Polymeron comments on 37 Ways That Words Can Be Wrong - Less Wrong

72 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 06 March 2008 05:09AM

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Comment author: DanielLC 22 February 2014 06:01:26AM 0 points [-]
  1. The act of labeling something with a word, disguises a challengable inductive inference you are making. If the last 11 egg-shaped objects drawn have been blue, and the last 8 cubes drawn have been red, it is a matter of induction to say this rule will hold in the future. But if you call the blue eggs "bleggs" and the red cubes "rubes", you may reach into the barrel, feel an egg shape, and think "Oh, a blegg." (Words as Hidden Inferences.)

The alternative is worse. When I talk about a piano, I'm disguising the inference that an object with a certain outward appearance has a series of high tension cables running through it, each carefully set up with just the right tension so that the resonant frequency of each is 2^(1/12) times the last, with each positioned so that it can be struck with a hammer attached to each key, etc. But do you really expect me to say all that explicitly whenever I mention a piano?

Comment author: Polymeron 23 March 2015 07:48:13AM *  1 point [-]

That's why the rule says challengable inductive inference. If in the context of the discussion this is not obvious then maybe yes, but in almost every other instance it's fine to make these shortcuts, so long as you'reunderstood.

Comment author: [deleted] 23 March 2015 01:00:34PM 1 point [-]

Or if it is not relevant.

I certainly don't know how a Piano works on the inside, but I don't need others to give me a complete description of the inner workings of a Piano to understand that a Piano makes sounds when they play it.