MugaSofer comments on Far & Near / Runaway Trolleys / The Proximity Of (Fat) Strangers - Less Wrong

9 Post author: botogol 23 January 2010 10:13PM

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Comment author: MugaSofer 22 January 2013 11:22:31AM -1 points [-]

Attention everyone: you don't get to decide what a problem is "about". You have to live with whatever logical implications follow from the problem as stated. If you want the problem to be "about" topic X, then you need to construct it so that the crucial point of dispute hinges on topic X. If you can't come up with such a scenario, you should probably reconsider the point you were trying to make about topic X.

No. If you know what point someone was trying to make, and you know how to change the scenario so your reason why it doesn't count no longer applies, then you should assume The Least Convenient Possible world for all the reasons given in that post.

Comment author: SilasBarta 22 January 2013 08:03:37PM 3 points [-]

True, and people should certainly try that, but sometimes the proponent of the dilemma is so confused that switching to the LCPW is ill-defined or intractable, since it's extremely difficult to remove one part while preserving "the sense of" the dilemma.

That's what I think was going on here.