I often wish I had a better way to concisely communicate “X is a hypothesis I am tracking in my hypothesis space”. I don’t simply mean that X is logically possible, and I don’t mean I assign even 1-10% probability to X, I just mean that as a bounded agent I can only track a handful of hypotheses and I am choosing to actively track this one.
This comes up when a substantially different hypothesis is worth tracking but I’ve seen no evidence for it. There’s a common sentence like “The plumber says it’s fixed, though he might be wrong” where I don’t want to communicate that I’ve got much reason to believe he might be wrong, and I’m not giving it even 10% or 20%, but I still think it’s worth tracking, because strong evidence is common and the importance is high.
This comes up in adversarial situations when it’s possible that there’s an adversarial process selecting on my observations. In such situations I want to say “I think it’s worth tracking the hypothesis that the politician wants me to believe that this policy worked in order to pad their reputation, and I will put some effort into checking for evidence of that, but to be clear I haven’t seen any positive evidence for that hypothesis in this case, and will not be acting in accordance with that hypothesis unless I do.”
This comes up when I’m talking to someone about a hypothesis that they think is likely and I haven’t thought about before, but am engaging with during the conversation. “I’m tracking your hypothesis would predict something different in situation A, though I haven’t seen any clear evidence for privileging your hypothesis yet and we aren’t able to check what’s actually happening in situation A.”
A phrase people around me commonly use is “The plumber says it’s fixed, though it’s plausible he’s mistaken”. I don’t like it. It feels too ambiguous with “It’s logically possible” and “I think it’s reasonably likely, like 10-20%” and neither of which is what I mean. This isn’t a claim about its probability, it’s just a claim about it being “worth tracking”.
Some options:
I could say “I am privileging this hypothesis” but that still seems to be a claim about probability, when often it’s more a claim about importance-if-true, and I don’t actually have any particular evidence for it.
I often say that a hypothesis is “on the table” as way to say it’s in play without saying that it’s probable. I like this more but I don’t feel satisfied yet.
TsviBT suggested “it’s a live hypothesis for me”, and I also like that, but still don’t feel satisfied.
How these read in the plumber situation:
“The plumber says it’s fixed, though I’m still going to be on the lookout for evidence that he’s wrong.”
“The plumber says it’s fixed, though it’s plausible he’s wrong.”
“The plumber says it’s fixed, and I believe him (though it’s worth tracking the hypothesis that’s he’s mistaken).”
“The plumber says it’s fixed, though it’s a live hypothesis for me that he’s mistaken.”
“The plumber says it’s fixed, though I am going to continue to privilege the hypothesis that he’s mistaken.”
“The plumber says it’s fixed, though it’s on the table that he’s wrong about that.”
Interested to hear any other ways people communicate this sort of thing!
Added: I am reacting with a thumbs-up to all the suggestions I like in the replies below.
Standard text in customer-facing outage recovery notices: all systems appear to be operating correctly, and we are actively monitoring the situation”.
In more casual conversations, I sometimes say “cautiously optimistic” when stating that I think things are OK, but I’m paying more attention than normal for signs I’m wrong. Mostly, I talk about my attention and what I’m looking for, rather than specifying the person who’s making claims. Instead of “the plumber says it’s fixed, though he might be wrong”, I’d say “The plumber fixed it, but I’m keeping an eye out for further problems”. For someone proposing something I haven’t thought about, “I haven’t noticed that, but I’ll pay more attention for X and Y in the future”.
Before I read the aphoristic three-word reply to you from Richard Kennaway (admittedly a likely even clearer-cut way to indicate the following sentiment), I was thinking that to downplay any unintended implications about the magnitude of your probabilities that you could maybe say something about your tracking being for mundane-vigilance or intermittent-map-maintenance or routine-reality-syncing / -surveying / -sampling reasons.
