Senthil comments on Conjunction Controversy (Or, How They Nail It Down) - Less Wrong

26 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 20 September 2007 02:41AM

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Comment author: Senthil 21 September 2007 08:34:33AM 1 point [-]

Eliezer, thanks for the explanation. I'm sorry that you're getting frustrated to explain this again. I agree with you and understand what you're trying to explain. It makes perfect sense. But it's difficult to make the explanation clear and easy for lay people. Also, maybe I didn't make myself clear in the above post.

I was referring only to the particular experiment. I'm not at all denying that the fallacy exists. I meant that the fallacy doesn't exist in the context of that experiment alone. I just felt that there could be a better thought out experiment demonstrate it.

I can compare this with reading a good detective story and a bad one. A good one is where you were shown the evidence and you could've predicted the murderer but didn't. A bad one introduces a character relatively late in the story or make one who wasn't talked about much the murderer. I feel the experiments demonstrating the fallacy to be similar to the latter type of stories, kind of contrived and unnatural.