paper-machine comments on Rationality quotes January 2012 - Less Wrong

9 Post author: Thomas 01 January 2012 10:28AM

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Comment author: Maniakes 03 January 2012 08:24:54PM 12 points [-]

I replied as follows: "What would you think of someone who said, "I would like to have a cat, provided it barked"? [...] As a natural scientist, you recognize that you cannot assign characteristics at will to chemical and biological entities, cannot demand that cats bark or water burn. Why do you suppose that the situation is different in the "social sciences?"

-- Milton Friedman

Comment author: gwern 03 January 2012 10:09:27PM 2 points [-]

cannot demand that cats bark or water burn

One of these things is not like the others, one of these things does not belong.

Comment author: [deleted] 03 January 2012 10:25:44PM 7 points [-]

Relevant.

Comment author: gwern 03 January 2012 10:59:34PM 1 point [-]

I was actually thinking in terms of 'cats can deliberately meow in an annoying fashion (abstract) like human infants and this behaviors seems perfectly modifiable, so a transhumanist could have a decent reason for preferring cats to bark than meow; and this is really stupid anyway, since we can change cats easily - we certainly can demand cats bark - but we can't change physis easily and can't demand water burn'.

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