Rationality quotes: March 2010

Morendil

This is our monthly thread for collecting these little gems and pearls of wisdom, rationality-related quotes you've seen recently, or had stored in your quotesfile for ages, and which might be handy to link to in one of our discussions.

Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be voted up/down separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
Do not quote yourself.
Do not quote comments/posts on LW/OB.
No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.

Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be voted up/down separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
Do not quote yourself.
Do not quote comments/posts on LW/OB.
No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.

According to V. S. Ramachandran, schizophrenics lack the ability to understand or create metaphors.

I didn't want to link to the massive time vacuum that is TV tropes, but I figured people would understand the metaphor even if they hadn't run in to it before.

People yes. Paperclip maximizers/office assistants no.

2h-H16y

actually it's not that easy to see the tvtropes connection, I mean I spend quite a while on tvtropes when I go there-who doesn't?- but in never crossed my mind that that was what you meant.

7Clippy16y

I understand metaphors. I just don't understand why there would be a need for scale for science fiction writing. It's much more important to be able to look up material properties.