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Perplexed comments on How not to be a Naïve Computationalist - Less Wrong
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Comments (34)
Speaking of thoughts getting lost ...
You are using the word XOR incorrectly. It has an accepted meaning - it is not a word that is available for you to attach a private definition to. The actual meaning of a recommendation to "do A XOR B" is "do A or do B but don't do both because whichever one you do second will undo the good effect of whichever one you did first". If the meaning you wish to convey is "do A or do B or do both (though both is not necessary)" then you should use the word OR. At least in English.
Please correct this. For some reason, it offends me far more than would a picture of Mohammed.
To expand on that point, I should also point out that that more generally "do A_1 XOR A_2 ... XOR A_n" means not "do precisely one of A_1 through A_n", but rather "do an odd number of A_1 through A_n".
Ok, I need then to know what established symbol means: "do precisely one of A1 through An"
"Do precisely one of A_1 through A_n". There's nothing wrong with writing things out longhand.
(Except, as Perplexed points out, I don't think that's really what you mean - would it really be such a problem to do more than one?)
If the purpose is to be mininmal, yes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exclusive_or
"one or the other but not both." From Wikipedia.
I begin to think I was not that wrong......
Your use may be technically correct but it is very misleading. If you simply say "do A or B", it's clear that doing one is sufficient so a person who wants to save effort will only do one. Specifying "xor" therefore suggests that there is some additional harm to doing both, beyond nonminimality.
Do A ∈{A1, A2, ... An} ?
Although in this case, I don't think there's any harm to come from doing more than one of A1 through An; wouldn't "at least one" work better?
I got that usage of 'XOR' from one of Pinker's books I believe. But given my utilitarianism, I'm postponing my knowledge so that those who suffer mohammed-level pain stop experiencing it, and using simple 'OR'