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wedrifid comments on Open thread, September 9-15, 2013 - Less Wrong Discussion

3 Post author: Metus 09 September 2013 04:50AM

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Comment author: wedrifid 14 September 2013 01:52:32AM *  5 points [-]

Of the set of all possible actions that you haven't denied doing, you've only done a minuscule percentage of them.

Of the times that you deny having done something, you lie some non-trivial percent of the time.

Therefore, your denial is evidence of guilt.

Even if the conclusion is true it does not follow from the premises given. It relies on the additional implied premise:

  • We know nothing about the thing you are denying except that it is in the set of all possible things that could be denied.

There are some cases where denial is evidence of guilt, there are other cases where it is evidence of innocence and still others where it is no evidence either way.

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