I agree that this section of your comment is the most cruxy:
So for me it would ALSO BE OK to say “If you want an example I’m sorry. I can’t think of one right now. As a rule, I don’t think in terms of fictional stories. I put effort into thinking in terms of causal models and measurables and authors with axes to grind and bridging theories and studies that rule out causal models and what observations I’d expect from differently weighed ensembles of the models not yet ruled out… Maybe I can explain more of my current working causal model and tell you some authors that care about it, and you can look up their studies and try to find one from which you can invent stories if that helps you?”
Yes. Then I would say, “Ok, I’ve never encountered a coherent generalization for which I couldn’t easily generate an example, so go ahead and tell me your causal model and I’ll probably cook up an obvious example to satisfy myself in the first minute of your explanation.”
Anyone talking about having a “causal model” is probably beyond the level that my specificity trick is going to demolish. The specificity trick I focus on in this post is for demolishing the coherence of the claims of the average untrained arguer, or occasionally catching oneself at thinking overly vaguely. That’s it.
″...go ahead and tell me your causal model and I’ll probably cook up an obvious example to satisfy myself in the first minute of your explanation.”
I think maybe we agree… verbosely… with different emphasis? :-)
At least I think we could communicate reasonably well. I feel like the danger, if any, would arise from playing example ping pong and having the serious disagreements arise from how we “cook (instantiate?)” examples into models, and “uncook (generalize?)” models into examples.
When people just say what their model “actually is”, I really like it.
When people only point to instances I feel like the instances often under-determine the hypothetical underlying idea and leave me still confused as to how to generate novel instances for myself that they would assent to as predictions consistent with the idea that they “meant to mean” with the instances.
I agree that this section of your comment is the most cruxy:
Yes. Then I would say, “Ok, I’ve never encountered a coherent generalization for which I couldn’t easily generate an example, so go ahead and tell me your causal model and I’ll probably cook up an obvious example to satisfy myself in the first minute of your explanation.”
Anyone talking about having a “causal model” is probably beyond the level that my specificity trick is going to demolish. The specificity trick I focus on in this post is for demolishing the coherence of the claims of the average untrained arguer, or occasionally catching oneself at thinking overly vaguely. That’s it.
I think maybe we agree… verbosely… with different emphasis? :-)
At least I think we could communicate reasonably well. I feel like the danger, if any, would arise from playing example ping pong and having the serious disagreements arise from how we “cook (instantiate?)” examples into models, and “uncook (generalize?)” models into examples.
When people just say what their model “actually is”, I really like it.
When people only point to instances I feel like the instances often under-determine the hypothetical underlying idea and leave me still confused as to how to generate novel instances for myself that they would assent to as predictions consistent with the idea that they “meant to mean” with the instances.
Maybe: intensive theories > extensive theories?
Indeed