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rhollerith_dot_com comments on Dissolving the Question - Less Wrong
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Robin: So when you have the impression you are done, you are not necessarily done because some have this impression without really being done. But then when you are really done, you won't actually know you are done, because you will realize that this impression of being done can be misleading.
You'd think it would work that way, but it doesn't. Are you awake or asleep right now? When you're asleep and dreaming, you don't know you're dreaming, so how do you know you're awake?
If you claim you don't know you're awake, there's a series of bets I'd like to make with you...
As usual, this is better settled by experiment than by "I just know". My favourite method is holding my nose and seeing if I can still breathe through it. Every time I've tried this while dreaming, I've still been able to breathe, and, unsurprisingly, so far I've never been able to while awake. So if I try that, then whichever way it goes, it's pretty strong evidence. There — now it's science and there's no need to assume "I feel that I know I'm awake" implies "I'm awake".
Of course, if you're the sort of person who never thinks to question your wakefulness while dreaming, then the fact that you've thought of the question at all is good evidence that you're awake. But you need a better experiment than that if you also want to be able to get the right answer while you actually are dreaming.
[Apologies if replying to super-old comments is frowned upon. I'm reading the whole blog from the beginning and occasionally finding that I have things to say.]
I have been reading LW since the beginning and have not seen anyone object to replies to super-old comments (and there were 18-month-old comments on LW when LW began because all Eliezer's Overcoming-Bias posts were moved to LW).
Moreover, a lot of reader will see a reply to a super-old comment. We know that because people have made comments in really old comment sections to the effect of "if you see this, please reply so we can get a sense of how many people see comments like this".
Moreover, discouraging replies to super-old comments discourages reading of super-old comments. But reading super-old comments improves the "coherence" of the community by increasing the expected amount of knowledge an arbitrary pair of LW participants has in common. (And the super-old stuff is really good.)
So, reply away, I say.