simplicio comments on Rationality quotes: March 2010 - Less Wrong

3 Post author: Morendil 01 March 2010 10:26AM

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Comment author: simplicio 06 March 2010 04:18:38AM 2 points [-]

"The question not as "is Astrology real or correct", it becomes "could time of birth affect development, apart from seasonal effects?"

I have wondered that too. Trouble is: signal-to-noise ratio. Maybe you were born in December and it was cold, so you have a slight tendency to think of the world as hostile (say).

But that will be drowned out by a zillion other far-more-important influences.

Same a fortiori with gravitational/electromagnetic fields. Start with gravity. I calculate on the back of the envelope the pull of Proxima Centauri (the nearest star that's not the sun) as being on the order of 7 piconewton, or 7 trillionths of a newton. (A newton is enough force to lift a hamburger.) So what if you are pulled in the direction of P. Centauri by an amount as feeble as that? That's about as much gravitational pull as an orange has on you 50 metres away. :) Not to mention all the other stars are acting in opposite directions. Result: nil.

Electrical force argument left as an exercise for the reader.

Comment author: RobinZ 06 March 2010 04:27:57AM *  1 point [-]

Apropos of nothing: Welcome to LessWrong! (Do I detect a Galileo reference in that handle? Classic!) Feel free to introduce yourself there! If you want some reading, What Do We Mean By Rationality? is a good kicking-off point; that said, we try to link back to related ideas in most of our posts, so you'll find a lot of cool info just by following overcomingbias.com and lesswrong.com links in comments and posts. If you want to be systematic - or just look for random lists to pick attractive titles off of - you can try the sequences and the top-rated posts.

Comment author: simplicio 06 March 2010 05:38:46AM 1 point [-]

What ho, thanks for the welcome!

Yes, I like the role of Simplicio as the guy who asks the dumb questions.

Thanks for the links; I've already been gobbling this website down for a week or so, having been put on the scent by Massimo Pigliucci's. Haven't seen overcomingbias yet, mind.

Again, many thanks for the bread-salt. :)