John_O comments on Mind Projection Fallacy - Less Wrong

35 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 11 March 2008 12:29AM

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Comment author: John_O 11 March 2008 03:34:41AM 1 point [-]

If I assume that others have minds like mine I surely would also assume they "project" the same properties, so calling them "mental projection" is not likely to make this error go away. Conversely if I establish that a certain property is a real, non-projected property of an object, that doesn't entitle me to assume that it will be perceived by an alien with a different evolutionary history. After all, humans only perceive a tiny percentage of the actual properties of objects. So I think that the "mind projection error" and the "all minds are alike" error are quite different.

Comment author: bobthechef 26 April 2011 12:56:09PM -1 points [-]

Your error is falsely conclude that he fallacy is essential to human thinking, that the properties projected are always and the same across the board, and that they cannot differ. And what the heck does "human only perceive a tiny percentage of the actual properties of objects" even mean? We certainly don't know all there is about a thing, but what properties are you even talking about and how?

Comment author: DanielLC 23 February 2012 04:28:59AM 2 points [-]

And what the heck does "human only perceive a tiny percentage of the actual properties of objects

One thing that comes to mind to me is color. We see red green and blue. Aliens might see yellow and ultraviolet instead. We might decide to camouflage ourselves so that they don't see us, and fail completely because we're using the wrong colors to blend in.

Technically, there's no point where this stops and mind projection begins. How sexy you'd find a woman is much more complex than how red you'd find her dress, and it's similarly less likely for an alien to notice, but it's just a matter of degree.