Another month, another rationality quotes thread. The 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- Do not quote yourself.
- Do not quote from Less Wrong itself, HPMoR, Eliezer Yudkowsky, or Robin Hanson.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.
- 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 Do not quote with only a name.
What about fanfictional evidence?
More seriously, shouldn't it be "don't update on fictional evidence as if it were true"?
Certainly it's reasonable for a story to make us reconsider our beliefs.
It's reasonable to update as a result of the analysis of fiction (including fanfiction) for two reasons, neither of which are directly related to the events of the story in the same way that events in real life are related to updating. The first is: does this prompt me to think in a way I did not before? If so, it is not evidence, but it allows you to better way the evidence by providing you with more possibilities. The second is: why was this written? Even a truthless piece of propaganda can be interesting evidence in that it is entangled with human actions and motivations.