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Metus comments on Open thread, September 16-22, 2013 - Less Wrong
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Comments (141)
Examples?
For what of the two? An example for the first is to think He will either buy the car or leave or I take a course of action I have not yet forseen where the action could be something malevolent or something happens that renders my plans irrelevant. An example for the second is to think I believe people are motivated by money. If I see a sizeable group of people living in voluntary poverty I should stop believing this.
That's not quite the law of the excluded middle. In your first example, leaving isn't the negation of buying the car but is just another possibility. Tertium non datur would be He will either buy the car or he will not buy the car. It applies outside formal systems, but the possibilities outside a formal system are rarely negations of one another. If I'm wrong, can someone tell me?
Still, planting the "seed of destruction" definitely seems like a good idea, although I'd think caution in specifying only one event where that would happen. This idea is basically ensuring beliefs are falsifiable.