= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
CronoDAS comments on The scourge of perverse-mindedness - 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 (249)
Most of the time I've run into the word "obviously" is in the middle of a proof in some textbook, and my understanding of the word in that context is that it means "the justification of this claim is trivial to see, and spelling it out would be too tedious/would disrupt the flow of the proof."
Well, that's what it's supposed to mean. One of my professors (who often waxed sarcastic during lectures) described it as a very dangerous word...
Do you really assert that it is more often used incorrectly (that the fact is not actually obvious)?
I assert that it ("obviously" in math) is most often used correctly, but that people spend more time experiencing it used incorrectly -- because they spend more time thinking about it when it is not obvious.
No, I guess not.