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Ludic Fallacy

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Re: Ludic Fallacy

#31

Post by louwrentius »

buran77 wrote: post #14
sudhirj wrote: post #5

The nicest example of this I've seen is that Tim Ferris won a kickboxing championship without being a kickboxer, https://www.martialdevelopment.com/how-to-win-kickboxing-wro... The fallacy is that winning a world championship at kickboxing must mean that you're an excellent kickboxer, but nope.

I'm not sure what kind of championship that was but for an experienced fighter having a 30 pound "handicap" versus an inexperienced one should amount to no real life disadvantage. Don't underestimate what a 165 lbs person's tibia can do to a 195 lbs person's head on even thigh. There's no "hack" to not getting your lights knocked out with one punch/kick from a good fighter 30 lbs lighter than you. And tricking the we…

Tim Ferris really became rich and famous by peddling bullshit pills (I call it fraudulent) and then writing an 'empty' book about it.

Re: Ludic Fallacy

#32

Post by [deleted] »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #16
FeepingCreature wrote: post #6

Isn't the first example extremely bullshit? > A third party asks them to "assume that a coin is fair, i.e., has an equal probability of coming up heads or tails when flipped. I flip it ninety-nine times and get heads each time. What are the odds of my getting tails on my next throw?" Istm that Fat Tony here gets the right answer to the wrong question. Whether we should assume this is not part of the question. That th…

But the assumption is the point. When you have enough data to suggest your model is wrong, you should throw away the model and the assumptions it's based on, not the data. The fact that your model can be justified as technically correct is irrelevant. When the data doesn't fit the model any more, the supposed absolute correctness of the textbook model blocks your ability to understand what's happening. This isn't eve…

[deleted]

Re: Ludic Fallacy

#33

Post by Hitton »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #16
FeepingCreature wrote: post #6

Isn't the first example extremely bullshit? > A third party asks them to "assume that a coin is fair, i.e., has an equal probability of coming up heads or tails when flipped. I flip it ninety-nine times and get heads each time. What are the odds of my getting tails on my next throw?" Istm that Fat Tony here gets the right answer to the wrong question. Whether we should assume this is not part of the question. That th…

But the assumption is the point. When you have enough data to suggest your model is wrong, you should throw away the model and the assumptions it's based on, not the data. The fact that your model can be justified as technically correct is irrelevant. When the data doesn't fit the model any more, the supposed absolute correctness of the textbook model blocks your ability to understand what's happening. This isn't eve…

I remember reading some kind of fantasy anthology of Sherlock Holmes pastiches. In one story there was interesting twist on the famous quote "Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.". It was changed to the effect that "once whatever remains is ridiculously improbable, you should probably reconsider what is actually impossible".

Re: Ludic Fallacy

#34

Post by leereeves »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #16
FeepingCreature wrote: post #6

Isn't the first example extremely bullshit? > A third party asks them to "assume that a coin is fair, i.e., has an equal probability of coming up heads or tails when flipped. I flip it ninety-nine times and get heads each time. What are the odds of my getting tails on my next throw?" Istm that Fat Tony here gets the right answer to the wrong question. Whether we should assume this is not part of the question. That th…

But the assumption is the point. When you have enough data to suggest your model is wrong, you should throw away the model and the assumptions it's based on, not the data. The fact that your model can be justified as technically correct is irrelevant. When the data doesn't fit the model any more, the supposed absolute correctness of the textbook model blocks your ability to understand what's happening. This isn't eve…

But the example is poorly communicated. It's not clear whether the entire quoted portion is:

A) a hypothetical introduced by the idiom "Assume that..." (which introduces a statement of fact in the hypothetical situation), and we are discussing a scenario in which the coin is in fact fair, in which case Dr. John is correct and Fat Tony is committing the gambler's fallacy, or

B) a scenario in which a third-party tells someone that the coin is fair, but that is simply an assumption that should be updated by new evidence, in which case Dr. John would be committing the ludic fallacy.

The example isn't instructive because anyone reading this and thinking of scenario A isn't disputing the idea that, if this happened in reality, you should throw away the model. They're just interpreting the phrase "assume that" differently.

Re: Ludic Fallacy

#35

Post by FeepingCreature »

marvin wrote: post #11
FeepingCreature wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right - "assume at the start that the coin is fair - you are free to update the assumption as you go" is a different thing than they said. Usually "assume that" assumptions are meant to hold throughout the question. As Randall says, "communicating badly and then acting smug when you're misunderstood is not cleverness."

I think the central point here is that «assume that» is fine when working with a math problem, but can kill you in real life. If you’ve just lost two billion dollars, or killed 200,000 people in a preventable war, no one cares that the assumptions were reasonable.

Right, but the study has nothing to do with this, because the question was not in real life, but about a fictional scenario.

"Assume you jump off a bridge. Would you be dead?"

"No, because I'd change my mind. What, you think I'd jump off a bridge because someone tells me to?"

"No, but I'd rather expect you'd assume it because I tell you, in the context of a hypothetical."

