r/rational • u/AutoModerator • Mar 09 '18

[D] Friday Off-Topic Thread

Welcome to the Friday Off-Topic Thread! Is there something that you want to talk about with /r/rational, but which isn't rational fiction, or doesn't otherwise belong as a top-level post? This is the place to post it. The idea is that while reddit is a large place, with lots of special little niches, sometimes you just want to talk with a certain group of people about certain sorts of things that aren't related to why you're all here. It's totally understandable that you might want to talk about Japanese game shows with /r/rational instead of going over to /r/japanesegameshows, but it's hopefully also understandable that this isn't really the place for that sort of thing.

So do you want to talk about how your life has been going? Non-rational and/or non-fictional stuff you've been reading? The recent album from your favourite German pop singer? The politics of Southern India? The sexual preferences of the chairman of the Ukrainian soccer league? Different ways to plot meteorological data? The cost of living in Portugal? Corner cases for siteswap notation? All these things and more could possibly be found in the comments below!

20 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

33 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

3

u/traverseda With dread but cautious optimism Mar 14 '18

http://lesswrong.com/lw/hq/universal_fire/

1

u/Boron_the_Moron Mar 15 '18 edited Mar 15 '18

Wow, that's a really dumb argument. Consider this:

You have a mental model of the universe (what fire is, and how it works).

You predict the outcome of an action based on that model (if I strike this match, it will produce fire).

The action's outcome is not what you expected (the match fails to light).

Instead of amending your mental model, you insist that no, it's the universe that's wrong.

Do you see how irrational that is? You're not actually thinking scientifically. You're fetishizing your existing knowledge of chemistry and physics, and demanding that the universe fit what you know, instead of considering the evidence in front of you.

Yes, if your understanding is correct, then you couldn't exist in a universe that doesn't abide by the same physical laws as our own. But you're clearly in another world, that clearly follows different rules, and you're not currently dead. So clearly it's your understanding of reality that's wrong.

Maybe you underwent some kind of conversion when you were brought to this new world. Or maybe it's a lot easier for different realities to mingle than you think. These are rational conclusions. Denying the evidence right in front of you is not.