derekz2 comments on Failure By Analogy - Less Wrong

15 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 18 November 2008 02:54AM

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Comment author: derekz2 18 November 2008 04:50:42AM 0 points [-]

Analogies are great guess generators, sources of wondrous creativity. It's very cool that the universe works in such a way that analogy often leads to fruitful ideas, and sometimes to truths.

But determining whether a particular analogy has really led anywhere requires more and different work, because analogy is not a valid form of inference. Nothing is ever true because of an analogy.