Peter_de_Blanc comments on The Illusion of Sameness - Less Wrong

10 Post author: Elizabeth 22 January 2011 06:41AM

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

Comments (73)

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

Comment author: Peter_de_Blanc 23 January 2011 04:35:53PM 7 points [-]

If you want to predict how someone will answer a question, your own best answer is a good guess. Even if you think the other person is less intelligent than you, they are more likely to say the correct answer than they are to say any particular wrong answer.

Similarly, if you want to predict how someone will think through a problem, and you lack detailed knowledge of how that person's mind happens to be broken, then a good guess is that they will think the same sorts of thoughts that a non-broken mind would think.

Comment author: sark 23 January 2011 05:07:02PM 2 points [-]

Yay! I got it! Thanks for putting up with me.

Comment author: Perplexed 23 January 2011 05:42:45PM 1 point [-]

Thank you for keeping after him! I didn't see that resolution coming either.