On 4/18/08, Richard Loosemore <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Thomas McCabe wrote:
On 4/18/08, Richard Loosemore <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
You repeatedly insinuate, in your comments above, that the idea is not
taken seriously by anyone, in spite of the fact I have already made it
quite
clear that this is false.
The burden of proof is on you to show that someone takes your ideas
seriously. You have yet to link to a paper commenting on your work, or
a paper citing your work, or a blog which makes use of your ideas,
etc., etc.
Remember, the 'idea' at issue right now is the *challenge* that I issued to
Eliezer's approach to FAI.
If someone issues a challange to a set of ideas, the appropriate response
is not "Does anyone agree with the idea of this challenge?", but "Does the
challenged party have a coherent response to this challenge?".
Does NASA have a coherent response to the moon hoax theory? Of course
not; it isn't worth their time. This was used against NASA by the moon
hoaxers for years, until independent astronomers started posting
rebuttals. You must show that your theory is credible, or at least
reasonably popular, before people will take the time to refute it.
You keep trying to change start a popularity context, to see how many
people like the idea of the challenge. I cannot think of anything more
silly: you just address the challenge itself and look at how the challenged
party reacted.
I'm not referring some sort of "challenge vote", where everyone casts
a ballot or something to determine if the challenge is worthwhile
(which is a stupid idea). It simply isn't worth people's time to
refute each and every individual person who challenges a theory.
Therefore, you must show that your challenge has *merit*, either by
talking to people about it directly (as the creationists do) or
publishing papers on it (as Einstein did).
I am perfectly happy to let the ideas stand for themselves, and to point to
the contrast between (a) the clear articulation of those ideas that I made,
and (b) the incoherent (and sometimes rabidly irrational) reaction to those
ideas. That contrast speaks volumes.
You are obviously referring to the debate on SL4 twenty months ago,
which I have little interest in. If you want to present your ideas, go
ahead. But if you want everyone *else* to work on a rebuttal to your
ideas, you must show that they are more than pet theory #4,578,120.
It is always a bad sign when a person like yourself is incapable of
debating the actual issues themselves, but has to resort to childish
strategies like demanding to see authority figures who like the ideas.
I don't care a great deal about any one authority figure, but if
*everyone* disagrees with you, something is probably up. Can we at
least agree, in principle, that a "pet theory" which has been rejected
by everyone except the inventor is very unlikely to be accurate?
