gwern comments on Litany of a Bright Dilettante - Less Wrong

55 Post author: shminux 18 April 2013 05:06AM

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Comment author: gwern 22 April 2013 04:12:17PM 12 points [-]

"Somebody says, 'You know, you people always say that space is continuous. How do you know when you get to a small enough dimension that there really are enough points in between, that it isn't just a lot of dots separated by little distances?'

Or they say, 'You know those quantum mechanical amplitudes you told me about, they're so complicated and absurd, what makes you think those are right? Maybe they are not right.'

Such remarks are obvious and are perfectly clear to anybody who is working on this problem. It does not do any good to point this out."

--Richard Feynman, The Character of Physical Law (1965)

Comment author: shminux 22 April 2013 05:11:26PM *  0 points [-]

I assume this is in support of the OP, though I have trouble gleaning your position from just the quote. Well, it probably works as a status-raising trick, "if you are sufficiently smart, you ought to know what I meant".

Comment author: wedrifid 22 April 2013 05:59:55PM *  2 points [-]

Well, it probably works as a status-raising trick, "if you are sufficiently smart, you ought to know what I meant".

What the? That is a candidate for the most dumbfounding accusation of "status-raising trick" that I have ever seen. Most people would understand the kind of reasons why gwern is providing an on topic quote to the thread. That being the case gwern would not anticipating raising his status via refraining from stating the obvious (or at least what is believed to be obvious).

There is no trick here. Just a projection of personal confusion onto the intention of another.

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