cousin_it comments on Rationality Quotes November 2011 - Less Wrong

6 Post author: Jayson_Virissimo 01 November 2011 06:28PM

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Comment author: gwern 29 November 2011 08:44:11PM 3 points [-]

You can patch the argument easily; either the gods want their will known or not. If they don't, then the augur is screwed; if they do, then they want the bird to survive (to the point where the augur can figure out what was meant); and so on.

Comment author: cousin_it 29 November 2011 09:55:33PM *  1 point [-]

It seems that any wrong argument for a correct conclusion has a decent chance of being patchable into a correct argument by a sufficiently smart patcher, so arguing about patchability of such arguments doesn't make much sense.

Comment author: gwern 29 November 2011 10:46:05PM 4 points [-]

Such runs an argument against the principle of charity, indeed, that it licenses special pleading or endless special-casing.

Comment author: cousin_it 29 November 2011 10:49:04PM *  0 points [-]

Nice connection! I see we had a post about that recently.