Acting on your belief, for instance by asserting it, carries risk, and we can naturally extend the above: the greater your confidence the greater the risk you are prepared to take; the greater the risk you expect to face, the greater your confidence in your choice of action must be. Thus, following consensus or authority is generally, but not always, so low-risk, you barely need any reason at all. — Srap Tasmaner
For example, we may be faced with a choice between saying, "I think it's going to rain," and saying, "It's going to rain," or "I know it's going to rain." We have described these before as less and more confident versions of the same belief. (That's not quite true, of course, because the first could actually express greater confidence by means of understatement.) — Srap Tasmaner
Pretty sure I didn't say certainty is "inherent within assertion"; I said it could function as a reason for you not to fear being held accountable for what you say, but there may be other reasons. For instance, just following consensus or authority is probably all the reason we need much of the time. — Srap Tasmaner
If you are confident, then you don't see yourself as taking a risk. — Metaphysician Undercover
But following consensus, or authority, is a reason for confidence, a very good reason. — Metaphysician Undercover
Is it acceptable to assert something as if you are certain of it, when you really are believing that if you're wrong you can just pass off the accountability to someone else? — Metaphysician Undercover
You wrote:
I'd start here: if you believe that Jerry is under the box, you believe something about Jerry (and the box and so on), not something about the sentence "Jerry is under the box," such as it being true.
When we describe your belief, we use the sentence, "Jerry is under the box," so we're also talking about Jerry (and the box and so on), not the sentence "Jerry is under the box."
If you want to say that the sentence "Jerry is under the box" is true, I'd say you're talking not only about Jerry (and the box and so on) but also about English. Truth is for sentences, really, not beliefs, although it may do no harm now & then to call a belief that something is the case when it really is a "true belief." I expect I've done it somewhere in this thread, but that's speaking loosely.
That ambiguity is not the basis for my claim that the content of Tom's belief can be the same as the content of our report of his belief: the basis for that is that Tom has a belief about Jerry (and the box and so on), and that's exactly what we say he has. We're not talking about language and truth anymore than Tom is.
Suppose I'm about to climb a ladder, and someone I consider an authority assures me it's safe. If the ladder fails and I get a broken arm, I'm still the one who suffers the consequences. On the other hand, that person's assertion having proved wrong, I will be less likely to trust their judgment, so they suffer some consequence as well, just a slightly different sort. I might also suffer that same sort of consequence, if others think it was my mistake in trusting him. — Srap Tasmaner
But with the confidence mechanic, things can get weird, because students can collude to move the answer. As I tried testing this, it looked like it only took two students out of ten so colluding to make a noticeable difference, and three was overkill. (The idea is for the conspirators all to confidently select the same answer; they'll pick up some help from whoever believed this answer actually to be right, and often enough swamp other answers, including the right one, selected with only random confidence. Thus their choice tends to win more than it should.) — Srap Tasmaner
Scientists at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute[1] have found that when just 10 percent of the population holds an unshakable belief, their belief will always be adopted by the majority of the society. — Wikipedia
But if your boss tells you to climb the ladder and assures you that it is safe, then the boss is the one liable to pay compensation when you get hurt. — Metaphysician Undercover
So this is a type of confidence, which is real confidence because we have confidence in the authorities, but at the same time it isn't a true confidence, because we are just letting someone else make the decision for us. It is confidence in another person, not self-confidence. — Metaphysician Undercover
I think I've lost track of the point your trying to make. — Metaphysician Undercover
Ah, sorry, by "authority" I didn't mean someone in a position to order me to climb, but someone I considered an expert, whose opinion I trusted. — Srap Tasmaner
One other thought on bosses and ladders: his ordering me up is in itself interesting. Giving a command based on a belief -- we can suppose he honestly believes the ladder is safe -- is another way of acting, just like making an assertion that the ladder is safe. — Srap Tasmaner
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