Odinn comments on Hug the Query - Less Wrong

36 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 14 December 2007 07:51PM

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Comment author: Odinn 06 March 2013 05:18:41AM 1 point [-]

I often wonder how people come around to disbelieving things they've seen with their own eyes. In your hypothetical, you have seen the flight for yourself, but the Brothers are prestidigitators. I can see the validity in thinking "I've just seen something hitherto extraordinary, so let's make sure that any other explanations for what I've seen (like wire-tricks) are less likely than postulate: that plane can really fly!" But I don't think it's constructive to just pattern match "These guys make a living tricking people with unbelievable bologna, so going so far as even SEEING something perpetrated by these hoaxters would make me look stupid. Therefore, I didn't see that plane fly"