NancyLebovitz comments on Rationality Quotes June 2012 - Less Wrong

4 Post author: OpenThreadGuy 02 June 2012 05:14PM

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Comment author: Oscar_Cunningham 06 June 2012 06:59:10PM *  6 points [-]

It depends what kind of maps. Multiple consistent maps are clearly a good thing (like switching from geometry to coordinates and back). Multiple inconsistent ad-hoc maps can be good if you have a way to choose which one to use when.

Wilson doesn't say which he means, I think he's guilty of imprecision.

Comment author: hairyfigment 08 June 2012 01:19:36AM 2 points [-]

I think he means that people choose not to think about any map but their favorite one ("their way of looking at reality is the only sane way of viewing the world"), to the point where they can't estimate the conditional probability P(E|a) of the evidence given not-A.

The link with Aristotle seems weak. But the problem obviously makes it harder to use "the logic of probability," as Korzybski called it, and Wilson well knew that Korzybski contrasted probability with classical "Aristotelian" logic. (Note that K wrote before the Bayesian school of thought really took off, so we should expect some imprecision and even wrong turns from him.)