amcknight comments on The Useful Idea of Truth - Less Wrong

77 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 02 October 2012 06:16PM

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Comment author: amcknight 04 October 2012 04:59:51AM 1 point [-]

I'm definitely having more trouble than I expected. Unicorns have 5 legs... does that count? You're making me doubt myself.

Comment author: Jonathan_Elmer 04 October 2012 06:10:17AM 0 points [-]

Cool. : )

Is "Unicorns have 5 legs" consistent with reality? I would be quite surprised to find out that it was.

Comment author: amcknight 04 October 2012 05:44:41PM 0 points [-]

Well it doesn't seem to be inconsistent with reality.

Comment author: DaFranker 04 October 2012 06:02:15PM 0 points [-]

It doesn't even have any referents to reality. It's not even a statement about whatever "reality" we live in, to the best of my knowledge. If it does mean five-leggedness of unicorn creatures with the implication of the existence of possible-existence of such creatures in reality, then it is false, but it's inconsistent with what we know of reality, since there's no way such a creature would exist.

...I think, anyway. Not quite sure about that second part.

Comment author: Jonathan_Elmer 05 October 2012 02:14:22AM -1 points [-]

The non-existence of unicorns makes the claim that they have legs, in whatever number, inconsistent with reality.