Tyrrell_McAllister comments on Guilt by Association - Less Wrong

1 Post author: Annoyance 24 June 2009 05:29PM

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Comment author: thomblake 24 June 2009 06:06:00PM 7 points [-]

"If P, then Q. P. Therefore, Not-Q." is just as basic and elemental an error as "If P, then Q. Q. Therefore, P." is.

I'm not sure I'd grant that. The second can be sneaky, in that you can encounter countless arguments of that form with true premises and a true conclusion. In the first example, on the other hand, true premises guarantee that the conclusion is false.

I'm not sure if there's a word for the latter category, but there probably should be. "The conjunction of the premises is inconsistent with the conclusion" is not nearly as awesome as, say, "Antivalid"

Comment author: Tyrrell_McAllister 24 June 2009 06:43:02PM 3 points [-]

"Stupidity whose opposite really is intelligence."