Talk:2855: Empiricism

does it seem blurry to anyone else? guess who (if you want to | what i have done) 05:08, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

reminds me of this one https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/552:_Correlation 172.70.85.239 09:17, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

Slightly confused still about this one, how is the question of "how's that working out for you" empirical? Something can also have an effect on you in a rational (as opposed to empirical) framework, right? 172.71.102.117 (talk) 11:54, 16 November 2023 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Empirical means that it's based on experience, and the question asks what the experience has been like. Barmar (talk) 15:04, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

As I read it, one can hypothesise how well an action went (using pure logic to go through all alternatives, e.g., and suggesting how well any particular version goes) without examining the actualité. (And the usual problem is that you can generally only see the results of the "path actually travelled", which lets those who reject an assessment casually suggest that those making that adverse assessment don't really know what would otherwise have happened, which can be a very lazy counterpoint of convenience.)

For Cueball, like the atheist who "just believes in one less god" than a (monotheist) believer, it's a matter of not even considering the one experience he ought to be able to learn from.

...though the concept in my head is much simpler than it seems it needs to be expressed with through the medium of words, so maybe I'm not voicing it accurately (to either my internal understanding or even the true intent of the comic).

pre-post edit: ...aaaand, Barmar reduces it down to basically what I meant, in probably better words... 172.71.122.188 15:14, 16 November 2023 (UTC)