William_Quixote comments on Rationality Quotes July 2014 - LessWrong

6 Post author: VAuroch 06 July 2014 06:51AM

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Comment author: William_Quixote 31 July 2014 06:29:41PM 5 points [-]

Physicists's responses to a given claim of discovering FTL signaling are one of the most predictable phenomena I can think of—even the comets and the tides throw more curveballs. One could easily replace them with a chatbot.

Comment author: Wes_W 31 July 2014 06:44:38PM *  5 points [-]

Well, yeah. If I were a physicist, I might find it annoying to give the same press interview for every individual incorrect claim of FTL signaling. It might be nice if somebody replaced me with a chatbot and let me go back to doing physics.

Predictable isn't necessarily the same as wrong. I suppose, here, one must distinguish between listening as "seeking out the person's opinion" and listening as "assigning credence to that opinion". I can listen-1 to crackpots, but I don't listen-2 to them. I listen-2 to my role models, even when I don't need to listen-1 to them (thanks to my ability to model their response).

Comment author: Will_Sawin 06 August 2014 06:48:36PM 1 point [-]

Do you often read physicist's response to claims of FTL signalling? It seems to me like there is not much value in reading these, per the quote.