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Comment by kergonath | Hacker News Reader

> "reasoning by correlation" as superstition is a brutal insight.

I don’t think he is right on that one, though. Reasoning by correlation is a kind of empiricism, and it can be tested. “These things happen together” or “if I do this, then that happens” can be disproven with statistical analysis even without any understanding of the underlying mechanisms at play their causes.

Superstition is beyond that; it is a belief that cannot be proven and that is not based on logic. The problem with superstition is not that there is no causal link between the supposed cause and the effect, it’s that there is not even a correlation.

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The problem here is that correlation is not a hard term for the people doing drawing the lines. People who take homeopathics for example will assure you they always get healthy when they took the sugar pills. What they fail to see is that they would have gotten healthy without it as well.

If you always rub your lucky penny before playing a sports game a superstitious person would account wins for the penny and excuse losses by not having rubbed the penny enough, the right way, not concentrated enough. This also feeds into correlation.

We are not talking about things actually being correlated, we are talking about people believing they are. Those are two wildly different things one is physical reality and doesn't change when you ignore it, the other is bound to individuals and tbeir world view and can take on absolutely ridiculous forms.

A road trip by random walk is also a kind of empiricism that can be tested. This does not imply it is worth the energy to actually do.

A road trip by random walk is a valuable experience, the kind most people on HN lack.

Call me crazy, but I don't think the goal of AI should be to give the rock with electricity in it "a valuable experience".

What are you even talking about?

The right way to build AI. You know, the topic of this thread. I've been wondering what you're talking about, though.

Superstition is assuming a causation when you identify a correlation.

Often followed by applying confirmation bias to see correlations when there are none.

i think this is the part of superstition. Reproductive, effective, correlation is the start of a scientific path to true discoveries. Superstition only begins when the correlation has never truly never been observed, but only repeated from generations to generations without any other kind of justification other than "that's what i heard".

There is also, fashionable on some message boards: assuming a lack of causation after only seeing the title of a report of correlation..

(One may also link fashion/accusations of fashionability etc etc to superstition..)

Yes, some people confuse contrarianism for cynicism and both for wisdom.

There are plenty of superstitions that are perfectly falsifiable. People continue to believe in them for comfort. For example, wearing odd socks to a sports match helps your team win. Or, leaving a fan on overnight might kill you.

I think the author and you are using different meanings for "reasoning".

We do know that many people even in professional fields confuse correlation with causation. And even when that doesn't happen, when only doing measurments, correlation is often considered good enough without giving any thought to the underlying mechanism. This may be the root of Goodhart's law stating that when a measure becomes a target it stops being a good measure. The measure was only correlated with the behaviour the person doing the measuring thought was measuring.

Superstition is similar, but drops any shred of statistical rigour, relying on mere anecdotal evidence.

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