TheOtherDave comments on A sense of logic - Less Wrong

13 Post author: NancyLebovitz 10 December 2010 06:19PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (269)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: komponisto 10 December 2010 08:15:48PM *  5 points [-]

So, how did you feel when you read that bit of sf hand-waving?

Interestingly, my reaction wasn't negative. Instead, my curiosity was stimulated, and I immediately set myself the task of figuring out what was wrong with it. (Turned out to be easy, of course.)

On a larger scale, I've found the exercise of going through a certain 427 pages of wrongness, and coming to precise understandings of the mistakes, to be strangely satisfying (and informative). Perhaps it could be compared to the feeling of satisfaction a repairman might get from fixing a broken machine.

On the other hand, when (the very same) bad arguments are presented in this manner, I get so enraged I can barely stand to look. (Dark techniques really grate on me when they're used in an attempt to persuade people of something I know to be incorrect; and if you're wrong, you darn well better not be sanctimonious about your wrong answer.)

I also suspect that if I had encountered the above sci-fi argument in context, where the incorrect deduction would either have been used to support a further, important, wrong conclusion, or would just have indicated carelessness on the part of the author or character, I would have been annoyed.

Comment author: TheOtherDave 10 December 2010 08:39:04PM 4 points [-]

Perhaps oddly, I find myself far more often infuriated by invalid arguments used to persuade people of something I believe to be correct, than incorrect.

Comment author: komponisto 10 December 2010 08:44:45PM 5 points [-]

The feeling I get from that tends to be one of cringing discomfort rather than agitated anger.

Comment author: TheOtherDave 10 December 2010 08:50:39PM 3 points [-]

Huh. That's interesting. Introspecting on that now, I conclude that the same is true of me, but that I then experience anger in response to that discomfort. Of course, this sort of introspection isn't terribly reliable, but I'll try to pay closer attention the next time it comes up.