AndyCossyleon comments on Think Like Reality - Less Wrong

49 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 02 May 2007 06:36AM

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Comment author: AndyCossyleon 19 August 2010 09:11:17PM 3 points [-]

I think the real issue here is not that it is unacceptable to perceive real phenomena as weird or bizarre, but that it is unacceptable to think that something real ought not be so (based on some model of reality) and continue without updating the model or understanding why the weirdness or bizarreness leaks in.

To pick on C.S. Lewis and the religious in particular, Lewis conflates many times the Laws of Nature with the 'Laws' of Morality. Laws of nature cannot be broken; those of morality most definitely can be and are. And perhaps as another facet of the naturalistic fallacy, those who would conflate laws of morality (loosely speaking--anything which 'ought' to be) with laws of nature, may come across an exception to the laws of nature (their model thereof), and not flinch because they are used to the laws of morality, or that-which-ought-to-be, being breached. Laws cannot be broken, and when they appear to be, one ought to enter into a state of cognitive panic, not passive acquiescence.