wedrifid comments on The Correct Contrarian Cluster - Less Wrong

38 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 21 December 2009 10:01PM

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Comment author: MichaelVassar 22 December 2009 06:19:22AM 11 points [-]

I don't think that QM, P-Zombies and Many Worlds are good examples at all. Frankly, I tend to think that the use of nuance, the use of careful distinctions between proposed hypotheses rather than the endorsement of slogans is a very good sign. For precisely this reason, however, I thought that http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2009/12/what_do_philoso.html was a fantastically useless survey. If you summarize a philosophical debate in a slogan and ask people for a 'yes/no' answer you should expect the best thinkers to be able to explain exactly what would cause people to endorse each side and how those causes establish or fail to establish correspondence to reality.

Comment author: wedrifid 22 December 2009 07:35:14AM 8 points [-]

I thought that http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2009/12/what_do_philoso.html was a fantastically useless survey.

So did I, for most part. The best response to some of those questions would be "Sod off. The mistake is asking that question in the first place, and neither answer is meaningful. Reality just doesn't carve there."

Comment author: gwern 22 December 2009 01:10:20PM 4 points [-]

I suppose that's why all the questions had 'other' as a possible response...