Val probably would’ve had an easier time explaining it elephant-to-elephant, although kensho itself is something different. Unfortunately it’s hard to do elephant-to-elephant communication through text except through poetry (in a broad sense), and many LWers are allergic to poetry.
It does seem like Eliezer used a good amount of poetry, though the poetry usually had a different feeling to it, than my experiences of continental philosophy, which is also mostly poetry. I am not sure what the difference between these two types of poetry is, but I have allergic reactions to one of them, and not the other (and I do think both of them are closed to elephant-elephant communication than normal explanations).
I also think fictional storytelling is pretty good at facilitating elephant-to-elephant communication, which is one of the reasons why Eliezer wrote HPMOR, since I think he found that some rationality concepts where hard to communicate abstractly (based on a conversation I had with Brienne about this a while ago). In general, Brienne strikes me as quite good at facilitating elephant-to-elephant communication via text, without triggering most of my poetry allergies.
I’ve kinda stopped understanding what you mean by E2E communication?
Poetry is verbal. Moreover it’s not spontaneous, a single line can have hours and days of conscious work put into it. Moreover it’s often sexual display. Moreover it doesn’t ask you to lower your criticism before reading, in fact it’s famous for working on people who have their shields raised. Moreover it often appeals to the conscious self, e.g. the Sermon on the Mount is amazing poetry but many people say their base instincts stop them from following it fully, and the same holds for LWish poetic rationality. In short, I can’t think of a more fitting task for the “PR department” than poetry.
I’d love to see more good poetry on LW. Successful arguments from beauty are always worthy of attention, because beauty, while not a perfect cue of truth, is still an unreasonably good cue.
Poetry, when done in the way I have in mind, is interpersonal Focusing, which I would describe as E2E via the medium of words (I notice I’m now worried we may be slicing up rider / elephant differently, maybe very differently). You have a felt sense, you write down poetry which is a good Focusing label for that felt sense, and if you’re lucky it will also be a good Focusing label for someone else’s felt sense.
I think we’re talking about the same elephant—the thing that makes you eat one more cookie. But the room is dark and we disagree on what the elephant looks like. I subscribe to Robin’s view of the elephant, it seems simple and consistent.
You, on the other hand, seem to identify the elephant with System 1. That sounds weird to me. For example, you can have a wordless intuition (coming from religion, etc) that something is sinful, but do it anyway. So it’s not a System 1 vs System 2 conflict, but Robin’s account still holds up.
Then you talk about E2E communication, and my confusion grows. People on the kensho and circling threads aren’t objecting to System 1 communication like smiles or dance. They are objecting to mind tweaking and “how do you feel”. The two are different, so let’s not use one to argue for the other.
Then you mention poetry and my confusion grows more. Appealing to people’s existing feelings is a part of poetry, but beauty seems like the more important part, and beauty can argue for new ideas as well. That’s how Eliezer argued for rationality. So saying that LWers are allergic to poetry seems to miss the mark. LWers are happy with beauty, but allergic to woo, and that’s a good thing.
I’m trying to pinpoint where you think asking leading questions like “how do you feel” is different from smiles, dance, and poetry. They do seem different, but I’m not sure why.
Smiles and poetry appeal to the PR department. Asking “how do you feel” is a request to bypass the PR department.
Many of my comments in these threads (like the fish comment, or the one about hippie dreams) are trying to argue that no one is entitled to bypass anyone else’s PR department. You’ve got to go through proper channels. If you’re charming, then charm me.
You aren’t in fact charmed (or overawed) by people who use feelings-heavy, mystical, or salesy talk — you instead hear it as an explicit/denotative request for you to be charmed, which you think is unjustified. Is that right?
Okay, I think that’s a difference between us. I hear that kind of language not as saying something denotatively, but as more like “casting a spell” on the audience. It doesn’t throw up the “error: that doesn’t make sense/seem fair” response because I’m not expecting it to be communication in the first place.
Someone who wants me to relax, say, and is putting verbal and nonverbal optimization pressure into getting me to relax, is going to cause me to relax, just because I want to be compliant in general. For me, only a totally expressionless and artificially dry request would be free of the ”hypnotic” social pressure and would be interpreted as a mere request without the “hoodoo.” I think you probably have a less sensitive “hoodoo-detector” and so you read more things as communication rather than influence.
Similarity to kensho: it is hard to explain in words / is experiential. Don’t think it’s the same beyond that.
E2E obviously happens all the time in normal, in-person conversation? We point to how body language, facial expression, etc. subconsciously affects what’s communicated. Stereotypical flirting is going to be a lot of E2E with some verbal content.
Everyone E2Es; there seems to be a lot communicated below the level of consciousness. My guess is ‘feral humans’ (as Qiaochu calls them) are more in touch with it somehow? I don’t know very much here. I’ve seen E2E happen with no words at all, and it’s confusing to me still what that’s about.
Do you think this elephant to elephant communication is a similar thing to what Valentine was talking about in Kensho?
