You may be right. It certainly seems likely to me that the author was just picking a narratively good example.
I did recently experience some arguments surprisingly similar to the one in the OP (things similar to this) definitely designed to be deeply confusing, and I was also incredibly surprised to find the environment I was in (not LW, but some thoughtful people) taking them seriously and being confused by them, which made me decrease my threshold for pointing out this type of cognitive route as bad and not-worth-exploring. I haven’t the time to think up as clear an example as the OP’s—as I say, it seems plausible that this one just is the most narratively simple. There are often religion-metaphors in abstract problems (e.g. decision theory) that are clearly natural to use.
You say you found the OP to be a useful thought experiment, and that already causes me to think I might be mistaken, I’m pretty sure the part of me that thought the example was bad also would predict you wouldn’t find it very useful.
I think the OP is more about evolution giving us irrational drives that override our intellect. For example, if someone believes that bungee jumping is safe but is still afraid to jump, their belief is right but their fear is wrong, so the fear shouldn’t be taken as a strong argument against the belief.
You may be right. It certainly seems likely to me that the author was just picking a narratively good example.
I did recently experience some arguments surprisingly similar to the one in the OP (things similar to this) definitely designed to be deeply confusing, and I was also incredibly surprised to find the environment I was in (not LW, but some thoughtful people) taking them seriously and being confused by them, which made me decrease my threshold for pointing out this type of cognitive route as bad and not-worth-exploring. I haven’t the time to think up as clear an example as the OP’s—as I say, it seems plausible that this one just is the most narratively simple. There are often religion-metaphors in abstract problems (e.g. decision theory) that are clearly natural to use.
You say you found the OP to be a useful thought experiment, and that already causes me to think I might be mistaken, I’m pretty sure the part of me that thought the example was bad also would predict you wouldn’t find it very useful.
I think the OP is more about evolution giving us irrational drives that override our intellect. For example, if someone believes that bungee jumping is safe but is still afraid to jump, their belief is right but their fear is wrong, so the fear shouldn’t be taken as a strong argument against the belief.