"The point is this: You can take any boring dilemma and Enfoible it to spawn a self-advertising puzzle that drives its own virulence & engagement."
Indeed - but could you make that point as effectively as you have here, without discussing either Newcomb's paradox or some other enfoibled dilemma? If not, could Newcomb's paradox be the best choice as the canonical example of enfoiblement in action?
A good question! I selected Newcomb’s Paradox for 3 reasons: First, it has a 50/50 split on PhilPapers Survey, with the wrong answer in the lead; second, it has 3 Foiblers that I see lots of other places; third, I happened to come up with an elegant Defoibled alteration of the thought experiment off the cuff while discussing it with friends a few weeks ago, and wanted to share it.
I make subtle references to some other viral Fests in the above article: Trolley Problems, Fake Barns & Gettier Cases, Mary’s Room, and P-Zombies.
Thanks! I could go on about Mary's Room and P-zombies at some length - maybe I should, in articles of my own - and I feel a big part of their problem is equivocation, over the polysemic verbs 'to know' and 'to conceive of' respectively.
Very well explained, with principles that have general application. The defoibled story is very clever. I wish I'd thot of it when I was trying to explain to Huemer why he was wrong to be a two-boxer. The best I managed was to say that the Dominance Principle is fine in the real world, where these sorts of predictions never work (and could not work -- they can be foiled by just flipping a coin at decision time), but that **in the hypothetical** that principle wouldn't be fine at all.
"The point is this: You can take any boring dilemma and Enfoible it to spawn a self-advertising puzzle that drives its own virulence & engagement."
Indeed - but could you make that point as effectively as you have here, without discussing either Newcomb's paradox or some other enfoibled dilemma? If not, could Newcomb's paradox be the best choice as the canonical example of enfoiblement in action?
A good question! I selected Newcomb’s Paradox for 3 reasons: First, it has a 50/50 split on PhilPapers Survey, with the wrong answer in the lead; second, it has 3 Foiblers that I see lots of other places; third, I happened to come up with an elegant Defoibled alteration of the thought experiment off the cuff while discussing it with friends a few weeks ago, and wanted to share it.
I make subtle references to some other viral Fests in the above article: Trolley Problems, Fake Barns & Gettier Cases, Mary’s Room, and P-Zombies.
Thanks! I could go on about Mary's Room and P-zombies at some length - maybe I should, in articles of my own - and I feel a big part of their problem is equivocation, over the polysemic verbs 'to know' and 'to conceive of' respectively.
Yes. And, in the zombie case, a shameless equivocation on "possibility". Plus other issues.
Very well explained, with principles that have general application. The defoibled story is very clever. I wish I'd thot of it when I was trying to explain to Huemer why he was wrong to be a two-boxer. The best I managed was to say that the Dominance Principle is fine in the real world, where these sorts of predictions never work (and could not work -- they can be foiled by just flipping a coin at decision time), but that **in the hypothetical** that principle wouldn't be fine at all.
Favorite thing I’ve read in awhile! Thank you!
Thank you for this perspective, you explained it extremely well.