Sengachi
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Hmm. I don't think it's not useful to practice looking at the truth even when it hurts. For instance with the paperwork situation, it could be that not fixing the paperwork even if you recognize errors in it is something you would see as a moral failing in yourself, something you would be averse to recognizing even if you allowed yourself to not go through the arduous task of fixing those mistakes. Because sometimes the terminal result of a self-evaluation is reducing one's opinion of oneself, being able to see painful truths is a necessary tool to make this method work properly.
That said, I do think this is a much more... (read more)
That last part is the most important.
We can't answer every question.
No, but I think we can answer any question.
"Not if they change their minds when confronted with the evidence."
"Would you do that?"
"Yeah."
This is where I think the chain of logic makes a misstep. It is assumed that you will be able to distinguish evidence which should change your mind from evidence that is not sufficient to change your mind. But doing so is not trivial. Especially in complicated fields, simply being able to understand new evidence enough to update on it is a task that can require significant education.
I would not encourage a layperson to have an opinion on the quantization of gravity, regardless of how willing they might be to update based on new evidence, because they're not... (read more)
This ought to be embedded deeply in the minds of everyone involved in education. Most regrettably, it is not.
There was a time when I was very rude to religious people because I thought that made me wise. Then there was a time when I was very polite because I thought equity in consideration was wise.
Now I'm just curt because I have science to do and no time to deal with fools.
I saw the path Frozen's plot took as well done.
I liked the fact that Anna's relationship with Hans didn't work out. Disney went out of its way to poke holes in the traditional 'love at first sight' meme, something I think is a huge improvement on how Disney portrays most relationships. Furthermore, they showed Anna and Kristoff's relationship to grow on a solid foundation over time, and to be mutually pursued, as opposed to being a one-sided chase. Whereas Anna wanted her relationship with Hans to miraculously change her life, her relationship with Kristoff is an important part of her life without being her reason d'etre. All of this, to me, seems... (read 361 more words →)
The whole point is how you change your beliefs in response to new evidence.
Of course the general concept of using a belief as a litmus test for rationality is foolish. But frankly, it's not possible at this point to have not been introduced to evidence about human-caused global warming. The people to which this test would be applied have been introduced to this new evidence and already failed to update.
And if someone lives in such a secluded bubble of information that they are truly getting information that would lead a rationalist to decry AGW, I think it safe to say that that person is probably not a rationalist. Someone in such a bubble would have no impetus to become a rationalist in the first place.
Just so you all know, Clifford Algebra derivations of quantized field theory show why the Born Probabilities are a squared proportion. I'm not sure there's an intuitively satisfying explanation I can give you for why this is that uses words and not math, but here's my best try.
In mathematical systems with maximal algebraic complexity for their given dimensionality, the multiplication of an object by its dual provides an invariant of the system, a quantity which cannot be altered. (And all physical field theories (except gravity, at this time) can be derived in full from the assumption of maximal algebraic complexity for 1 positive dimension and 3 negative dimensions). [Object refers to... (read 560 more words →)
There are cases in which you can relate dimensionless units. For instance, moles is a dimensionless unit, it just means times 6.022*10^23. But you can relate moles to moles in some cases, for instance with electrolysis. If you know how many electrons are being pumped into a reaction and you want to know how much Fe(II) becomes Fe, then you can compare moles of electrons to moles of Iron, even though neither moles, elements, or electrons can be related directly to one another in the conventional sense of m/s. In the same way one can relate dollars of one thing to dollars of another and get a meaningful answer.
You are right to point this out though, it is skirting very close to the gray areas of dimensional analysis without being explicitly mentioned as doing so.
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