Then you get the wrong answer and you can't go to the Moon that way! Nature isn't a person, you can't trick them into believing something else, if you try to tell the Moon it's made of cheese you can argue for days and it won't change the Moon! What you're talking about is rationalization, like starting with a sheet of paper, moving straight down to the bottom line, using ink to write 'and therefore, the Moon is made of cheese', and then moving back up to write all sorts of clever arguments above. But either the Moon is made of cheese or it isn't. The moment you wrote the bottom line, it was already true or already false. Whether or not the whole sheet of paper ends up with the right conclusion or the wrong conclusion is fixed the instant you write down the bottom line. .Eliezer Yudkowsky
About This Quote
If a person believes they have a certain belief, they will often rationalize the reasons that they believe that belief. They will use their beliefs as a launching point to reason that they do have that belief. This is different from the way a scientist would think of rationalization. In rationalization, a person starts with a premise and then ends with a conclusion which is completely unrelated to their original premise. In the above example, if one believes the moon is made of cheese, he or she may go on to justify why they believe this belief with many different arguments which are completely unrelated to the original premise.
Some Similar Quotes
- One ought to hold on to one's heart; for if one lets it go, one soon loses control of the head too.
- You cannot connect with anyone except through reality.
- The world, viewed philosophically, remains a series of slave camps, where citizens — tax livestock — labor under the chains of illusion in the service of their masters.
- Truth has nothing to do with the conclusion, and everything to do with the methodology.
- We may not yet know the right way to go, but we should at least stop going in the wrong direction.
More Quotes By Eliezer Yudkowsky
- There is no justice in the laws of nature, no term for fairness in the equations of motion. The Universe is neither evil, nor good, it simply does not care. The stars don't care, or the Sun, or the sky. But they don't have to!...
- One of chief pieces of advice I give to aspiring rationalists is "Don't try to be clever." And, "Listen to those quiet, nagging doubts." If you don't know, you don't know what you don't know, you don't know how much you don't know, and you...
- If you once tell a lie, the truth is ever after your enemy.
- And someday when the descendants of humanity have spread from star to star they won’t tell the children about the history of Ancient Earth until they’re old enough to bear it and when they learn they’ll weep to hear that such a thing as Death...
- It's a most peculiar psychology–this business of 'Science is based on faith too, so there! ' Typically this is said by people who claim that faith is a good thing. Then why do they say 'Science is based on faith too! ' in that angry-triumphal...