I appreciate the level-headed emotional de-escalation.
And with that, onto the content:
Yes and yes.
Understood. The next thing I’m wondering, then, is whether you’ve read this article. The reason I’m asking is because that’s the full and original explanation of the non-central fallacy, the fallacy that Jiro was claiming was exemplified by saying that Roosh “wants rape to be legal”.
Whatever your answer to that question, I would like to make a request. Can you re-state Jiro’s original argument in your own words? I don’t mean simply repeating the propositional logic inherent in the single statement that you’re objecting to; I mean explaining in full detail what Jiro meant to convey.
Actually, you can. Jiro made a propositional statement and it can be evaluated independently without rehashing the entire thread history.
Oh wait, I guess you may think that my request is irrelevant.
I believe we have a fundamental disagreement on the nature of language and epistemology, and I’m not optimistic that we will be able to resolve this dispute within this subthread. I will, however, put your username in my notes and contact you if I put together a sequence on logic which bears on this discussion.
But I might as well give it a brief attempt.
Few things are more common in Less Wrong culture than taking things far too literally. Most people on this website come from a background of social oddity and nerd interests. The source of the average Rationalist’s superpowers is also the source of his weakness: undue attention to the finely delimited moving parts of single isolated statements. Such an orientation of mind allows deep analysis, innovative thinking, and so forth. But the danger is that natural language is too primitive of a tool to expect to be able to scrutinize single statements; arguments must be evaluated as a whole unless we’re in the realm of mathematical logic.
Perhaps it would be easier to explain if I merely claim that your original post was irrelevant and off topic. Whatever the case with the single statement that you’re analyzing, neither I nor Jiro make any claim which rests upon that foundation. Sure, you can find that statement in Jiro’s post. You can discover that sequence of Latin characters lying within the square. But did Jiro think to himself or herself that there exists an equivalence between those two concepts? Absolutely not.
I’m a little bit lost about how to elucidate this clearly. How about you take up this challenge, which I mentioned earlier in this comment: Explain in your own words what Jiro meant, complete with demonstrating an understanding of the nature of the non-central fallacy. You’re going to have to take my word for it, but I believe that completing this exercise will reveal to you why I believe it’s so important that you take the context into account rather than simply pinpointing that one statement and laying out your disagreement.
I appreciate the level-headed emotional de-escalation.
And with that, onto the content:
Understood. The next thing I’m wondering, then, is whether you’ve read this article. The reason I’m asking is because that’s the full and original explanation of the non-central fallacy, the fallacy that Jiro was claiming was exemplified by saying that Roosh “wants rape to be legal”.
Whatever your answer to that question, I would like to make a request. Can you re-state Jiro’s original argument in your own words? I don’t mean simply repeating the propositional logic inherent in the single statement that you’re objecting to; I mean explaining in full detail what Jiro meant to convey.
Oh wait, I guess you may think that my request is irrelevant.
I believe we have a fundamental disagreement on the nature of language and epistemology, and I’m not optimistic that we will be able to resolve this dispute within this subthread. I will, however, put your username in my notes and contact you if I put together a sequence on logic which bears on this discussion.
But I might as well give it a brief attempt.
Few things are more common in Less Wrong culture than taking things far too literally. Most people on this website come from a background of social oddity and nerd interests. The source of the average Rationalist’s superpowers is also the source of his weakness: undue attention to the finely delimited moving parts of single isolated statements. Such an orientation of mind allows deep analysis, innovative thinking, and so forth. But the danger is that natural language is too primitive of a tool to expect to be able to scrutinize single statements; arguments must be evaluated as a whole unless we’re in the realm of mathematical logic.
Perhaps it would be easier to explain if I merely claim that your original post was irrelevant and off topic. Whatever the case with the single statement that you’re analyzing, neither I nor Jiro make any claim which rests upon that foundation. Sure, you can find that statement in Jiro’s post. You can discover that sequence of Latin characters lying within the square. But did Jiro think to himself or herself that there exists an equivalence between those two concepts? Absolutely not.
I’m a little bit lost about how to elucidate this clearly. How about you take up this challenge, which I mentioned earlier in this comment: Explain in your own words what Jiro meant, complete with demonstrating an understanding of the nature of the non-central fallacy. You’re going to have to take my word for it, but I believe that completing this exercise will reveal to you why I believe it’s so important that you take the context into account rather than simply pinpointing that one statement and laying out your disagreement.