I’m not sure this is avoidable, because precise concepts need precise terms. One of my favorite passages from Three Worlds Collide is:
But the Lady 3rd was shaking her head. “You confuse a high conditional likelihood from your hypothesis to the evidence with a high posterior probability of the hypothesis given the evidence,” she said, as if that were all one short phrase in her own language.
That is the sort of concept which should be one short phrase in a language used by people who evaluate hypotheses by Bayesian thinking. Inaccessibility of jargon is oftentimes a sign of real inferential distance- someone needs to know what those two concepts are mathematically for that sentence-long explanation of a single phrase to make any sense, and explaining what those concepts are mathematically is a lecture or two by itself.
(That said, I agree that in areas where a professional community has a technical term for a concept and LW has a different technical term for that concept, replacing LW’s term with the professional community’s term is probably a good move.)
But intelligence and rationality are, in theory, orthogonal, or at least not the same thing.
It seems to me that while intelligence is not sufficient for rationality, it might be necessary for rationality. (As rationality testing becomes more common, we’ll be able to investigate that empirical claim.) I often describe rationality as “living deliberately,” and that seems like the sort of thing that appeals much more to people with more intellectual horsepower because it’s much easier for them to be deliberate.
I agree with you on the jargon thing; it’s so much easier to have a conversation about rationality-cluster with LW people because of it. (It’s also fun and ingroupy). But I do think it’s a problem overall, and partly avoidable.
We really should have a short phrase for that. Suggestions? “The evidence would be likely given the hypothesis, but the hypothesis isn’t as likely given the evidence” would at least be a bit shorter.
I would probably express it as something like “you’re confusing a high likelihood with a high posterior,” which is less precise but I suspect would be understood by a Bayesian.
I guess that for some LW jargon there already are precise terms, but for other LW jargon there are not. Or sometimes there is a term that means something similar, but can also be misleading. Still, it could be good to reduce the unnecessary jargon.
How to do it? Perhaps by making this a separate topic—find the equivalents to LW jargon, disuss whether they really mean the same thing, and if yes, propose using the traditional expression.
What I am saying here is that (1) merely saying “there are precise terms” is not helpful without specific examples, and (2) each term should be discussed, because it may seem like the same thing to one person, but another person may find a difference.
There are already precise terms for most of the concepts LW discusses. It’s that LW uses its own jargon.
I don’t believe you, for most part when there is already a precise term we just use that term already. For most LW jargon it is far more likely that you are confused about the concepts and propose using a wrong term than that there are already precise terms that have the same meaning.
That said, I agree that in areas where a professional community has a technical term for a concept and LW has a different technical term for that concept, replacing LW’s term with the professional community’s term is probably a good move.
I’m not sure this is avoidable, because precise concepts need precise terms. One of my favorite passages from Three Worlds Collide is:
That is the sort of concept which should be one short phrase in a language used by people who evaluate hypotheses by Bayesian thinking. Inaccessibility of jargon is oftentimes a sign of real inferential distance- someone needs to know what those two concepts are mathematically for that sentence-long explanation of a single phrase to make any sense, and explaining what those concepts are mathematically is a lecture or two by itself.
(That said, I agree that in areas where a professional community has a technical term for a concept and LW has a different technical term for that concept, replacing LW’s term with the professional community’s term is probably a good move.)
It seems to me that while intelligence is not sufficient for rationality, it might be necessary for rationality. (As rationality testing becomes more common, we’ll be able to investigate that empirical claim.) I often describe rationality as “living deliberately,” and that seems like the sort of thing that appeals much more to people with more intellectual horsepower because it’s much easier for them to be deliberate.
I agree with you on the jargon thing; it’s so much easier to have a conversation about rationality-cluster with LW people because of it. (It’s also fun and ingroupy). But I do think it’s a problem overall, and partly avoidable.
We really should have a short phrase for that. Suggestions? “The evidence would be likely given the hypothesis, but the hypothesis isn’t as likely given the evidence” would at least be a bit shorter.
I would probably express it as something like “you’re confusing a high likelihood with a high posterior,” which is less precise but I suspect would be understood by a Bayesian.
There are already precise terms for most of the concepts LW discusses. It’s that LW uses its own jargon.
State three examples?
I guess that for some LW jargon there already are precise terms, but for other LW jargon there are not. Or sometimes there is a term that means something similar, but can also be misleading. Still, it could be good to reduce the unnecessary jargon.
How to do it? Perhaps by making this a separate topic—find the equivalents to LW jargon, disuss whether they really mean the same thing, and if yes, propose using the traditional expression.
What I am saying here is that (1) merely saying “there are precise terms” is not helpful without specific examples, and (2) each term should be discussed, because it may seem like the same thing to one person, but another person may find a difference.
I don’t believe you, for most part when there is already a precise term we just use that term already. For most LW jargon it is far more likely that you are confused about the concepts and propose using a wrong term than that there are already precise terms that have the same meaning.
From the grandparent: