Rationality Quotes September 2012

Jayson_Virissimo

Here's the new thread for posting quotes, with the usual rules:

Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be voted up/down separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
Do not quote yourself
Do not quote comments/posts on LW/OB
No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.

Here's the new thread for posting quotes, with the usual rules:

Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be voted up/down separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
Do not quote yourself
Do not quote comments/posts on LW/OB
No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.

I see no relevant difference between the two cases.

Isn't that the entire point? I see this as a mathematical version of the modus tollens/ponens point made elsewhere in this page.

The quote says,

could mathematicians afford to use this literary device? How would a reader be able to tell the difference in intent between what I have just written and the following superficially similar passage?

This seems to me to mean: the two cases are different; the first is appropriately handled by serious proof-by-contradiction, while the second is appropriately handled by irony. But readers may not be able to tell the difference, because the two texts are similar and irony is hard to identify reliably. So mathematicians should not use irony.

Whe... (read more)