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thomblake comments on How to deal with non-realism? - Less Wrong Discussion

12 Post author: loup-vaillant 22 May 2012 01:58PM

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Comment author: thomblake 22 May 2012 04:21:16PM 4 points [-]

In ordinary usage, 'real' is merely an antonym for 'fake'. It's probably best to collapse most distinctions involving the word 'real'. The real question is, "Can you be wrong about a prediction?", and then you can stipulatively label the thing that generates the experimental predictions "reality" if you'd like. The Simple Truth.

Comment author: khafra 22 May 2012 06:54:58PM 3 points [-]

Yup. That link contains one of the simplest and most effective antidotes to non-realism I know of:

I need different names for the thingies that determine my predictions and the thingy that determines my experimental results. I call the former thingies ‘belief’, and the latter thingy ‘reality’.”

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