Vladimir_Nesov comments on Your Strength as a Rationalist - Less Wrong

69 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 11 August 2007 12:21AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (113)

Sort By: Old

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: WrongBot 09 August 2010 09:00:34PM 5 points [-]

The easy solution is to stop arguing about the definition of evidence. This community uses it to mean one thing, you're using it to mean something else, and any sort of conflict goes away as soon as people make clear which definition they're using. Since this community already has an accepted definition, you would be safe in assuming that that definition is what other posters here have in mind when they use the word "evidence". By the same token, you should probably find a more precise way to refer to the definition of evidence that you are using in order to avoid being misinterpreted.

Comment author: Dpar 09 August 2010 09:18:58PM 0 points [-]

That's fair enough. However, judging by what I've read, this community's definition of evidence seems to constitute just about anything ever written about anything. How would you then differentiate evidence, from rumor, hearsay, speculation, etc.?

Comment author: Vladimir_Nesov 09 August 2010 09:24:09PM 2 points [-]

Rumor, hearsay, etc. falls under our definition of evidence, just weak evidence, or probably very indirect (for example, if there is a rumor that A, it might constitute evidence against A being true, given other things you know).