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paper-machine comments on Imitation is the Sincerest Form of Argument - Less Wrong Discussion

74 Post author: palladias 18 February 2013 05:05PM

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Comment author: JRMayne 18 February 2013 08:49:31PM 10 points [-]

Ha!

I think the post is excellent, and I appreciated shminux's sharing his mental walkthrough.

On that same front, I find the Never-Trust-A-[Fill-in-the-blank] idea just bad. The fact that someone's wrong on something significant does not mean they are wrong on everything. This goes the other way; field experts often believe they have similar expertise on everything, and they don't.

One quibble with the OP: I don't think a computer can pass a Turing Test, and I don't think it's close. The main issues with some past tests are that some of the humans don't try hard to be human; there should be a reward for a human who gets called a human in those tests.

Finally, I no longer understand the divide between Discuss and Main. If this isn't Main-worthy, I don't get it. If we're making Main something different... what is it?

Comment author: [deleted] 18 February 2013 08:52:40PM 4 points [-]

The fact that someone's wrong on something significant does not mean they are wrong on everything. This goes the other way; field experts often believe they have similar expertise on everything, and they don't.

It remains evidence, however; to ignore such is the fallacy of gray.

Comment author: Qiaochu_Yuan 18 February 2013 10:51:44PM 5 points [-]

Yes, but it's almost certainly evidence that people on LW overweight relative to other evidence because atheism is an excessively salient feature of the local memeplex.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 19 February 2013 03:01:35AM 4 points [-]

Interesting, I was under the impression that most people around here were fairly good about not doing this. However, it's possible I haven't been paying attention recently.