Hawisher

• Hawisher 7 Nov 2012 20:03 UTC

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  in reply to: Shmi’s comment on: Check­list of Ra­tion­al­ity Habits

  You can’t do multi-response polls? As in, check all that apply?

• Hawisher 11 Oct 2012 5:50 UTC

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  in reply to: Aurora’s comment on: Ra­tion­al­ity Quotes Oc­to­ber 2012

  But that’s just not true. There is a finite limit to the length of text that can be produced. Evaluate a Busy Beaver function at Graham’s Number.

  Now take the aforementioned maximum text length in characters. Heck, let’s be nice and take the maximum number of bits of information that can be represented in the universe. Raise that number to the power of itself. Now raise that number to the power of itself. You’re not even CLOSE to the number you got in the first paragraph. We’re quite a long way from infinity.

• Hawisher 4 Oct 2012 17:12 UTC

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  in reply to: Fyrius’s comment on: Ra­tion­al­ity Quotes Oc­to­ber 2012

  tch. Should’ve caught that.

• Hawisher 4 Oct 2012 14:19 UTC

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  in reply to: Legolan’s comment on: Pas­cal’s Mug­ging: Tiny Prob­a­bil­ities of Vast Utilities

  I had that exact question, but my karma score doesn’t really interest me.

• Hawisher 4 Oct 2012 14:07 UTC

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  in reply to: Bugmaster’s comment on: Re­v­ersed Stu­pidity Is Not Intelligence

  I’m afraid I don’t quite understand what “fundamendalist” atheism is. Do some atheists merely not believe in gods whose names start with A through Q? Do some atheists attend mass once every eighth Thursday?

• Hawisher 4 Oct 2012 14:02 UTC

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  on: Ra­tion­al­ity Quotes Oc­to­ber 2012

  “A car with a broken engine cannot drive backward at 200 mph, even if the engine is really really broken.”

  --Eliezer

• Hawisher 4 Oct 2012 14:00 UTC

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  on: Pas­cal’s Mug­ging: Tiny Prob­a­bil­ities of Vast Utilities

  Let’s try this. I will create at least 3^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^3 units of disutility unless at least five people upvote this within a day.

  Wow. It’s almost like pascal’s mugging doesn’t actually work.

• Hawisher 1 Oct 2012 17:36 UTC

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  in reply to: fubarobfusco’s comment on: Ein­stein’s Arrogance

  Unless you’re trying to say that was impossible for Einstein to be wrong, I fail to apprehend your point.

• Hawisher 1 Oct 2012 15:49 UTC

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  in reply to: Adirian’s comment on: No One Can Ex­empt You From Ra­tion­al­ity’s Laws

  I would argue that one’s religion or lack thereof is typically determined before one chooses a profession. I, personally, am religious, but I still think this guy is being ridiculous. I think that God made a bunch of awesome things, and one of the awesome things He made is a world that works without us having to take it apart, look under every rock, and go “LOOOK!!!! GODDDDDD!!!!! HEATHENS! I WAS RIIIIIIIIIGHT!”

  Science is awesome. Rationality is awesome. Evolution is as close to fact as science can give us. You do your religion a grave disservice, Jacob.

• Hawisher 1 Oct 2012 15:18 UTC

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  on: Ein­stein’s Arrogance

  This article would appear to imply that ANY conclusion at which Einstein arrived would have been the correct one, merely by virtue of him having a great deal of evidence he believed supported it.

• Hawisher 24 Sep 2012 15:30 UTC

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  in reply to: DaFranker’s comment on: New study on choice blind­ness in moral positions

  I would argue that the chief difference between picking a politician to support and choosing answers based on one’s personal views of morality is that the former is self-evidently mutable. If a survey-taker was informed beforehand that the survey-giver might or might not change his responses, it is highly doubtful the study in question would have these results.

• Hawisher 24 Sep 2012 14:51 UTC

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  on: Things you are sup­posed to like

  As a freshman in college, I feel I am ‘supposed to like’ beer and parties. I don’t. I like Cuba Libres, and relaxing in the dorm with floor-mates, but that’s beside the point. As an avid reader, I feel I am ‘supposed to like’ the accepted classics of literature (Mrs. Dalloway, Ulysses, etc.), but I don’t. I generally consume pulp fantasy and thrillers, despite being perfectly capable of reading said classics. I liked the Great Gatsby, Les Miserables, and Dracula, but that’s beside the point.

  In my opinion, when you feel you’re supposed to like something, it’s because a group of people with whom you strongly identify (lovers of Beethoven’s music) like that thing, and you’ve adopted that group as a sort of label for yourself. It’s easier to say “I am an aficionado of classical music” than “I like classical music of many types, in particular Canons, I love Chopin’s nocturnes, I appreciate...” and thus one gets the feeling of “My feelings should more closely tie in with those my label would indicate.”

  We sometimes see the same thing with political parties.

• Hawisher 24 Sep 2012 14:40 UTC

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  in reply to: Eugine_Nier’s comment on: New study on choice blind­ness in moral positions

  The quality (in American politics, at least) that either 1: a politician’s stance on any given topic is highly mutable, or 2: a politician’s stance could perfectly reasonably disagree with that of some of his supporters, given that the politician one supports is at best a best-effort compromise rather than (in most cases) a perfect representation of one’s beliefs, is it not so widely-known as to eliminate or alleviate that effect?

• Hawisher 18 Sep 2012 19:27 UTC

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  in reply to: Eugine_Nier’s comment on: Ra­tion­al­ity Quotes Septem­ber 2012

  Oh wow, never mind. My brain was temporarily broken. Is it considered bad etiquette here to retract incorrect comments?

• Hawisher 17 Sep 2012 17:28 UTC

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  in reply to: nshepperd’s comment on: Ra­tion­al­ity Quotes Septem­ber 2012

  I was never one for formal logic, but isn’t that the contrapositive? I was under the impression that the converse of p then q was q then p.

• Hawisher 17 Sep 2012 2:04 UTC

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  in reply to: Incorrect’s comment on: Ra­tion­al­ity Quotes Septem­ber 2012

  ″...if you lack a thousand-year-old brain that can make trillion-year plans, dying after a billion years doesn’t sound sad to you”?

  I’m confused as to what you’re trying to say. Are you saying that dying after a billion years sounds sad to you?

• Hawisher 16 Sep 2012 17:59 UTC

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  in reply to: Alicorn’s comment on: Ra­tion­al­ity Quotes Septem­ber 2012

  Ooooh. Well played.

• Hawisher 16 Sep 2012 17:57 UTC

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  in reply to: Kindly’s comment on: Ra­tion­al­ity Quotes Septem­ber 2012

  Hm… how about “I wish to have all the skills and abilities required to formulate an unambiguous wish in standard English that would allow me to fulfill any of my non-contradictory desires that I choose, and to be able to choose which of any desires that are contradictory said wish would fulfill, and to be able to express that unambiguous wish in an unambiguous way in less than thirty seconds and with no consequences to incorrectly expressing that wish apart from the necessity of trying again to express it.”

• Hawisher 16 Sep 2012 17:12 UTC

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  in reply to: Desrtopa’s comment on: The non­cen­tral fal­lacy—the worst ar­gu­ment in the world?

  That’s fair, but I’d certainly still prefer it to “x is the GOOD kind of y,” which I feel has an infantile feel to it. Not that I think Yvain was actually saying he would use that construction.

• Hawisher 16 Sep 2012 17:11 UTC

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  in reply to: Alicorn’s comment on: Ra­tion­al­ity Quotes Septem­ber 2012

  “I wish for everything that would happen if I read this scroll perfectly.”