I’d say that the primary belief-affecting value of this sort of fiction is to counteract the (common human) tendency to treat incredulity as evidence… the “I can’t easily think of how X could possibly be true, therefore X can’t be true” syndrome.
Agreed. I like the story, and I frequently point people to it. I just wouldn’t hold it up as evidence in an argument, unless the other person was specifically committing the fallacy of anthropomorphizing the speed of thought of a machine intelligence, in which case, yes, this story helps inoculate against the incredulity of alternatives.
I’d say that the primary belief-affecting value of this sort of fiction is to counteract the (common human) tendency to treat incredulity as evidence… the “I can’t easily think of how X could possibly be true, therefore X can’t be true” syndrome.
Agreed. I like the story, and I frequently point people to it. I just wouldn’t hold it up as evidence in an argument, unless the other person was specifically committing the fallacy of anthropomorphizing the speed of thought of a machine intelligence, in which case, yes, this story helps inoculate against the incredulity of alternatives.