New Thread On Sklansky Extrapolation Question

[gaming_mouse]

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Say people are carefully evaluated and are classified by how likely they are to get things right on yes or no questions. They are rated from A to G. A's are historically the most likely to get things right.

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Who determines what a valid "yes or no" question is, and what the correct answer is?

It seems ironic that the model being used here implicitly is one of an omniscient being, a Great Teacher who can keep score of the quizzes administered to his imperfect students -- a great mass human beings of varying skill levels.

Without such a scorekeeper, it is human beings who must determine the answers to these yes or no questions. But now the argument becomes circular.

I think all the confusion surrounding the orginal question stems from the flaw in this basic assumption: that we can coherently talk, in some general sense, about one's skill at answering a yes or no question.

[ZeeJustin]

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I think all the confusion surrounding the orginal question stems from the flaw in this basic assumption: that we can coherently talk, in some general sense, about one's skill at answering a yes or no question.

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It's trivially easy to "talk, in some general sense, about one's skill at answering a yes or no question".

Why would you think otherwise?

[gaming_mouse]

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I think all the confusion surrounding the orginal question stems from the flaw in this basic assumption: that we can coherently talk, in some general sense, about one's skill at answering a yes or no question.

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It's trivially easy to "talk, in some general sense, about one's skill at answering a yes or no question".

Why would you think otherwise?

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Maybe I wasn't being clear. You can obviously talk about people being able to answer yes or no questions about arithmetic, or about things such as the freezing point of water, or about the capitals of different countries, etc. But the point is that all of these questions are admissible precisely because, as a community, we overwhelmingly agree on the correct answer.

But you can't now start talking about something like "the complete set of yes or no questions." That is what I meant by "general." And I think it is an assumption of the original question that David asked that you can meaningfully talk about the complete set of yes or no questions. I think I explained why I believe you cannot do this in my first post, but if it's still not clear I can try to elaborate.

[madnak]

If each yes or no question has a correct answer, independently, then we can talk about skill in answering such questions. This is an epistemological question. I think David is assuming for the purpose of argument that at least some questions have answers.

[gaming_mouse]

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If each yes or no question has a correct answer, independently, then we can talk about skill in answering such questions. This is an epistemological question.

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You are right that it is an epistemological question, and that's my point. Your assumption that every yes or no question has a correct answer is a philisophical, even a religious, one. You might like to say we humans don't always know the answer, but still it must exist. But that is just something you take on faith (hence the irony I mentioned in my first post). But it just doesn't make sense to talk about the correct answer to many yes or no questions. As with other questions of faith (like the existence of God), people won't agree on the methods of proof.


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I think David is assuming for the purpose of argument that at least some questions have answers.

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He is assuming much more than that. He's assuming that we can talk about a thing called "one's skill at answering yes or no questions," and further assuming that this phrase has a meaning beyond the ability to answer yes or no questions whose answers are part of the agreed upon body of human knowledge.