shminux comments on Hard philosophy problems to test people's intelligence? - Less Wrong

-2 Post author: Solvent 15 February 2012 04:57AM

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Comment author: shminux 15 February 2012 06:43:54AM 3 points [-]

If there is no consensus, how do you know what answer is "right"? Surely if it was a simple matter of computation or logic, there would be a consensus.

Comment author: Jayson_Virissimo 15 February 2012 08:28:20AM 10 points [-]

As far as I can tell, he is judging "rightness" by how closely it approximates Less Wrong doctrine.

Comment author: Karmakaiser 17 February 2012 04:16:48PM 1 point [-]

There are so many variables on where someone's thinking could be biased or incomplete that if one is going to take these questions seriously, I think a heuristic approach would be most helpful rather than seeing if someone independently comes to your conclusion.

Off the top of my head I would give points for trying to falsify themselves, taking into account human bias (if they already had knowledge of the literature on bias), asking clarifying questions instead of going with an incomplete interpretation of the problem, a willingness to be criticized when the criticism is correct, and a willingness to brush badly constructed criticism as side.

Comment author: MileyCyrus 15 February 2012 07:35:26AM 3 points [-]

A standard Bayesian problem would work great. I paid my 13 year old nephew $1 to solve one.

Also: If you call a tail a leg, how many legs does a horse have?

Comment author: JenniferRM 16 February 2012 12:13:34AM *  2 points [-]

Be careful how you reward people for mental tasks if you care about the long term cultivation of their mind.

Comment author: David_Gerard 15 February 2012 08:55:14AM *  1 point [-]

If you call a tail a leg, how many legs does a kangaroo have? If you call an arm a leg, how many legs does a human have? There's a whole sequence on the trouble with putting too much store in the meanings assigned to words.

Comment author: Manfred 15 February 2012 09:17:58AM *  6 points [-]

Surely if it was a simple matter of computation or logic, there would be a consensus.

Optimist, eh? :D