Timeline for How do we determine our actual degree of belief?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
10 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| 2 days ago | comment | added | mudskipper | So, if there is more evidence that something happened, will that make it more certain it happened? If not, why care about collecting more evidence? The police found several pieces of evidence - will a confession with details make it more believable that the suspect actually did the crime? The jury still has "reasonable doubt" -- does that not imply degrees of certainty? | |
| 2 days ago | comment | added | Syed | Some things have more evidence than others. Some things seem more obvious than others. Almost everyone, for example, thinks that the world is real, or that we are not all hallucinating, even if we can’t know this for sure. On the other hand, people regularly and commonly think they would do certain things but don’t actually do them. It is easier to claim to “believe” something when there is no consequence attached to being wrong. A consequence may be in the form of losing money in a bet, or something else. | |
| 2 days ago | comment | added | mudskipper | @causative -- Indeed, that's why I quoted Confucius... We observe. We base our belief about what some person A tells us they will or would do on how they acted in the past. At least, we'd be wise to do so or otherwise to just wait and see what they do... In one's own case - it's pretty clear that we're all deceiving ourselves a lot of times. | |
| 2 days ago | comment | added | causative♦ | It's pretty clear that asking someone what they would do is often different from what they would actually do. People don't have the most accurate models of themselves. We have a tendency to try to represent ourselves and think of ourselves in a more positive light than is true. But when it comes time to act (or bet, in this case), we are often more pragmatically self-interested than we said we would be, or don't have as much confidence in our convictions as we claimed. | |
| 2 days ago | comment | added | mudskipper | @JD - I think that all depends on the further context. I'd say, sometimes it matters, sometimes it doesn't. My comment also is too simplistic. | |
| 2 days ago | comment | added | J D | +1 Given your examples in the comments, would you characterize it as the 'subjunctive conditional' and 'factual conditional' respectively? Because in that language, isn't actually being used to differentiate between a hypothetical and factual linguistic frame of reference? And thus, the function of the word 'actually' isn't expressing a degree of confidence, but rather differentiating between linguistic contexts? | |
| 2 days ago | comment | added | mudskipper | In logical terms, a subjunctive "if p happens, then q would happen (A would do such and so)" is the same as a prediction, "if p, then q will happen". The truth of a prediction or an implication (p -> q) does not depend on the truth of p; the implication may be (accepted as) true even if p is not true (or not now true, not yet true). The word "actually" actually is only an intensifier which actually presupposes degrees of confidence... | |
| 2 days ago | history | edited | mudskipper | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| 2 days ago | history | edited | mudskipper | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| 2 days ago | history | answered | mudskipper | CC BY-SA 4.0 |