= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
gwern comments on Pound of Feathers, Pound of Gold - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (15)
It's worth noting that philosophers perform much better on these kinds of tests than equivalently educated or intelligent persons: http://experimentalphilosophy.typepad.com/experimental_philosophy/2009/09/philosophers-just-aint-twitterers.html
Perhaps this is because philosophers do expect to be asked pointless questions, or ones where the answer is held to be self evident? :-)
Well, it shouldn't have to do with expectations. Suppose you're a normal person taking those sample questions - shouldn't you expect 'trick questions' of some sort? (If I were taking a math test and was asked what is 50+50, I'd double-check several times...)
So they should have no disadvantage compared to the philosophers; I think this really is just a case of philosophers being more used to carefully checking through the language of the question, its presuppositions etc. and their own solution, and being better at it. Which should come as no surprise, since this is basically most of philosophy (as an activity)!