I noticed that too. Intense discussions among co-students often seemed to end up with some tautology or trivially true statement.
An example I remember specifically: We were discussing if and under which circumstances one should sacrifice themselves for someone else or a case. One of us was arguing against all examples. After drilling down, it ended up with them saying that they wouldn’t sacrifice themselves. And that was it. Every other argument was downstream of that. I think that’s a fair position to hold, but it was overgeneralized to everybody.
Another one: Most specific change proposals, if you take a larger view, are effectively irrelevant. Examples: Plastic straw bans, your favorite tax exception. And you can always take an even larger view until that is true.
A loosely related phenomenon is children’s “Why?” chains, which also seem to always end with “The sun” or “I/you want it.”
I think it is a result of building more and more abstract world models until the highest level model becomes so general as to be true by construction.
I think EY once mentioned it in the context of self-awareness or free will or something, and called it something like “complete epistemological panic”.
he highest level model becomes so general as to be true by construction.
Interesting! Can you find the reference? I’d like to see what the “panic” is about.
I think it is a good exercise. It makes clear that all models are wrong not just those at the top and they have to prove their value by being useful, i.e., make useful predictions.
I noticed that too. Intense discussions among co-students often seemed to end up with some tautology or trivially true statement.
An example I remember specifically: We were discussing if and under which circumstances one should sacrifice themselves for someone else or a case. One of us was arguing against all examples. After drilling down, it ended up with them saying that they wouldn’t sacrifice themselves. And that was it. Every other argument was downstream of that. I think that’s a fair position to hold, but it was overgeneralized to everybody.
Another one: Most specific change proposals, if you take a larger view, are effectively irrelevant. Examples: Plastic straw bans, your favorite tax exception. And you can always take an even larger view until that is true.
A loosely related phenomenon is children’s “Why?” chains, which also seem to always end with “The sun” or “I/you want it.”
I think it is a result of building more and more abstract world models until the highest level model becomes so general as to be true by construction.
I think EY once mentioned it in the context of self-awareness or free will or something, and called it something like “complete epistemological panic”.
I assume you refer to
Interesting! Can you find the reference? I’d like to see what the “panic” is about.
I think it is a good exercise. It makes clear that all models are wrong not just those at the top and they have to prove their value by being useful, i.e., make useful predictions.