Val probably would’ve had an easier time explaining it elephant-to-elephant, although kensho itself is something different. Unfortunately it’s hard to do elephant-to-elephant communication through text except through poetry (in a broad sense), and many LWers are allergic to poetry.
It does seem like Eliezer used a good amount of poetry, though the poetry usually had a different feeling to it, than my experiences of continental philosophy, which is also mostly poetry. I am not sure what the difference between these two types of poetry is, but I have allergic reactions to one of them, and not the other (and I do think both of them are closed to elephant-elephant communication than normal explanations).
I also think fictional storytelling is pretty good at facilitating elephant-to-elephant communication, which is one of the reasons why Eliezer wrote HPMOR, since I think he found that some rationality concepts where hard to communicate abstractly (based on a conversation I had with Brienne about this a while ago). In general, Brienne strikes me as quite good at facilitating elephant-to-elephant communication via text, without triggering most of my poetry allergies.
I’ve kinda stopped understanding what you mean by E2E communication?
Poetry is verbal. Moreover it’s not spontaneous, a single line can have hours and days of conscious work put into it. Moreover it’s often sexual display. Moreover it doesn’t ask you to lower your criticism before reading, in fact it’s famous for working on people who have their shields raised. Moreover it often appeals to the conscious self, e.g. the Sermon on the Mount is amazing poetry but many people say their base instincts stop them from following it fully, and the same holds for LWish poetic rationality. In short, I can’t think of a more fitting task for the “PR department” than poetry.
I’d love to see more good poetry on LW. Successful arguments from beauty are always worthy of attention, because beauty, while not a perfect cue of truth, is still an unreasonably good cue.
Poetry, when done in the way I have in mind, is interpersonal Focusing, which I would describe as E2E via the medium of words (I notice I’m now worried we may be slicing up rider / elephant differently, maybe very differently). You have a felt sense, you write down poetry which is a good Focusing label for that felt sense, and if you’re lucky it will also be a good Focusing label for someone else’s felt sense.
I think we’re talking about the same elephant—the thing that makes you eat one more cookie. But the room is dark and we disagree on what the elephant looks like. I subscribe to Robin’s view of the elephant, it seems simple and consistent.
You, on the other hand, seem to identify the elephant with System 1. That sounds weird to me. For example, you can have a wordless intuition (coming from religion, etc) that something is sinful, but do it anyway. So it’s not a System 1 vs System 2 conflict, but Robin’s account still holds up.
Then you talk about E2E communication, and my confusion grows. People on the kensho and circling threads aren’t objecting to System 1 communication like smiles or dance. They are objecting to mind tweaking and “how do you feel”. The two are different, so let’s not use one to argue for the other.
Then you mention poetry and my confusion grows more. Appealing to people’s existing feelings is a part of poetry, but beauty seems like the more important part, and beauty can argue for new ideas as well. That’s how Eliezer argued for rationality. So saying that LWers are allergic to poetry seems to miss the mark. LWers are happy with beauty, but allergic to woo, and that’s a good thing.
I like this comment; I agree that I’m not using quite the right words and my concepts are slipping around a bit.
I’m trying to pinpoint where you think asking leading questions like “how do you feel” is different from smiles, dance, and poetry. They do seem different, but I’m not sure why.
Smiles and poetry appeal to the PR department. Asking “how do you feel” is a request to bypass the PR department.
Many of my comments in these threads (like the fish comment, or the one about hippie dreams) are trying to argue that no one is entitled to bypass anyone else’s PR department. You’ve got to go through proper channels. If you’re charming, then charm me.
Ah!
You aren’t in fact charmed (or overawed) by people who use feelings-heavy, mystical, or salesy talk — you instead hear it as an explicit/denotative request for you to be charmed, which you think is unjustified. Is that right?
Yes!
Okay, I think that’s a difference between us. I hear that kind of language not as saying something denotatively, but as more like “casting a spell” on the audience. It doesn’t throw up the “error: that doesn’t make sense/seem fair” response because I’m not expecting it to be communication in the first place.
Someone who wants me to relax, say, and is putting verbal and nonverbal optimization pressure into getting me to relax, is going to cause me to relax, just because I want to be compliant in general. For me, only a totally expressionless and artificially dry request would be free of the ”hypnotic” social pressure and would be interpreted as a mere request without the “hoodoo.” I think you probably have a less sensitive “hoodoo-detector” and so you read more things as communication rather than influence.
Ah, you’re totally right in that a lot of poetry is R2E, not E2E. I somehow forgot that facepalms
Similarity to kensho: it is hard to explain in words / is experiential. Don’t think it’s the same beyond that.
E2E obviously happens all the time in normal, in-person conversation? We point to how body language, facial expression, etc. subconsciously affects what’s communicated. Stereotypical flirting is going to be a lot of E2E with some verbal content.
Everyone E2Es; there seems to be a lot communicated below the level of consciousness. My guess is ‘feral humans’ (as Qiaochu calls them) are more in touch with it somehow? I don’t know very much here. I’ve seen E2E happen with no words at all, and it’s confusing to me still what that’s about.
A lot of responses seemed like elephants saying “WTF?”, so maybe not.