Epistemic status: searching for truthiness
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If you can learn to be genuinely surprised at something happening that you actually knew could happen, but managed to forget you knew, you’ve learned how to believe. Black belt: being stunned and blindsided by utterly predictable stuff playing out in utterly predictable ways.
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I recall my 9th grade biology teacher told us a joke/paradox about surprise that illustrates the process. On Saturday, warden tells prisoner: “you will be executed between now and Friday, on a day that will surprise you.” ...
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Prisoner smugly infers he’s safe from execution, why? Well, he can’t be executed on Friday because then he’d know by Thursday night and it wouldn’t be surprising. But then he can’t be executed on Thursday either, and so on recursively through to Sunday. Yay, he’s safe!
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On Tuesday, warden executes the prisoner, who is very surprised.
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I still haven’t come up with a satisfying account of this paradox. It’s a bit like the Monty hall problem in time
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Ah sounds like it’s called the unexpected hanging paradox in the literature. I’d like a less contrived example. Like people being genuinely surprised when Trump won, even though it was a formal possibility all along. I think that maps here somehow. https://twitter.com/mreliwjones/status/1216891689660489729?s=21 …https://twitter.com/mreliwjones/status/1216891689660489729 …
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