mavant comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 25, chapter 96 - Less Wrong

6 Post author: NancyLebovitz 25 July 2013 04:36AM

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Comment author: mavant 25 July 2013 08:48:54PM 2 points [-]

At least one of the definitions is applicable to any arbitrary proposition. Either (1) it can be counterfeited, implying that there's no test you can perform to determine the true state of things, or (2) it can be tested to determine the true state of things.

Comment author: BT_Uytya 25 July 2013 09:34:45PM 0 points [-]

(non-native speaker here)

I was under impression that "to counterfeit" means only "to create imperfect copies in order to fraud someone", but it seems that it also means "to deceive". Thank you!

Comment author: DanielH 28 July 2013 05:52:33AM 3 points [-]

That first is the primary usage. Usually there is some way to tell a counterfeit from the real thing, but one can theoretically make a counterfeit that's indistinguishable from the original. I have only rarely heard it in the sense of "to deceive".