For any audience you anticipate familiarity with this essay though, another idea might be to use a version of something like:
“The plumber says it’s fixed, which I’m splitting on [by default][and {also} tracking <for posterity>].”
(spoilered section below just corrals a ~dozen expansions / embellishments of the above)
“The plumber says it’s fixed, which I’m splitting on.”
“The plumber says it’s fixed, which I’m splitting on and tracking.”
“The plumber says it’s fixed, which I’m splitting on and tracking for posterity.”
“The plumber says it’s fixed, which I’m splitting on and also tracking.”
“The plumber says it’s fixed, which I’m splitting on by default.”
“The plumber says it’s fixed, which I’m splitting on by default and tracking.”
“The plumber says it’s fixed, which I’m splitting on by default and tracking for posterity.”
“The plumber says it’s fixed, which I’m splitting on by default and also tracking.”
“The plumber says it’s fixed, which I’m splitting on by default and will track mindfully for posterity.”
“The plumber says it’s fixed, which I’m splitting on by default (mindfully though—and so will also just track as a matter of course).”
“The plumber says it’s fixed, which I’m splitting on by default (mindfully though, so tracking then for posterity).”
“The plumber says it’s fixed, which I’m splitting on and will track mindfully for posterity.”
“The plumber says it’s fixed, which I’m splitting on (mindfully though—and so will also just track as a matter of course).”
“The plumber says it’s fixed, which I’m splitting on (mindfully though, so tracking then for posterity).”
Adapted from the french “j’envisage que X” I propose “I am considering the possibility that X” or in some contexts “I am considering X”.
“The plumber says it’s fixed, but I am considering he might be wrong”.
What’s wrong with your original sentence, “X is a hypothesis I am tracking in my hypothesis space”? Or more informal versions of that, like “I’ll be keeping an eye on that”, “We’ll see”, etc.?
I guess it’s just that I don’t feel mastery over my communication here, I still anticipate that I will find it clunky to add in a whole chunk of sentences to communicate my epistemic status.
I anticipate often in the future that I’ll feel a need to write a whole paragraph, say in the political case, just to clarify that though I think it’s worth considering the possibility that the politician is somehow manipulating the evidence, I’ve seen no cause to believe it in this case. I feel like bringing up the hypothesis with a quick “though I’m tracking the possibility that Adam is somehow manipulating the evidence for political gain” pretty commonly implies that the speaker (me) thinks it is likely enough to be worth acting on, and so I feel I have to explicitly rule that out as why I’m bringing it up, leaving me with my rather long sentence from above.
“I think it’s worth tracking the hypothesis that the politician wants me to believe that this policy worked in order to pad their reputation, and I will put some effort into checking for evidence of that, but to be clear I haven’t seen any positive evidence for that hypothesis in this case, and will not be acting in accordance with that hypothesis unless I do.”
In the plumbing context I generally say or think, “The repair/work has been completed and I’ll see how it lasts.” or sometimes something like, “We’ve addressed the immediate problem so lets see if that was a fix or a bandage.”
“The plumber says it’s fixed, but I’ll keep an eye out for evidence of more problems.” (ditto Dagon) also “The politician seems to be providing sound evidence that her policy is working, but I’ll remain vigilant to the possibility that she’s being deceptive.”
Which I think conveys”there’s an assumption I’m making here, but I’m just putting a flag in the ground to return to if things don’t play out as expected”
I’m entertaining the hypothesis that it’s perfectly serious. People are saying that there’s a wide variance in the typical discussion norms around home repair.
Experts are saying people dislike my suggestion because it doesn’t sound like it’s conveying the desired nuanced view, despite doing so quite effectively.
I often wish I had a better way to concisely communicate “X is a hypothesis I am tracking in my hypothesis space”. I don’t simply mean that X is logically possible, and I don’t mean I assign even 1-10% probability to X, I just mean that as a bounded agent I can only track a handful of hypotheses and I am choosing to actively track this one.
