I don’t think it has to be hard to say what wholesomeness is. I don’t know what you mean by the word, but to me it’s simply acting in a way that has compassion and respect to everything, leaving nothing out. Very hard to do, but easy enough to state.
I like this articulation. Would you object if I were to borrow it into the main text?
At the same time I’m not certain, if you just gave someone this definition, if they’d properly grasp the idea (if they didn’t kind of understand it already). There are lots of different possible interpretations. Some are obviously impossible and so not action-guiding (“have individual compassion and respect for each electron, leaving none out”). More realistically, I think someone might hear it as automatically satisfied by an EA-style impartiality (and I think there’s more to it than that, and also guess you think there’s more to it than that).
Sure, feel free to use it, or riff on it to create something better.
This is a fully general problem with using words: the categories they point to are always a bit off, especially if the reader doesn’t share a lot of our context. I find it best to state things as directly as I can, and let others sort out their own confusion.
Your definition reads like a sazen to me. A good pointer once you know the concept, but won’t get it across to someone who really hasn’t gotten it yet.
I don’t think there’s any other option. Wholesomeness is something you have to learn by doing. If you try to imitate what you think is wholesome after reading about it, you’ll likely end up in some uncanny valley of weirdly unwholesome behavior even though it has all the trappings of wholesomeness.
I don’t think it has to be hard to say what wholesomeness is. I don’t know what you mean by the word, but to me it’s simply acting in a way that has compassion and respect to everything, leaving nothing out. Very hard to do, but easy enough to state.
I like this articulation. Would you object if I were to borrow it into the main text?
At the same time I’m not certain, if you just gave someone this definition, if they’d properly grasp the idea (if they didn’t kind of understand it already). There are lots of different possible interpretations. Some are obviously impossible and so not action-guiding (“have individual compassion and respect for each electron, leaving none out”). More realistically, I think someone might hear it as automatically satisfied by an EA-style impartiality (and I think there’s more to it than that, and also guess you think there’s more to it than that).
Sure, feel free to use it, or riff on it to create something better.
This is a fully general problem with using words: the categories they point to are always a bit off, especially if the reader doesn’t share a lot of our context. I find it best to state things as directly as I can, and let others sort out their own confusion.
Your definition reads like a sazen to me. A good pointer once you know the concept, but won’t get it across to someone who really hasn’t gotten it yet.
I don’t think there’s any other option. Wholesomeness is something you have to learn by doing. If you try to imitate what you think is wholesome after reading about it, you’ll likely end up in some uncanny valley of weirdly unwholesome behavior even though it has all the trappings of wholesomeness.
I am more optimistic about the power of clear explanations. That’s something I got from reading SlateStarCodex.
Wouldn’t that imply the existence of this essay, available for anyone passing by to read, is a net negative?
Yes. I think that any attempt to explain wholesomeness in written words will be inadequate at best and misleading at worst.