I am not imputing that you believe these things personally, only that this argument implies them. People often make arguments that aren’t a particularly good match for what they believe, even when completely sincere and careful. (If I thought you really paid no attention to words, and thought they were useless, I would have expected you to have not written it all.) As I stated in my post, I believe that most people are already on the side of not being willing to discuss definitions too much, and that this is a philosophical underpinning for trying to reject it utterly. They dismiss it as ‘semantics’, as if the meaning of things is unimportant. If you don’t like an implication of what you are writing, I do believe you need to discuss the implication directly if possible to avoid endorsing a position you do not hold. (I hold this position much more strongly for written out essays.)
The most important part of my post was a single sentence where I stated that advice needs to be tailored to where people currently are (which is mostly to reject defining things even when that is the useful bit.) The label (I prefer to say definition) is not a decision rule. Decisions rules were carefully affixed to them for usefulness, but if you don’t like the rule, argue against that, not that the definition is somehow bad to discuss.
Any argument you can make about an object (including concepts) requires a shared way to reference it, which is always a definition. Leaving those unexamined means a lack of communication, even when you think you are having a conversation. Discussing which cluster you are referring to in shorthand is necessary to get anywhere.
Since your advice goes too far, I have to point out that it is indeed too far (supposing I reply at all, of course.) It should be noted that I find the ‘Doomsday Button’ argument completely unconvincing, and think it is purely imagery rather than careful argumentation.
I have read the sequence you link in a following comment, but it was probably well over a decade ago, and I don’t remember it well. He had a lot of good points, but a lot of duds too. I looked at one of the articles in it again “Arguing by Definition”, and found it one of his less inspired works. The reason someone adds ‘by definition’ to a statement is usually to point out a fact that their opponent is refusing to pay attention to an important facet of the thing, the exact opposite from what Eliezer says it is doing. People often argue that you can’t argue by definition when they are trying to sneak by without admitting your argument applies to them, (though also sometimes because they are just sick and tired of having to talk about definitions, which can be exhausting).
I agree that meeting a person where they are is pretty important. You also seem to spend time with very different people than who I spend time with, and you have a very different reference for “people” and “where they are”. This post probably isn’t going to be too useful to the people you reference in your hypotheticals. It has been very useful for various people I know, so I’m meeting them where they are :)
You mention that it’s useful to have conversations where you try to get on the same page about what you mean when you use certain words (3rd to last paragraph of your comment). I think that’s frequently super important and often useful to do. I’m assuming you’re mentioning it because you see my post as saying this doesn’t matter and shouldn’t be done. If you can point out what part seemed to be arguing that, I can see if I agree that my wording was ambiguous and/or poorly phrased. Currently I still don’t think the content of my post argues or implies or sets the philosophical underpinnings for the claims you say it does. So we probably won’t get out of this unless we dive into specifics.
I am not imputing that you believe these things personally, only that this argument implies them. People often make arguments that aren’t a particularly good match for what they believe, even when completely sincere and careful. (If I thought you really paid no attention to words, and thought they were useless, I would have expected you to have not written it all.) As I stated in my post, I believe that most people are already on the side of not being willing to discuss definitions too much, and that this is a philosophical underpinning for trying to reject it utterly. They dismiss it as ‘semantics’, as if the meaning of things is unimportant. If you don’t like an implication of what you are writing, I do believe you need to discuss the implication directly if possible to avoid endorsing a position you do not hold. (I hold this position much more strongly for written out essays.)
The most important part of my post was a single sentence where I stated that advice needs to be tailored to where people currently are (which is mostly to reject defining things even when that is the useful bit.) The label (I prefer to say definition) is not a decision rule. Decisions rules were carefully affixed to them for usefulness, but if you don’t like the rule, argue against that, not that the definition is somehow bad to discuss.
Any argument you can make about an object (including concepts) requires a shared way to reference it, which is always a definition. Leaving those unexamined means a lack of communication, even when you think you are having a conversation. Discussing which cluster you are referring to in shorthand is necessary to get anywhere.
Since your advice goes too far, I have to point out that it is indeed too far (supposing I reply at all, of course.) It should be noted that I find the ‘Doomsday Button’ argument completely unconvincing, and think it is purely imagery rather than careful argumentation.
I have read the sequence you link in a following comment, but it was probably well over a decade ago, and I don’t remember it well. He had a lot of good points, but a lot of duds too. I looked at one of the articles in it again “Arguing by Definition”, and found it one of his less inspired works. The reason someone adds ‘by definition’ to a statement is usually to point out a fact that their opponent is refusing to pay attention to an important facet of the thing, the exact opposite from what Eliezer says it is doing. People often argue that you can’t argue by definition when they are trying to sneak by without admitting your argument applies to them, (though also sometimes because they are just sick and tired of having to talk about definitions, which can be exhausting).
I agree that meeting a person where they are is pretty important. You also seem to spend time with very different people than who I spend time with, and you have a very different reference for “people” and “where they are”. This post probably isn’t going to be too useful to the people you reference in your hypotheticals. It has been very useful for various people I know, so I’m meeting them where they are :)
You mention that it’s useful to have conversations where you try to get on the same page about what you mean when you use certain words (3rd to last paragraph of your comment). I think that’s frequently super important and often useful to do. I’m assuming you’re mentioning it because you see my post as saying this doesn’t matter and shouldn’t be done. If you can point out what part seemed to be arguing that, I can see if I agree that my wording was ambiguous and/or poorly phrased. Currently I still don’t think the content of my post argues or implies or sets the philosophical underpinnings for the claims you say it does. So we probably won’t get out of this unless we dive into specifics.