A thread through the archive
Essays tagged “epistemology”. Follow an idea across the archive.
Scott Alexander analyzes the surprisingly low existential risk estimates from a recent forecasting tournament, particularly for AI risk, and explains why he only partially updates his own higher estimates.
Scott clarifies his stance on conspiracy theories and expert trust, advocating for a nuanced approach that acknowledges both the value of expert opinion and the potential for misrepresentation.
Scott Alexander examines the use of absurdity arguments, reflecting on his critique of Neom and offering strategies to balance absurdity heuristics with careful reasoning.
Scott Alexander examines various interpretations of rationality, concluding it might be best understood as 'the study of study' - a meta-level examination of truth-seeking methods.
This collaboration examines the empirical evidence and significance of spiritual experiences, arguing they deserve serious consideration as an important aspect of human life.
Scott Alexander presents a series of nested dialogues exploring the nature of understanding and meaning, from AI to humans to angels to God, questioning what true understanding entails.
Scott Alexander presents a 'Grand Unified Chart' showing how different domains of knowledge share a similar structure in interpreting the world, arguing this is due to basic brain algorithms and effective epistemology.
Scott Alexander explains postmodernism to rationalists, using the Dark Age debate as an example, and discusses its applications, risks, and critiques.
Scott Alexander examines the concept of 'Kolmogorov complicity' and its implications for scientific inquiry under oppressive orthodoxies, using historical and hypothetical examples.
Scott Alexander presents satirical, absurdist 'hardball' questions for presidential candidates, blending their backgrounds with outlandish scenarios and philosophical puzzles.
Scott Alexander explores five unspoken assumptions in discussions that can lead to misunderstandings and logical fallacies when not clarified.
Scott Alexander defends Bayesianism as a valuable epistemology, contrasting it with absolutist and nihilistic approaches, and argues for its usefulness in complex reasoning.
Scott Alexander defends logical positivism, arguing that despite its flaws, it points to useful ideas about dividing meaningful statements into scientific and logical categories.
Scott argues against Eliezer's position that reversed stupidity is never intelligence, showing that observing many people believe something for bad reasons can help identify 'popular claims' that people assert regardless of truth, which lets you properly discount future assertions of those claims.
Scott explores whether philosophers genuinely seek answers or prefer endless debate, noting that while philosophy generates many solutions to problems, it lacks mechanisms like scientific experimentation to settle which solutions are correct.
Scott distinguishes between an argument's internal confidence level and our external confidence in that argument, showing that extremely high probability claims should be moderated by the baseline probability that the argument itself is flawed.
Scott analyzes when assertions should be trusted, showing that their evidentiary value depends on whether you already know the belief's distribution, the asserter's credentials, and how you encountered them, while claims of having 'evidence' mostly serve as signals of rationality rather than factual proof.