Another month has passed and here is a new rationality quotes thread. The usual rules are:
- Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be upvoted or downvoted separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
- Do not quote yourself.
- Do not quote from Less Wrong itself, HPMoR, Eliezer Yudkowsky, or Robin Hanson. If you'd like to revive an old quote from one of those sources, please do so here.
- No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.
And one new rule:
- Provide sufficient information (URL, title, date, page number, etc.) to enable a reader to find the place where you read the quote, or its original source if available. Do not quote with only a name.
This is funny. Until I read your comment, I was misreading the original quote; I didn't notice the "inversely" part. I was implicitly thinking that the quote was claiming that the farther the thought experiment is from reality, the more useful it is. I guess my physicist biases are showing.
I think that's my point! It sounds just as profound without the 'inversely'.