Thread:User talk:Armondikov/Aumann agreement theorm/reply (9)

Still, I think the general concept that "agreeing to disagree" is a pitiful cop-out. You wouldn't have the conversation "I think gay people should be allowed to marry" "Well I think that's against God's law so they shouldn't" "Okay, that's your opinion, I respect that, let's agree to disagree". No. One of those is just wrong.

This is why I dislike debate. Two sides shouting at each other. How productive. Contrast with science where you have one side: science. And you have one solution: reality. Can you apply that method to "non science" areas (What's the best tax level? Should we have a death penalty?)? It's not easy, but neither should it be considered impossible and dismissed as even worthwhile trying. Sometimes it produces non-intuitive answers, such as when Yudkowsky said that from a utility perspective it would be preferable to torture one person for 50 years over 3^^^3 people getting dust in their eye - because it causes less net suffering overall. It's counter-intuitive compared to how we've evolved to think, but it's the result of a method.

Now, there are sometimes more than one solution. I know in modelling kinetic data with more than two processes this happens a lot. But you can compare the solutions in other ways, focusing on the "right" one. You don't just "agree to disagree" because two people used the same modelling method from different starting guesses and got two different answers with similar R2 - you bang on it again and again until you're right.