I don’t actualy think your post was hostile, but I think I get where deepthoughtlife is coming from. At the least, I can share about how I felt reading this post and point out to why, since you seem keen on avoiding the negative side. Btw I don’t think you avoid causing any frustration in readers, they are too diverse, so don’t worry too much about it either.
The title of the piece is strongly worded and there’s no epistimic status disclaimer to state this is exploratory, so I actually came in expecting much stronger arguments. Your post is good as an exposition of your thoughts and conversation started, but it’s not a good counter argument to NAH imo, so shouldn’t be worded as such. Like deepthoughtlife, I feel your post is confused re NAH, which is totally fine when stated as such, but a bit grating when I came in expecting more rigor or knowledge of NAH.
Here’s a reaction to the first part : - in “Systems must have similar observational apparatus” you argue that different apparatus lead to different abstractions and claim a blind deaf person is such an example, yet in practice blind deaf people can manipulate all the abstractions others can (with perhaps a different inner representation), that’s what general intelligence is about. You can check out this wiki page and video for some of how it’s done https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tadoma . The point is that all the abstractions can be understood and must be understood by a general intelligence trying to act effectively, and in practice Helen Keler could learn to speak by using other senses than hearing, in the same way we learn all of physics despite limited native instruments.
I think I had similar reactions to other parts, feeling they were missing the point about NAH and some background assumptions.
I appreciate the brevity of the title as it stands. It’s normal for a title to summarize the thesis of a post or paper and this is also standard practice on LessWrong. For example:
The introductory paragraphs sufficiently described the epistemic status of the author for my purposes. Overall, I found the post easier to engage with because it made its arguments without hedging.
Your reaction seems fair, thanks for your thoughts! Its a good a suggestion to add an epistemic status—I’ll be sure to add one next time I write something like this.
I don’t actualy think your post was hostile, but I think I get where deepthoughtlife is coming from. At the least, I can share about how I felt reading this post and point out to why, since you seem keen on avoiding the negative side. Btw I don’t think you avoid causing any frustration in readers, they are too diverse, so don’t worry too much about it either.
The title of the piece is strongly worded and there’s no epistimic status disclaimer to state this is exploratory, so I actually came in expecting much stronger arguments. Your post is good as an exposition of your thoughts and conversation started, but it’s not a good counter argument to NAH imo, so shouldn’t be worded as such. Like deepthoughtlife, I feel your post is confused re NAH, which is totally fine when stated as such, but a bit grating when I came in expecting more rigor or knowledge of NAH.
Here’s a reaction to the first part :
- in “Systems must have similar observational apparatus” you argue that different apparatus lead to different abstractions and claim a blind deaf person is such an example, yet in practice blind deaf people can manipulate all the abstractions others can (with perhaps a different inner representation), that’s what general intelligence is about. You can check out this wiki page and video for some of how it’s done https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tadoma . The point is that all the abstractions can be understood and must be understood by a general intelligence trying to act effectively, and in practice Helen Keler could learn to speak by using other senses than hearing, in the same way we learn all of physics despite limited native instruments.
I think I had similar reactions to other parts, feeling they were missing the point about NAH and some background assumptions.
Thanks for posting!
I appreciate the brevity of the title as it stands. It’s normal for a title to summarize the thesis of a post or paper and this is also standard practice on LessWrong. For example:
The sun is big but superintelligences will not spare the Earth a little sunlight.
The point of trade
There’s no fire alarm for AGI
The introductory paragraphs sufficiently described the epistemic status of the author for my purposes. Overall, I found the post easier to engage with because it made its arguments without hedging.
Your reaction seems fair, thanks for your thoughts! Its a good a suggestion to add an epistemic status—I’ll be sure to add one next time I write something like this.