Unknown comments on Typicality and Asymmetrical Similarity - Less Wrong

25 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 06 February 2008 09:20PM

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Comment author: Unknown 09 February 2008 04:19:24AM 1 point [-]

If people were perfectly rational, it wouldn't matter much whether you first looked for what was right or for what was wrong.

The problem is this: empirically it turns out that when people first look for what is wrong with something, they tend to distort it. If they first look for what is right, they get a better view of it, and so are better able to judge what is wrong.

One reason for the above (the empirical fact), perhaps, might be that understanding and seeing truth are closely related; it has even been argued that in order to understand something, we have to accept it in some way, and only as a secondary step apply skepticism to it. So if the skepticism is applied in advance, it will impede understanding.