Proper beliefs pay rent by functioning as anticipation-controllers; a proper belief is not just a string of words, but a cognitive structure fully integrated with the believer’s model of how the world simply is. Unfortunately, many students in traditional schools become accustomed to guessing the teacher’s password, repeating back words that make it superficially sound as if they understand the topic, when in fact they don’t.
From the old discussion page:
Talk:Guessing the teacher’s password
On duplicating blog content verbatim
If some text on the wiki is horrible, then of course that’s important and needs to be fixed, but it seems like a bad policy to have pages that are strictly verbatim quotes from Eliezer-posts. The purpose of the wiki is to summarize key concepts from the OB/LW canon, so that we have something to show other than, “Go read everything Eliezer’s ever written.” If we have to duplicate too much blog comment verbatim, there’s not much point in having a wiki. Hence my recent rollback of Peerinfinity’s rollback. Zack M. Davis 02:34, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
But what if Eliezer’s words already are the best summary? Why change them just for the sake of not quoting him directly? --PeerInfinity 03:21, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
For the same reason that “guessing the teacher’s password” is a problem in conventional schools. The ideas are what’s important, and the ideas shouldn’t be so dependent on any one canonical phrasing. I would guess that hitting the same material from slightly different angles assists in learning it deeply. Furthermore, wiki articles should be concise, leaving the extended exposition to the full blogposts. --Zack M. Davis 04:11, 23 October 2009 (UTC)