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Lumifer comments on [Stub] The problem with Chesterton's Fence - Less Wrong Discussion

4 Post author: Stuart_Armstrong 05 January 2016 05:10PM

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Comment author: Lumifer 19 January 2016 06:08:09PM 0 points [-]

De gustibus, of course, but I prefer limited and hard definitions to ones that fuzzily expand until they're "almost equivalent" to a large and vague concept...

Comment author: Stuart_Armstrong 20 January 2016 02:00:39PM *  0 points [-]

I see your point, but I don't think the original Chesterton's fence is a stable concept. Knowing why the person-who-built-the-fence, built the fence, is different from knowing why the fence was built (and allowed to stand). But, as you say, de gustibus (an expression I will steal from now on).