Right. But where do you get the idea that it's better to have proof than accept an argument from authority? If you know someone is more intelligent than you and less likely to make mistakes, I don't know if there's a rational reason to not take their arguments at face value.
They only need to be wrong this one time to mess me up. Why do you think that accepting the word of someone that you think is smarter than you is a form of evidence? It's not. Evidence is evidence. Richard Feinman could tell me that the moon's a balloon just to play with my head. Geniuses are quirky that way.
Feynman told you that matter can and does exist in all of its possible positions simultaneously, and you believed it. I don't mean to offend you, but I highly doubt that you have studied physics to the point where you could prove his findings to yourself mathematically, and I also doubt that you have the equipment and wherewithal to reproduce the experiment. So you have no evidence that Feynman is correct besides a lot of other, more knowledgeable people in the same field telling you that he's correct. Beginning to sound less and less like reason!
Feynman does not argue from authority. People may trust him as an authority, and I certainly do, but the point is that his peers do not.
Hmm. Sounds an awful lot like
following someone else's thinking without question
to me. But, hey, if you say that it's reason then I guess you just need a new definition of religion.
I didn't say it was reason. I said Feynman does not argue from authority.
What? Maybe I'm not phrasing this well enough. Here's what I'm asking:
There is someone whom you know, empirically, or through whatever means you find convincing, is smarter than you.
That someone is also less likely to make mistakes than you.
Why would you trust yourself over that person rationally?
Because I know my own motivations, and I do not know theirs.Why would you trust yourself over that person rationally?