diegocaleiro comments on How not to be a Naïve Computationalist - Less Wrong

29 Post author: diegocaleiro 13 April 2011 07:45PM

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Comment author: diegocaleiro 18 April 2011 05:34:39PM 0 points [-]

Ok, I need then to know what established symbol means: "do precisely one of A1 through An"

Comment author: Sniffnoy 19 April 2011 01:13:41AM 2 points [-]

"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?)

Comment author: diegocaleiro 19 April 2011 05:22:28PM 0 points [-]

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......

Comment author: Sniffnoy 20 April 2011 06:18:40PM 1 point [-]

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.

Comment author: khafra 18 April 2011 05:59:40PM 0 points [-]

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?

Comment author: diegocaleiro 18 April 2011 06:24:49PM 2 points [-]

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'