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cousin_it comments on Crazy Ideas Thread, Aug. 2015 - Less Wrong Discussion

7 Post author: polymathwannabe 11 August 2015 01:24PM

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Comment author: cousin_it 12 August 2015 02:09:16PM *  3 points [-]

Yeah, that's one part of it. Another part is that some irrational beliefs can be beneficial even on average, though of course you need to choose such beliefs carefully. Believing that the world makes sense, in the context of doing research, might be one such example. I don't know if there are others. Eliezer's view of Bayesianism ("yay, I've found the eternal laws of reasoning!") might be related here.