This comes up when a substantially different hypothesis is worth tracking but I’ve seen no evidence for it. There’s a common sentence like “The plumber says it’s fixed, though he might be wrong” where I don’t want to communicate that I’ve got much reason to believe he might be wrong, and I’m not giving it even 10% or 20%, but I still think it’s worth tracking, because strong evidence is common and the importance is high.
This comes up in adversarial situations when it’s possible that there’s an adversarial process selecting on my observations. In such situations I want to say “I think it’s worth tracking the hypothesis that the politician wants me to believe that this policy worked in order to pad their reputation, and I will put some effort into checking for evidence of that, but to be clear I haven’t seen any positive evidence for that hypothesis in this case, and will not be acting in accordance with that hypothesis unless I do.”
This comes up when I’m talking to someone about a hypothesis that they think is likely and I haven’t thought about before, but am engaging with during the conversation. “I’m tracking your hypothesis would predict something different in situation A, though I haven’t seen any clear evidence for privileging your hypothesis yet and we aren’t able to check what’s actually happening in situation A.”
A phrase people around me commonly use is “The plumber says it’s fixed, though it’s plausible he’s mistaken”. I don’t like it. It feels too ambiguous with “It’s logically possible” and “I think it’s reasonably likely, like 10-20%” and neither of which is what I mean. This isn’t a claim about its probability, it’s just a claim about it being “worth tracking”.
Some options:
I could say “I am privileging this hypothesis” but that still seems to be a claim about probability, when often it’s more a claim about importance-if-true, and I don’t actually have any particular evidence for it.
I often say that a hypothesis is “on the table” as way to say it’s in play without saying that it’s probable. I like this more but I don’t feel satisfied yet.
TsviBT suggested “it’s a live hypothesis for me”, and I also like that, but still don’t feel satisfied.
How these read in the plumber situation:
“The plumber says it’s fixed, though I’m still going to be on the lookout for evidence that he’s wrong.”
“The plumber says it’s fixed, though it’s plausible he’s wrong.”
“The plumber says it’s fixed, and I believe him (though it’s worth tracking the hypothesis that’s he’s mistaken).”
“The plumber says it’s fixed, though it’s a live hypothesis for me that he’s mistaken.”
“The plumber says it’s fixed, though I am going to continue to privilege the hypothesis that he’s mistaken.”
“The plumber says it’s fixed, though it’s on the table that he’s wrong about that.”
Interested to hear any other ways people communicate this sort of thing!
Added: I am reacting with a thumbs-up to all the suggestions I like in the replies below.
Maybe just say that you’re tracking the possibility?
“Trust, but verify.”
Standard text in customer-facing outage recovery notices: all systems appear to be operating correctly, and we are actively monitoring the situation”.
In more casual conversations, I sometimes say “cautiously optimistic” when stating that I think things are OK, but I’m paying more attention than normal for signs I’m wrong. Mostly, I talk about my attention and what I’m looking for, rather than specifying the person who’s making claims. Instead of “the plumber says it’s fixed, though he might be wrong”, I’d say “The plumber fixed it, but I’m keeping an eye out for further problems”. For someone proposing something I haven’t thought about, “I haven’t noticed that, but I’ll pay more attention for X and Y in the future”.
Before I read the aphoristic three-word reply to you from Richard Kennaway (admittedly a likely even clearer-cut way to indicate the following sentiment), I was thinking that to downplay any unintended implications about the magnitude of your probabilities that you could maybe say something about your tracking being for mundane-vigilance or intermittent-map-maintenance or routine-reality-syncing / -surveying / -sampling reasons.
For any audience you anticipate familiarity with this essay though, another idea might be to use a version of something like:
“The plumber says it’s fixed, which I’m splitting on [by default][and {also} tracking <for posterity>].”
(spoilered section below just corrals a ~dozen expansions / embellishments of the above)
“The plumber says it’s fixed, which I’m splitting on.”
