NancyLebovitz comments on Rationality Quotes November 2013 - Less Wrong

5 Post author: malcolmocean 02 November 2013 08:35PM

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Comment author: NancyLebovitz 04 November 2013 01:14:19PM 6 points [-]

I'm not sure that's just a nitpick. It's a mistake so common that it should probably be listed under biases. It might be a variation on availability bias-- what's actually mentioned fills in the mental space so that the cases which aren't mentioned get ignored.

Comment author: Nate_Gabriel 16 November 2013 09:38:26AM 1 point [-]

And I'm not sure it's a mistake. If you're getting your information in a context where you know it's meant completely literally and nothing else (e.g., Omega, lawyers, Spock), then yes, it would be wrong. In normal conversation, people may (sometimes but not always; it's infuriating) use "if" to mean "if and only if." As for this particular case, somervta is probably completely right. But I don't think it's conducive to communication to accuse people of bias for following Grice's maxims.