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Strange7 comments on Evaporative Cooling of Group Beliefs - Less Wrong
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There's no particular reason to want to continue that metaphor more directly. Only mathematically precise metaphors have that kind of power.
Well, is it better to continue a vague analogy, or mix your metaphors and end up with something that reads oddly? ("Evaporative cooling" leading to an explosion? Isn't freezing the relevant phase transition here?)
I'm just nitpicking language here, so maybe I should stop hijacking the thread. ;)
Evaporative cooling could lead to a nuclear explosion. Imagine uraneous ore, dissolved in a fluid medium, surrounded by a potential barrier, and heated. Non-uranium particles escape first, followed by lighter isotopes. The end result would be a tight concentration of the heaviest available isotope: critical mass.
As it approached critical, it would generate heat. There would be an equilibrium. In this case, the group itself becomes super stable - but its ideas become unhinged.
I really can't think of any comparable system, except condensation.
An almost identical system actually happened in nature.