Mycelia comments on Explain/Worship/Ignore? - Less Wrong

38 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 02 September 2007 08:01PM

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Comment author: MrHen 20 January 2010 10:06:42PM *  7 points [-]

I really don't give a damn which one is true.

I do give a damn which one is true. I have not been following the whole thread, but that sentence sure jumped out at me.

What is a way I can convince you that I am being open-minded? I am willing to read through the thread and add my thoughts but I want to know where your open-minded threshold begins and ends. If I don't make the cut I won't bother.

Comment author: Mycelia 20 January 2010 10:40:16PM -1 points [-]

First define "truth", and I'll start to worry about that.

Just don't start calling people names. It's not helpful in any sense. I'm not trying to lower the quality of discussion here, quite the opposite (not that it isn't high quality discussion). If we don't disagree, it's not cause I'm stupider than you (which is the implication in comparing me to a flat earther)... It's cause our experiences lead us to different conclusions. Maybe I am stupider than you. even then is that a reason to exclude someone from a conversation? Maybe I want to talk about the relationship between "mythos" and "logos". Maybe that makes me irrational? Why jump to the conclusion that I have no idea what I'm talking about? Why assume I'm attached to my ideas to the point where you can't point out their flaws without ad hominem attacks? really... You guys take everything so seriously.

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 20 January 2010 10:44:46PM 3 points [-]

Truth: http://yudkowsky.net/rational/the-simple-truth

Please take the hint on all the negative ratings and stop commenting here. Future comments from you will be removed.

Comment author: RobinZ 20 January 2010 10:51:04PM 0 points [-]

It might be good to link "The Simple Truth" in What Do We Mean By Rationality?.

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 20 January 2010 10:54:37PM 0 points [-]

It is.

Comment author: RobinZ 21 January 2010 12:21:02AM 0 points [-]

Ah, I missed it - thanks!

Comment author: RobinZ 20 January 2010 10:45:01PM *  2 points [-]

First define "truth", and I'll start to worry about that.

Truth is correspondence with reality. To quote the narrator:

Frankly, I'm not entirely sure myself where this "reality" business comes from. I can't create my own reality in the lab, so I must not understand it yet. But occasionally I believe strongly that something is going to happen, and then something else happens instead. I need a name for whatever-it-is that determines my experimental results, so I call it "reality". This "reality" is somehow separate from even my very best hypotheses. Even when I have a simple hypothesis, strongly supported by all the evidence I know, sometimes I’m still surprised. So I need different names for the thingies that determine my predictions and the thingy that determines my experimental results. I call the former thingies "belief", and the latter thingy "reality".

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