nshepperd comments on Mundane Magic - Less Wrong

102 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 31 October 2008 04:00PM

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Comment author: shokwave 19 December 2010 03:17:49PM 1 point [-]

Once you have redefined "absolutely zero evidence" to mean "too small for it to be worthwhile for humans to consider it" precisely what language can you use to describe things that, you know, aren't evidence?

True. The balancing concern is that, in the case of "too small to be worthwhile", we want people to not consider it, and there are strong biases that make people consider it a la but there's still a chance! If anything less than "absolutely zero evidence" lets people consider evidence - and overestimating the evidence is worse than underestimating it - then it is preferred language. In that case, it would share the same language as things that aren't evidence at all.

Comment author: nshepperd 19 December 2010 03:47:48PM 0 points [-]

How about "less evidence than X", where X is something ridiculously silly? It seems like it might have the same psychological effects, in which case it would be preferable.

Comment author: shokwave 19 December 2010 04:15:40PM 2 points [-]

I feel strangely certain that if we started countering "my coin flips coming up mostly heads is evidence of my magic!" with "less evidence for magic than your capacity to continue breathing is", the kind of person in question would simply write books about how breathing is obviously magical in nature.