Jayson_Virissimo comments on Rationalist Fiction - Less Wrong

27 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 19 March 2009 08:22AM

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Comment author: Nominull 19 March 2009 03:14:06PM 12 points [-]

Encyclopedia Brown is an especially bad example. Most of the mysteries he solves, he solves by knowing some piece of minor trivia which contradicts some off-hand statement of the criminal. This promotes "rationality" as "knowing a lot of facts", which is absolutely not what we're trying to promote here, and provides the wrong model of problem solving. Encyclopedia Brown is based on formal logic, not Bayesian probability.

Comment author: Jayson_Virissimo 20 March 2009 12:32:49AM 6 points [-]

What is wrong with formal logic? Would the average fiction reader be harmed by becoming marginally better at formal logic?