Eliezer_Yudkowsky comments on Normal Ending: Last Tears (6/8) - Less Wrong

26 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 04 February 2009 08:45AM

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Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 04 February 2009 02:20:33PM 10 points [-]

Steve, there's no incredibly deep metaethical lesson in the fact that I, as author, decided that the second ending would only be the True one "that actually happened" if a reader thought of it. I just wanted to take advantage of the blog format to offer a choice a bit more interactive than picking "1" or "2".

The most important advice you can offer to a rationalist is to avoid motivated skepticism; the second most important advice is not to overcomplicate things. Not everything I do is incredibly deep. Some things, sure, and even some things that aren't obvious at a first glance, but not everything.

On the other hand, no one has decoded the names of the ships yet, so I guess there's also something to be said for looking deeper.