Rational astrologies Suppose that you are transported back in time several hundred years. You start a new life in an old century, and memories of the future grow vague and dreamlike. You know you are from the future, but the details are chased away like morning mist by a scalding sun. You marry, have children. You get on with things. Suddenly, your wife becomes ill. She may die. You consult the very best physicians. They discuss imbalances of her humors, and where and how she should be bled. You were never a doctor or a scientist. The men you consult seem knowledgeable and sincere. But all of a sudden you get a flash of memory from your forgotten future. The medicine of this era is really bad. Almost none of what they think they know is true. Some of their treatments do some good, but others are actively harmful. On average, outcomes are neither better nor worse with than without treatment. You know your insight from the future is trustworthy. Do you let the doctors treat your wife, even pay them handsomely to do so? Of course you do. With no special scientific or medical talent, you have no means of finding and evaluating an alternative treatment. You do have the option of turning the doctors away, letting nature take its course. From a narrowly rationalistic perspective, you understand that nontreatment would be “optimal”: Your wife’s chances would be just as good without treatment, and you would save a lot of coin. That doesn’t matter. You pay the most respected doctors you can find a great deal of money to do whatever they can do. And it is perfectly rational that you should do so. Let’s understand why. A very interesting piece by Steve Randy Waldman interfluidity/v2/3513.html
Posted on: Sun, 16 Jun 2013 16:51:27 +0000
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