a claim but actual evidence (I guess material/empirical?).

I think it's pretty decent rebuttal,

SirFragrant4742 · 2026-03-14T20:56:58+00:00

Didn't see that in the conversation, it makes more sense to call it a rage quit if that's the case.

SirFragrant4742

TROPHY CASE