Not making that claim as a claim of actuality. It could instead be pursued to the same effect as a hypothetical claim, held within a frame of good faith. Then the question of the frame being useful becomes separate from the question of the claim being true, and we can examine both without conflating them, on their own merits.
A frame in this context is a simulacrum/mask/attitude, epistemically suspect by its nature, but capable of useful activity as well as of inspiring/refining valid epistemic gears/features/ideas that are applicable outside of it. When you are training for an ITT, or practicing Scott Alexander’s flavor of charity, you are training a frame, learning awareness of the joints the target’s worldview is carved at. Being large and containing multitudes is about flitting between the frames instead of consistently being something in particular.
That’s an alternate approach one could take to handling the claim, though I don’t see how it’s less optimizing for appearances or more fixing the issue.
Saying “2+2=5 is a hypothetical claim” instead of “2+2=5 actually” is not a wrong claim optimizing for appearances, the appearances are now decisively stripped. It fixes the issue of making an unjustified claim, doesn’t fix the issue of laboring under a possibly false assumption, living in a counterfactual.
But what operates there is now a mask, lightly and cautiously held (like a venomous snake), not the whole of yourself, and not the core of epistemic lawfulness. A mask without the flaw might fail in maintaining the intended group dynamic. It’s unclear if the same effect can as feasibly occur without leaps of faith.
Saying “if xy=xz then you can also assume y=z. Unless x=0 for some reason, hey x pls fix yourself” also does not seem like a wrong claim optimizing for appearances.
What does “fixing the issue” mean in your model? Could you give an example of a change that would genuinely fix the issue?
I more think of my proposal as propogating the bug report to the places where it can get fixed than as optimizing for appearances.
Not making that claim as a claim of actuality. It could instead be pursued to the same effect as a hypothetical claim, held within a frame of good faith. Then the question of the frame being useful becomes separate from the question of the claim being true, and we can examine both without conflating them, on their own merits.
A frame in this context is a simulacrum/mask/attitude, epistemically suspect by its nature, but capable of useful activity as well as of inspiring/refining valid epistemic gears/features/ideas that are applicable outside of it. When you are training for an ITT, or practicing Scott Alexander’s flavor of charity, you are training a frame, learning awareness of the joints the target’s worldview is carved at. Being large and containing multitudes is about flitting between the frames instead of consistently being something in particular.
That’s an alternate approach one could take to handling the claim, though I don’t see how it’s less optimizing for appearances or more fixing the issue.
Saying “2+2=5 is a hypothetical claim” instead of “2+2=5 actually” is not a wrong claim optimizing for appearances, the appearances are now decisively stripped. It fixes the issue of making an unjustified claim, doesn’t fix the issue of laboring under a possibly false assumption, living in a counterfactual.
But what operates there is now a mask, lightly and cautiously held (like a venomous snake), not the whole of yourself, and not the core of epistemic lawfulness. A mask without the flaw might fail in maintaining the intended group dynamic. It’s unclear if the same effect can as feasibly occur without leaps of faith.
Saying “if xy=xz then you can also assume y=z. Unless x=0 for some reason, hey x pls fix yourself” also does not seem like a wrong claim optimizing for appearances.