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Richard Boase's avatar

Clearly the problem here is that A does not like B and B does not like A because they are competing for resources. Rationale doesn't play a part in the Rabbi's answers, as he doesn't even stop to think fully and properly before saying 'you're right, you're right', even to his wife. He just takes the easy way out and agrees with them all.

Firstly, not only are they both wrong as a socialised or communist doctrine may hold that "All property is theft" but the wife is also wrong, because both men can be right, and wrong, at the same time.

There's no case to answer here. The Rabbi is only capable of agreeing, and does not have the linguistic tools to articulate the reality of the situation.

Sorry Hal. R.I.P. btw: Thank You for RPOWs!! :)

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Overcoming Bias Commenter's avatar

pdf23ds - It may seem reasonable to think that way, but really it's not. Consider a simpler case where there is someone so smart that whenever you interact with him, he can convince you of anything. In fact he can convince you that A is true and then turn around and convince you that A is false. Then it might seem that you can reasonably have an expectation that after you interact with him, your opinion on a subject will change in favor of whatever position you know in advance that he will advocate.

But eventually you should realize that since he has this ability, even though he provides a convincing argument in favor of his position, you know that he could provide an equally convincing case for the other side. This knowledge should discredit his argumentation and cause you to reject his position, no matter how persuasive it seems to be on the surface. It's not reasonable to be convinced of something when you know that there is just as compelling an argument against it, even though you don't know what that argument is.

To use the possible-world formulation, if you know that there is information that will cause you to have belief X on a matter, then you know that you exist in a set of possible worlds where belief X is reasonable, and therefore you should have belief X now.

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