Leo_G. comments on Trust in Math - Less Wrong

14 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 15 January 2008 04:25AM

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Comment author: Leo_G. 15 January 2008 08:09:19AM 0 points [-]

I assure you, if there is one thing that Robert Anson Heinlein considered holy, it was logic. Wait, maybe it was free love. But if there were TWO THINGS he considered holy...

If you read any of his future histories, you see tales of libertarian utopias set free by humans achieving, if not surpassing, the rationality of which evolved human minds are capable.

My favorite RAH excerpt, from Coventry:

First, they junked the concept of Justice. Examined semantically "justice" has no referent - there is no observable phenomenon in the space-time-matter continuum to which one can point, and say "This is justice". Science can deal only with that which can be observed and measured. Justice is not such a matter; therefore it can never have the same meaning to one as to another; any "noises" said about it will only add to confusion. [...] Since they had abandoned the concept of "justice", there could be no rational standards of punishment. Penology took its place with lycanthropy and other forgotten witchcrafts.