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JQuinton comments on Rationality Quotes April 2014 - LessWrong
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You're taking this English idiom too literally. It reminds me of when I mentioned "killing two birds with one stone" to my Italian born girlfriend and she was horrified. I had to explain to her that one is not literally killing two birds with one stone; your continued literalism of this particular turn of phrase would be like her continuing to insist that I'm using a metaphor in my own native language wrong since I'm not using stones nor are any birds around.
A good portion of the New Age crowd takes the idiom literally. Listening to their heart is something different than listening to their gut. Different place in the body. Different qualia.
Penn Jillette's problem is that he take something that's meant literally pretend that it means something different. It's like talking to the blind man who thinks that the red and green that you are metaphars for apples and trees.
I grant that there are people who just talk the talk and don't walk the walk who don't means it literally. People who read to much books. But it's a strawman to assume that all people are like this.