DanielLC comments on Rationality Quotes Thread March 2015 - Less Wrong

8 Post author: Vaniver 02 March 2015 11:38PM

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Comment author: DanielLC 21 March 2015 11:18:09PM 3 points [-]

Of course having the sum be correct is a necessary condition for non-wishful thinking,...

No it's not. You can be wrong for reasons other than wishful thinking.

Comment author: Jiro 22 March 2015 02:12:04AM -1 points [-]

When A is being correct and B is wishful thinking, what I said is that A implies B, which reduces to (B || ~A). What you're saying is that ~A does not imply ~B, which reduces to (B && ~A). Of course, these two statements are compatible.

Comment author: DanielLC 22 March 2015 02:37:41AM *  2 points [-]

When A is being correct and B is wishful thinking, what I said is that A implies B

I think you messed up there. Being correct certainly doesn't imply wishful thinking. You were saying that non-wishful thinking implies being correct. That is ~B implies A. Or ~A implies B, which is equivalent.

If I checked my balance and due to some bank error was told that I had a large balance, I would probably have the sum be incorrect but still be using non-wishful thinking. The sum being correct is not a necessary condition for non-wishful thinking. All the other combinations are possible as well, though I don't feel like going through all the examples.

Comment author: Jiro 22 March 2015 02:58:46AM *  0 points [-]

You're right, I meant to say that B implies A, not to say that A implies B. However, that is still equivalent to (B || ~A) so the rest, and the conclusion, still follow.

Comment author: DanielLC 22 March 2015 06:16:01AM 2 points [-]

B implies A would be wishful thinking implies that you are correct. This is obviously false. You clearly intended to have a not in there somewhere. Double check your definitions.

I was giving an example of (~A && ~B). If you want an example of (A && B), it would be that I don't even look at my statements and just assume that I have tons of money because that would be awesome, but I also just happen to have lots of money.

Comment author: Jiro 22 March 2015 03:06:20PM 0 points [-]

B implies A would be wishful thinking implies that you are correct. This is obviously false.

It being a law of the Internet that corrections usually contain at least one error, that applies to my own corrections too. In this case the error is the definitions of A and B.

A=being correct, B=non-wishful-thinking.

"Having the sum be correct is a necessary condition for non-wishful thinking" means B implies A, which in turn is equivalent to (B || ~A).

"You can be wrong for reasons other than wishful thinking" means ~(~B implies ~A), which is equivalent to ~(~B || A), which is equivalent to B && ~A.

Same conclusions as before, and they're still not inconsistent.

Comment author: DanielLC 22 March 2015 07:16:38PM 1 point [-]

A=being correct, B=non-wishful-thinking.

Now that we have that out of the way, we can start communicating.

A counterexample to (B || ~A) would be (~B && A), so wishful thinking while still being correct. As I said in my last post, you just assume you have a lot of money because it would be awesome, and by complete coincidence, you actually do have a lot of money.

Now that we have established the language correctly and I looked through my first post again, you are correct and I misread it. I tried to go back and count through all the mistakes that lead to our mutual confusion, and I just couldn't do it. We have layers of mistakes explaining each others mistakes.