RichardKennaway comments on Rationality Quotes September 2011 - Less Wrong

7 Post author: dvasya 02 September 2011 07:38AM

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Comment author: RichardKennaway 10 September 2011 10:12:14PM * 10 points [-]

To say that life evolves because of an elan vital is on a par with saying that a locomotive runs because of an elan locomotif.

Comment author: gwern 10 September 2011 11:06:34PM * 3 points [-]

A nod to Molière's satirical line which coined the 'dormitive fallacy':

Why Opium produces sleep: ... Because there is in it a dormitive power.

(Le Malade Imaginere (1673), Act III, sc. iii)