I think what I’d personally prefer (over the new version), is a quick: “Epistemic Status: Fake Framework”.
Like so? (See edit at top.) I’m familiar with the idea behind this convention. Just not sure how LW has started formatting it, or if there’s desire to develop much precision on this formatting.
I think a lot of the earlier disagreements or concerns at the time had less to do with flagging frameworks as fake, and more to do with not trusting that they were eventually going to ground out as “connected more clearly to the rest of our scientific understanding of the world”.
Mmm. That makes sense.
My impression looking back now is that the dynamic was something like:
[me]: Here’s an epistemic puzzle that emerges from whether people have or haven’t experience flibble.
[others]: I don’t believe there’s an epistemic puzzle until you show there’s value in experiencing flibble.
[me]: Uh, I can’t, because that’s the epistemic puzzle.
[others]: Then I’m correct not to take the epistemic puzzle seriously given my epistemic state.
[me]: You realize you’re assuming there’s no puzzle to conclude there’s no puzzle, right?
[others]: You realize you’re assuming there is a puzzle to conclude there is, right? Since you’re putting the claim forward, the onus is on you to break the symmetry to show there’s something worth talking about here.
[me]: Uh, I can’t, because that’s the epistemic puzzle.
(Proceed with loop.)
What I wasn’t acknowledging to myself (and thus not to anyone else either) at the time was that I was loving the frustration of being misunderstood. Which is why I got exasperated instead of just… being clearer given feedback about how I wasn’t clear.
I’m now much better at just communicating. Mostly by caring a heck of a lot more about actually listening to others.
I think you’re naming something I didn’t hear back then. And if nothing else, it’s something you value now, and I can see how it makes sense as a value to want to ground Less Wrong in. Thanks for speaking to that.
I don’t think things necessarily need to be ‘rigorously grounded’ to be in the 2018 Book, but I do think the book should include “taking stock of ‘what the epistemic status of each post is’ and checking for community consensus on whether the claims of the post hold up’”, with some posts flagged as “this seems straightforwardly true” and others flagged as “this seems to point in an interesting and useful thing, but further work is needed.”
That seems great. Kind of like what Duncan did with the CFAR handbook.
This is all to say: I have gotten value out of this post and think it’s pointing at a true thing, but it’s also a post that I’d be particularly interested in people reviewing, from a standpoint of “okay, what actual claims is the post implying? What are the limits of the fake framework here? How does this connect to the rest of our best understanding of what’s going on in the brain?” (the previous round of commenters explored this somewhat but only in very vague terms).
Mmm. That’s a noble wish. I like it.
I won’t respond to that right now. I don’t know enough to offer the full rigor I imagine you’d like, either. So I hope for your sake that others dive in on this.
I won’t respond to that right now. I don’t know enough to offer the full rigor I imagine you’d like, either. So I hope for your sake that others dive in on this.
Yeah, to be clear I am expecting this sort of thing to take years to do. (and, part of the point of the review process is that it can be more of a collective effort to either flag issues or resolve them)
What seems like an achievable thing to shoot for this year, by someone-or-other (and I think worth doing whether this post ends up getting included in the book or not), is something like
a) if anyone does think the post is actually misleading in some way, now’s the time for them to say so. (Obviously this isn’t something I’d generally expect authors to do, unless they’ve actually changed their mind on a thing).
b) write out a list of pointers for “what sort of places might you look to figure out how this connects to the rest of psych literature of neuroscience, or what experiments you’d want to see run or models built if there isn’t yet existing literature on this”. Not as a “fully ground this out in one month”, but “notes for future people to followup on.”
Like so? (See edit at top.) I’m familiar with the idea behind this convention. Just not sure how LW has started formatting it, or if there’s desire to develop much precision on this formatting.
Mmm. That makes sense.
My impression looking back now is that the dynamic was something like:
[me]: Here’s an epistemic puzzle that emerges from whether people have or haven’t experience flibble.
[others]: I don’t believe there’s an epistemic puzzle until you show there’s value in experiencing flibble.
[me]: Uh, I can’t, because that’s the epistemic puzzle.
[others]: Then I’m correct not to take the epistemic puzzle seriously given my epistemic state.
[me]: You realize you’re assuming there’s no puzzle to conclude there’s no puzzle, right?
[others]: You realize you’re assuming there is a puzzle to conclude there is, right? Since you’re putting the claim forward, the onus is on you to break the symmetry to show there’s something worth talking about here.
[me]: Uh, I can’t, because that’s the epistemic puzzle.
(Proceed with loop.)
What I wasn’t acknowledging to myself (and thus not to anyone else either) at the time was that I was loving the frustration of being misunderstood. Which is why I got exasperated instead of just… being clearer given feedback about how I wasn’t clear.
I’m now much better at just communicating. Mostly by caring a heck of a lot more about actually listening to others.
I think you’re naming something I didn’t hear back then. And if nothing else, it’s something you value now, and I can see how it makes sense as a value to want to ground Less Wrong in. Thanks for speaking to that.
That seems great. Kind of like what Duncan did with the CFAR handbook.
Mmm. That’s a noble wish. I like it.
I won’t respond to that right now. I don’t know enough to offer the full rigor I imagine you’d like, either. So I hope for your sake that others dive in on this.
Yeah, to be clear I am expecting this sort of thing to take years to do. (and, part of the point of the review process is that it can be more of a collective effort to either flag issues or resolve them)
What seems like an achievable thing to shoot for this year, by someone-or-other (and I think worth doing whether this post ends up getting included in the book or not), is something like
a) if anyone does think the post is actually misleading in some way, now’s the time for them to say so. (Obviously this isn’t something I’d generally expect authors to do, unless they’ve actually changed their mind on a thing).
b) write out a list of pointers for “what sort of places might you look to figure out how this connects to the rest of psych literature of neuroscience, or what experiments you’d want to see run or models built if there isn’t yet existing literature on this”. Not as a “fully ground this out in one month”, but “notes for future people to followup on.”