gwern comments on Rationality Quotes: February 2011 - Less Wrong

13 Post author: gwern 01 February 2011 05:46PM

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Comment author: gwern 06 February 2011 08:39:42PM 7 points [-]

Lewis is saying that if you've disproved faith, your reason is flawed. After all, faith must be right!

This is 'extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence', but in unfamiliar garb. We're not used to seeing it used the other way. (If a study reports ESP, then we ought to suspect problems in how it was conducted or analyzed rather than accept its conclusion - to use a recent example.)

I'm sure there are a number of relevant LW posts on the topic like "Einstein's Arrogance".

Comment author: Desrtopa 07 February 2011 05:26:46PM 2 points [-]

The one that immediately comes to mind for me is making your explicit reasoning trustworthy. Lewis was exhorting Christians not to trust their explicit reasoning.