Poignant short story about truth-seeking that I just found. Quote:
"No," interjected an internal voice. "You need to prove that your dad will appear by a direct argument from the length of your nails, one that does not invoke your subsisting in a dream state as an intermediate step."
"Nonsense," retorted another voice. "That we find ourselves in a dream state was never assumed; rather, it follows so straightforwardly from the long-nail counterfactual that the derivation could be done, I think, even in an extremely weak system of inference."
The full thing reads like a flash tour of OB/LW, except it was written in 2001.
Agreed. Eric displayed so little ability to react to oddness. Perhaps, "Why would you react with revulsion if I expressed the desire to fuck you? If it's because of cultural expectation or because you would interpret such an expression as an indication that I'm generally abrupt and crass, then the analogy fails to hold."