lessdazed comments on Variable Question Fallacies - Less Wrong

21 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 05 March 2008 06:22AM

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Comment author: MoreOn 14 December 2010 02:26:03AM *  1 point [-]

"Oh my gosh! 'The Sun goes around the Earth' is true for Hunga Huntergatherer, but for Amara Astronomer, 'The Sun goes around the Earth' is false! There is no fixed truth!" The deconstruction of this sophomoric nitwittery is left as an exercise to the reader.

Am I correct that this sophomoric nitwittery can be solved by taking Earth as a fixed point? Then sun really will go around it. So will the moon. All other planets will go around the sun.

If not, well... you can imagine why I didn't get an A in that philosophy where a teacher meant it literally (as in relativism)

Comment author: lessdazed 07 March 2011 10:41:59AM 0 points [-]

I think the main problem is in "goes around", although HH::the Sun != AA::The Sun and HH::the Earth probably != AA::the Earth, the latter two shouldn't matter as much.

HH believes "HH:(text X)" is true and AA believes "AA::(text Y)" is true, which isn't interesting. What's interesting are three things: that AA::(text X) has meaning, AA::(text X) != AA::(text Y), and if AA::(text X) then NOT AA::(text Y).

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