Not really. Illness is a proximally transitive property; being in the same room as an ill person can, indeed, make you ill. It only leads to support of silly inference patterns if you disregard the actual meaning of the words used in the logical statement.
Consider the actual meaning of “therefore” used in IlyaShpitser’s post. It’s logically stronger than “and”.
In the least convenient possible world where health care is good and diseases aren’t transmissible, the naive causal inference would lead to the same conclusion.
Except that it wasn’t formal logic; the conclusion didn’t follow from the premise, because there’s nothing indicating that sickness is something which should be avoided. Therefore, the reader is expected to use information contextual to the world the author is in; namely, that sickness is bad, and should be avoided. Because there’s also another possible world where -diseases- are good, and the construction wouldn’t even make sense.
Not really. Illness is a proximally transitive property; being in the same room as an ill person can, indeed, make you ill. It only leads to support of silly inference patterns if you disregard the actual meaning of the words used in the logical statement.
Consider the actual meaning of “therefore” used in IlyaShpitser’s post. It’s logically stronger than “and”.
In the least convenient possible world where health care is good and diseases aren’t transmissible, the naive causal inference would lead to the same conclusion.
+1 to writing up my tentative ‘How to use the LCPW principle safely and sanely’ post. Or at least sending a draft to Yvain for thoughts.
Until that post comes, I’m curious what kind of an example you intend to make of my use of the concept—safe/sane or otherwise?
Otherwise—the post was basically “remember that the least convenient possible world has to at least be possible”.
Except that it wasn’t formal logic; the conclusion didn’t follow from the premise, because there’s nothing indicating that sickness is something which should be avoided. Therefore, the reader is expected to use information contextual to the world the author is in; namely, that sickness is bad, and should be avoided. Because there’s also another possible world where -diseases- are good, and the construction wouldn’t even make sense.