Re: Ludic Fallacy

#36

Post by throwaway2245 »

I haven't understood this as a fallacy.

In the "suspicious coin" example, there is an opening assumption that the coin is fair, but it transpires clear evidence to the contrary.

It isn't a fallacy to continue to treat this as a game: it has just become sensible to drop the assumption and treat it as a game where you are unsure about whether the coin is fair (as the second player in the example, in fact, does).

Re: Ludic Fallacy

#37

Post by buran77 »

yesenadam wrote: post #25
buran77 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what kind of championship that was but for an experienced fighter having a 30 pound "handicap" versus an inexperienced one should amount to no real life disadvantage. Don't underestimate what a 165 lbs person's tibia can do to a 195 lbs person's head on even thigh. There's no "hack" to not getting your lights knocked out with one punch/kick from a good fighter 30 lbs lighter than you. And tricking the we…

> an actual record of him winning that "Chinese Kickboxing National Championships 1999" There appears to be some footage of it in this video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODoVqXgblyw

I may have edited too late. He does seem to be an actual fighter and at least for a while under Dave Camarillo, but still very far from being a world champion. Given that he makes a living selling such tricks I think that is a compilation of random training sessions and championship fights intertwined with shots of his face and nothing more.

From what I gather from a short internet search he changed his story repeatedly depending on what sold more. He's either an experienced fighter with multiple world championship wins, or an average guy using his own tricks to win. But his name is not associated with any official leaderboard or championship win as far as I can tell.

As someone who has consistently excelled at amateur martial arts I can guarantee there's no way a world champion gets beaten by some guy pushing him off the lei tai repeatedly even after the same technique was used in every round and with all other opponents. I could knock out almost any "non-trained" person with a single well placed punch or kick, and if they weren't well placed they would still do some temporarily debilitating damage. Yet whenever I had friendly fights with well trained pros, including ones with good results in international championships but no gold medals, I have no words to describe how inadequate and unprepared I felt.

All I'm saying is that the story is not what it seems. Whether he is an actual pro worthy of a gold medal, or some incredible fluke made him fight severely unprepared opponents I don't know. But he certainly didn't win anything because he tricked the weigh-in (that's standard procedure), or because he pushed opponents off the lei tai round after round, opponent after opponent and none of those world class fighters had any recourse.

This is how a fight would look like [0]. You win that by going to a lower weight class and "pushing" only if you are perfectly able to take the hits anyway and are already good. Tricks will get you from silver to gold, not from peanut butter.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQsTOVCqduY

Re: Ludic Fallacy

#38

Post by moring »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #16
FeepingCreature wrote: post #6

Isn't the first example extremely bullshit? > A third party asks them to "assume that a coin is fair, i.e., has an equal probability of coming up heads or tails when flipped. I flip it ninety-nine times and get heads each time. What are the odds of my getting tails on my next throw?" Istm that Fat Tony here gets the right answer to the wrong question. Whether we should assume this is not part of the question. That th…

But the assumption is the point. When you have enough data to suggest your model is wrong, you should throw away the model and the assumptions it's based on, not the data. The fact that your model can be justified as technically correct is irrelevant. When the data doesn't fit the model any more, the supposed absolute correctness of the textbook model blocks your ability to understand what's happening. This isn't eve…

> When you have enough data to suggest your model is wrong, you should throw away the model and the assumptions it's based on, not the data.

In the example, you agreed to assume the coin is fair. That is, you agreed to stick to the model even if it turns out to be wrong. Throwing the model away, however suggested by the evidence, is just violating the rules you agreed to.

Re: Ludic Fallacy

#39

Post by dtjohnnyb »

The book Range talks about a similar idea, the idea of "kind" and "wicked" learning environments.

In kind environments (most games) "patterns recur, situations are constrained, and importantly, every time you do something you get feedback that is totally obvious, all the information is available, the feedback is quick, and it is 100% accurate"

In contrast, wicked environments (most of the rest of life!!!) none of the properties of kind environments hold, and in some extreme cases the feedback teaches you the exact wrong lesson.

In the book, he similarly warns against taking the lessons from successful people in chess or golf and applying them to our own wicked lives.

Re: Ludic Fallacy

#40

Post by buran77 »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #26
aspenmayer wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thai kickboxing and BJJ isn’t a joke. Neither is physics and bone density increases through training, same with muscle fiber density and reaction time. I can go on. Training matters.

I've watched a Thai kickboxing match in Bangkok, and what amazed me, and I didn't expect is that the first few minutes are like dancing, no touching, then it slowly accelerates over say 30 minutes or something to a full out thing. If you can bend the rules in those first 5 minutes, even a sedate developer might stand a chance!

That's like saying that after you start an engine it's idling for a while and consuming very little, if you could just get you your destination while it's still idling you could save so much fuel.

You opponent will not wait for you to bend the rules a few times before they react unless the first bend knocks them out. Pushing people off the fighting surface might work once, maybe twice. If that's the only weapon in a fighter's arsenal I see a fractured skull in their immediate future. :)

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