prase comments on Against the Bottom Line - Less Wrong

5 Post author: gRR 21 April 2012 10:20AM

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Comment author: prase 21 April 2012 02:59:06PM 0 points [-]

But as gRR notes, the literal meaning of the post discusses how we judge information presented to us by other people, which we receive complete with arguments and conclusions.

The bottom line of the EY's post says:

This is intended as a caution for your own thinking, not a Fully General Counterargument against conclusions you don't like. For it is indeed a clever argument to say "My opponent is a clever arguer", if you are paying yourself to retain whatever beliefs you had at the start.

So I don't think the post literally means what you think it means.

Comment author: DanArmak 21 April 2012 03:07:44PM 0 points [-]

That part was apparently added a bit later, when he posted What Evidence Filtered Evidence.

It cautions people against interpreting the entire preceding post in this literal way. Presumably it was added because people did interpret it so, and gRR's reading is not novel or unique.

Of course this reading is wrong - as it applies to reality, and as a description of Eliezer's beliefs. But it's right - as it applies to the post: it is a plausible literal meaning. It wasn't the intention of the writer, but if some people understand it this way, then it's the text's fault (so to speak), no the readers'. There is no "true" literal meaning to a text other than what people understand from it.

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