Rationality Quotes February 2013

arundelo

Another monthly installment of the rationality quotes thread. The usual rules apply:

Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be upvoted or downvoted 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Do not quote yourself.
Do not quote comments or posts from Less Wrong itself or from Overcoming Bias.
No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.

Another monthly installment of the rationality quotes thread. The usual rules apply:

Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be upvoted or downvoted 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Do not quote yourself.
Do not quote comments or posts from Less Wrong itself or from Overcoming Bias.
No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.

I didn't feel jumped on, though I still don't have a feeling for how common causation without corelation is.

The common example I go on about is any situation where a system generally succeeds at achieving a goal. This is a very large class. In such situations there will tend to be an absence of correlation between the effort made and the success at achieving it. The effort will correlate instead with the difficulties in the way. Effort and difficulty together cause the result; result and goal together cause effort.

A few concrete examples. If my central heating system works properly and I am willing to spend what it takes to keep warm, the indoor temperature of m... (read more)