wedrifid comments on Proofs, Implications, and Models - Less Wrong

58 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 30 October 2012 01:02PM

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Comment author: TsviBT 30 October 2012 01:09:30AM 4 points [-]

Ok, fair enough. My philosophy professors were the logically-rudest adults I've spoken to. Actually, that's not even true. Rather, my philosophy professors were the people I most hoped would have less than the standard rudeness, but did not at all.

An anecdote: spring quarter last year, I tried to convince my philosophy professor that logic preserves certainty, but that we could (probably) never be absolutely certain that we had witnessed a correct derivation. He dodged, and instead sermonized about the history of logic. At one point I mentioned GEB, and he said, I quote, "Hofstadter is something of a one trick pony". Here, "one trick" refers to "self-reference". I was too flabbergasted to respond politely.

Comment author: wedrifid 30 October 2012 02:33:08AM 0 points [-]

An anecdote: spring quarter last year, I tried to convince my philosophy professor that logic preserves certainty, but that we could (probably) never be absolutely certain that we had witnessed a correct derivation.

This does seem correct as stated. I wonder if he deliberately avoided the point to save face regarding a previous error or, as Tim suggested, pattern matched to something different.