tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post8577052820321325602..comments2024-03-18T20:24:18.935-05:00Comments on Alexander Pruss's Blog: Confidence and securityAlexander R Prusshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05989277655934827117noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-17820494638124849392015-12-03T14:58:29.469-06:002015-12-03T14:58:29.469-06:00The central results of this paper will appear in &...The central results of this paper will appear in "Being sure and being confident that you won't lose confidence", Logos and Episteme.Alexander R Prusshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05989277655934827117noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-76471210177806316022013-10-22T00:32:12.742-05:002013-10-22T00:32:12.742-05:00Thanks for the clarification. I think I may have m...Thanks for the clarification. I think I may have misunderstood this sentence from the original post:<br /><br />'So let's let the absolute security level be that level of credence which suffices for security regardless of what you know about the kinds of future data you might receive.'<br /><br />I took this to mean that I have absolute security in my knowledge of P iff (I would still be secure in my knowledge of P even if nothing to which I had epistemic access counted as positive evidence against the view that I would, in the future, receive evidence that counts against P). Your reply shows me that this is not what you meant by this sentence, but I'm still not sure I'm tracking. Would it be fair to say that in the sentence I have quoted above, you mean that absolute security is the level of confidence such that, necessarily, if you have at least that level of confidence in any given proposition and you satisfy the stated conditions 1 - 5, then you have security with respect to that proposition?Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06251565524682589544noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-40143239992075559902013-10-21T12:23:50.862-05:002013-10-21T12:23:50.862-05:00We can imagine this evidence, but it is very unlik...We can imagine this evidence, but it is very unlikely that we will get it.<br /><br />Why? Well, it's extremely likely I have two hands. That's at least 0.9975, and probably way, way higher.<br /><br />If I have two hands, any evidence to the contrary is misleading. But I am unlikely to get misleading evidence of such strength as to pull me too far down. That's because there are probabilistic bounds on how far misleading evidence is likely to push one. See for instance <a href="http://alexanderpruss.blogspot.com/2012/02/how-likely-am-i-to-be-misled.html" rel="nofollow">here</a>. <br /><br />And of course the result of this post shows that if I know for sure that my current credence is 0.9975, then my credence that I will never get evidence that pushes me below 0.95 should be at least 0.95.Alexander R Prusshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05989277655934827117noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-7251728247565595302013-10-21T12:05:42.934-05:002013-10-21T12:05:42.934-05:00It seems pretty easy to imagine some very convinci...It seems pretty easy to imagine some very convincing evidence which could come our way to show that we are all living in a computer simulation. This entails that we are not absolutely secure in our knowledge that we are not all living in a computer situation (right?). If something that basic is non-absolutely-secure, I wonder if the only truths about which we have absolute security are apriori truths and certain matters of introspection. Can you think of any others?Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06251565524682589544noreply@blogger.com