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Re:Adventures in Cognitive Biases by tzs on Saturday July 12, 2014 @06:17PM (#8025947)
If they had asked for an estimate of how many people died when the first Death Star was destroyed, would you answer be 0 because there was no actual Death Star?
Re:Adventures in Cognitive Biases by scott_s on Saturday July 12, 2014 @06:28PM (#8025970)
No, because such questions, to me, implicitly acknowledge we are talking about a fictional world. The question about the Dalai Lama, however, is a question about this world.

Another example that I would say 0 to is, how many times did Jesus Christ come back to life? But I would say 1 to, according to the Bible, how many times did Jesus Christ come back to life? The difference between Star Wars and the bible is that there are not large groups of people who insist that Star Wars is real, so I feel safe in assuming an implicit, "According to this fictional thing". I consider the "reincarnations of the Dalai Lama" to fall under the bible category.

Re:Adventures in Cognitive Biases by aptwebapps on Saturday July 12, 2014 @11:13PM (#8026515)
"No, because such questions, to me, implicitly acknowledge we are talking about a fictional world. The question about the Dalai Lama, however, is a question about this world."

Or, perhaps you're implicitly talking about the world in which the Dalai Lama is reincarnated. There's not much difference to your distinction.

The correct answer is whatever is commonly excepted by Buddhists, I guess, or perhaps there is an official number. 0 would be a trick answer.