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Eugine_Nier comments on Connecting Your Beliefs (a call for help) - Less Wrong Discussion

24 Post author: lukeprog 20 November 2011 05:18AM

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Comment author: Eugine_Nier 20 November 2011 06:44:37PM 36 points [-]

Also keep in mind that it's more important to make your beliefs as correct as possible then to make them as consistent as possible. Of course the ultimate truth is both correct and consistent; however, it's perfectly possible to make your beliefs less correct by trying to make them more consistent. If you have two beliefs that do a decent job of modeling separate aspects of reality, it's probably a good idea to keep both around, even if they seem to contradict each other. For example, both General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics do a good job modeling (parts of) reality despite being inconsistent and we want to keep both of them. Now think about what happens when a similar situation arises in a field, e.g., biology, psychology, your personal life, where evidence is messier then it is in physics.

Comment author: amcknight 22 December 2011 08:31:44PM 7 points [-]

This comment, if expanded, would make for a great main post. Especially if you can come up with a second good example.

Comment author: atucker 21 November 2011 05:08:09AM 2 points [-]

It's also worth noting that they are actually inconsistent though, rather than just not thinking about that issue.

I think having connected beliefs is helpful for noticing that.