Eliezer_Yudkowsky comments on Possibility and Could-ness - Less Wrong

34 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 14 June 2008 04:38AM

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Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 20 June 2008 05:26:00AM 0 points [-]

In case it's not obvious, Rationalist's Taboo lets you construct the Taboo concept out of elements that don't themselves use the concept.

So if e.g. I must play Taboo against "number", I can describe a system for taking pebbles in and out of buckets, and that doesn't violate the Taboo. You're the one who violates the Taboo if you insist on describing that system as a "number" when I just talked about a rule for putting a pebble in or taking a pebble out when a sheep leaves the fold or returns, and a test for an empty bucket.