philh comments on Rationality Quotes February 2014 - Less Wrong

5 [deleted] 02 February 2014 01:35PM

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Comment author: philh 04 February 2014 12:42:38AM 9 points [-]

What a stupid fucking question. I could have answered it in a second, if Sarasti hadn't forced me to understand it first.

Peter Watts, Blindsight

Comment author: DanielLC 10 February 2014 08:34:40PM 0 points [-]

I'm curious as to the context.

Comment author: philh 11 February 2014 01:16:36AM 0 points [-]

I actually had difficulty following that part of the book. I think the question was something like, what use is self-awareness? And I think the answer the narrator came to, after being forced to understand, was gung vg'f abg rfcrpvnyyl hfrshy naq va snpg bar bs gur bgure punenpgref jnf abg frys njner.

Comment author: RichardKennaway 04 February 2014 11:17:14AM 0 points [-]

I've read Blindsight, and looked it up again for the context, but I still don't see why this is a rationality quote.

Comment author: khafra 04 February 2014 11:45:57AM 10 points [-]

The most obvious rationalist message I see is that some questions have answers which are simple, obvious, and wrong. For us humans, some kind of shock, confusion, or other well-timed interruption, can help us get past that first answer.

Comment author: philh 04 February 2014 02:05:52PM 4 points [-]

What khafra said, and also pattern-matching. You ask me a question, I answer the question I thought you asked, which is not necessarily the same.