Pet peeve I should work on: When people make a universal claim, then deny that an example demonstrates the universal is untrue.
I shouldn't let sloppy natural language use bother me so. I'm sure I'm guilty of it.
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That is, people don't talk like this:
ReplyDeleteFor all X, Px is true.
Even if they say something like: X is always true.
What they mean is: within a certain universe of discourse and with P defined very specifically, then for most of X, Px is true.
I think, at least. And that's not: There exists an X such that Px is untrue does not lead to belief revision.
That's the level of charity I'm capable of right now.
Hyperbole has a long and glorious pedigree.
ReplyDeleteIt is by far the most common conversational approach on the internet.
I think the reason people use false unversals is they are subconsciously trying to avoid their audience applying the gamblers falicy to their statement
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure how that applies, David Rothfeder . Wanna expand?
ReplyDeletePeople's brains are binary in some ways (we like to think in terms of categories) but the way we categorize is fuzzy (it's mostly X so put it into the X category).
ReplyDeleteThe gamblers falicy is about knowing what the most common outcome will be and yet believing you'll be the exception. I think subconsciously, people recognize this effect in others (but not themselves) and try to use absolutes so to enforce that the common response should be acted upon. In other words, combining heuristics be crazy.
ReplyDeletewhy are you always complaining about this?
ReplyDeleteTodd Sprang ARRGGHGHGHGHGHGHG
ReplyDelete:)
ReplyDeleteDavid Rothfeder ... I do not believe that is the gambler's fallacy, and I'd welcome you to refresh yourself on the wiki.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, only looking at what they believe to be the most common outcome and describing the situation that way does sound like what's going on.
I used to be frustrated by the seemingly obvious fact that all advice is false.
ReplyDeleteI have become happier since realizing that all advice is, in fact, poorly scoped.
Applying the same logic to generalizations results in vacuously true statements -- but can help shift the conversation (or analysis) to "under what set of constraints as assumptions is this statement true?"
Jesse Cox I think that's about right.
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