“The plumber says it’s fixed, which I’m splitting on and tracking.”
“The plumber says it’s fixed, which I’m splitting on and tracking for posterity.”
“The plumber says it’s fixed, which I’m splitting on and also tracking.”
“The plumber says it’s fixed, which I’m splitting on by default.”
“The plumber says it’s fixed, which I’m splitting on by default and tracking.”
“The plumber says it’s fixed, which I’m splitting on by default and tracking for posterity.”
“The plumber says it’s fixed, which I’m splitting on by default and also tracking.”
“The plumber says it’s fixed, which I’m splitting on by default and will track mindfully for posterity.”
“The plumber says it’s fixed, which I’m splitting on by default (mindfully though—and so will also just track as a matter of course).”
“The plumber says it’s fixed, which I’m splitting on by default (mindfully though, so tracking then for posterity).”
“The plumber says it’s fixed, which I’m splitting on and will track mindfully for posterity.”
“The plumber says it’s fixed, which I’m splitting on (mindfully though—and so will also just track as a matter of course).”
“The plumber says it’s fixed, which I’m splitting on (mindfully though, so tracking then for posterity).”
Adapted from the french “j’envisage que X” I propose “I am considering the possibility that X” or in some contexts “I am considering X”. “The plumber says it’s fixed, but I am considering he might be wrong”.
What’s wrong with your original sentence, “X is a hypothesis I am tracking in my hypothesis space”? Or more informal versions of that, like “I’ll be keeping an eye on that”, “We’ll see”, etc.?
I guess it’s just that I don’t feel mastery over my communication here, I still anticipate that I will find it clunky to add in a whole chunk of sentences to communicate my epistemic status.
I anticipate often in the future that I’ll feel a need to write a whole paragraph, say in the political case, just to clarify that though I think it’s worth considering the possibility that the politician is somehow manipulating the evidence, I’ve seen no cause to believe it in this case. I feel like bringing up the hypothesis with a quick “though I’m tracking the possibility that Adam is somehow manipulating the evidence for political gain” pretty commonly implies that the speaker (me) thinks it is likely enough to be worth acting on, and so I feel I have to explicitly rule that out as why I’m bringing it up, leaving me with my rather long sentence from above.
In the plumbing context I generally say or think, “The repair/work has been completed and I’ll see how it lasts.” or sometimes something like, “We’ve addressed the immediate problem so lets see if that was a fix or a bandage.”
“The plumber says it’s fixed, but I’ll keep an eye out for evidence of more problems.” (ditto Dagon) also “The politician seems to be providing sound evidence that her policy is working, but I’ll remain vigilant to the possibility that she’s being deceptive.”
“Bear in mind he could be wrong” works well for telling somebody else to track a hypothesis.
“I’m bearing in mind he could be wrong” is slightly clunkier but works ok.
“The hypothesis/possibility that ‘X’ is mindworthy” (“worth being mindful about it”).
Maybe the nicest solution would be to coin a one-syllable modal verb like “may” or “can” to communicate exactly this.
“Keep in mind that X”.
Maybe “I’m interested in the hypothesis/possibility...”
In some cases something like this might work:
“The plumber says it’s fixed, so hopefully it is”
Or
“The plumber says it’s fixed, so it probably is”
Which I think conveys”there’s an assumption I’m making here, but I’m just putting a flag in the ground to return to if things don’t play out as expected”
“People are saying …”
As in, “The plumber says it’s fixed, but people are saying it’s not.”
This also lends itself to loosely indicating probabilities with “Some people are saying …” or “Many people are saying ….”
...after two readings of this obviously awful recommendation I have come to believe that it is a joke.
I’m entertaining the hypothesis that it’s perfectly serious. People are saying that there’s a wide variance in the typical discussion norms around home repair.
Experts are saying people dislike my suggestion because it doesn’t sound like it’s conveying the desired nuanced view, despite doing so quite effectively.