Roxolan comments on Diseased thinking: dissolving questions about disease - Less Wrong

236 Post author: Yvain 30 May 2010 09:16PM

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Comment author: RichardKennaway 13 November 2013 12:23:26PM *  3 points [-]

Maybe

Maybe everyone would have a pony.

ETA: It is not for the proponent of an argument to fabricate a Least Convenient Possible World -- that is, a Most Convenient Possible World for themselves -- and insist that their interlocutors address it, brushing aside every argument they make by inventing more and more Conveniences. The more you add to the scenario, the smaller the sliver of potential reality you are talking about. The endpoint of this is the world in which the desired conclusion has been made true by definition, at which point the claim no longer refers to anything at all.

The discipline of the Least Convenient Possible World is a discipline for oneself, not a weapon to point at others.

If I, this hypothetical judge, am willing to have the innocent punished and the guilty set free, to preserve confidence that the guilty are punished and the innocent are set free, I must be willing that I and my fellow judges do the same in every such case. Call this the Categorical Imperative, call it TDT, that is where it leads, at the speed of thought, not the speed of time: to take one step is to have travelled the whole way. I would have decided to blow with the mob and call it justice. It cannot be done.

Comment author: Roxolan 13 November 2013 12:40:16PM *  0 points [-]

If that's what makes the world least convenient, sure. You're trying for a reductio ad absurdum, but the LCPW is allowed to be pretty absurd. It exists only to push philosophies to their extremes and to prevent evasions.

Your tone is getting unpleasant.

EDIT: yes, this was before the ETA.

Comment author: RichardKennaway 13 November 2013 12:47:19PM 1 point [-]

I think you replied before my ETA. The LCPW is, in fact, not allowed to be pretty absurd. When pushed on one's interlocutors, it does not prevent evasions, it is an evasion.