I guess ‘self-fulfilling prophecy’ is a bit long and awkward. Sometimes ‘basilisk’ is thrown around, but, specifically for negative cases (self-fulfilling-and-bad). But, are you trying to name something slightly different (perhaps broader or narrower) than self-fulfilling prophecy points at?
I find I don’t like ‘stipulation’; that has the connotation of command, for me (like, if I tell you to do something).
The category feels a bit broader than “self-fulfilling prophesy” to me, but not by much. I think we should look for a term that gets us away from any impression of unilaterally decided, prophetic inevitability.
has the connotation of command, for me
But that connotation isn’t really incorrect! When you make a claim that becomes true iff we believe it, there’s a sense in which you’re commanding the whole noosphere, and if the noosphere doesn’t like it, it should notice you’re making a command and and reject it.
There is a very common failure mode where purveyors of monstrous self-fulfilling prophesies will behave as if they’re just passively describing reality, they aren’t. We should react to them as if they’re being bossy, intervening, inviting something to happen, asking the epistemic network to behave a certain way.
I think I was initially familiar with the word stipulation mostly from mathematics or law, places where truths are created (usually through acts of definition). I’m not sure how it came to me, but at some point I got the impression it just meant “a claim, but made up, but still true”, that genre of claim that we’re referring to. The word didn’t slot perfectly into place for me either, but it seemed like its meaning was close enough to truths we create by believing them, I stopped looking for a better name. We wouldn’t have to drag it very far.
But I don’t know. It seems like it has a specific meaning in legal contexts that hasn’t got much to do with our purposes. Maybe a better name will come along.
Hmm.. should it be.. “construction”? “Some predictions are constructions.” “The value of bitcoin was constructed by its stakeholders, and so one day, through them, it shall be constructed away.” “We construct Pi as the optimum policy for the model M”
Is there an easy to pronounce verb form of the word “fiat”? As in fiat currency, a currency with no real world backing but which is still accepted as if it did.
Update: I find that I’m still using “construction”.
I note that it would agree will with the word “construct”. Most social constructs are things that are true because we believe in them, subjunctively sustained. There’s a bit of a negative vibe on “construct”, but it’s so neurotic there’s no way it can survive and mostly it’s just trying to say “we can change it! It’s our choice!” which is true.
I guess ‘self-fulfilling prophecy’ is a bit long and awkward. Sometimes ‘basilisk’ is thrown around, but, specifically for negative cases (self-fulfilling-and-bad). But, are you trying to name something slightly different (perhaps broader or narrower) than self-fulfilling prophecy points at?
I find I don’t like ‘stipulation’; that has the connotation of command, for me (like, if I tell you to do something).
The category feels a bit broader than “self-fulfilling prophesy” to me, but not by much. I think we should look for a term that gets us away from any impression of unilaterally decided, prophetic inevitability.
But that connotation isn’t really incorrect! When you make a claim that becomes true iff we believe it, there’s a sense in which you’re commanding the whole noosphere, and if the noosphere doesn’t like it, it should notice you’re making a command and and reject it.
There is a very common failure mode where purveyors of monstrous self-fulfilling prophesies will behave as if they’re just passively describing reality, they aren’t. We should react to them as if they’re being bossy, intervening, inviting something to happen, asking the epistemic network to behave a certain way.
I think I was initially familiar with the word stipulation mostly from mathematics or law, places where truths are created (usually through acts of definition). I’m not sure how it came to me, but at some point I got the impression it just meant “a claim, but made up, but still true”, that genre of claim that we’re referring to. The word didn’t slot perfectly into place for me either, but it seemed like its meaning was close enough to truths we create by believing them, I stopped looking for a better name. We wouldn’t have to drag it very far.
But I don’t know. It seems like it has a specific meaning in legal contexts that hasn’t got much to do with our purposes. Maybe a better name will come along.
Hmm.. should it be.. “construction”? “Some predictions are constructions.” “The value of bitcoin was constructed by its stakeholders, and so one day, through them, it shall be constructed away.” “We construct Pi as the optimum policy for the model M”
Is there an easy to pronounce verb form of the word “fiat”? As in fiat currency, a currency with no real world backing but which is still accepted as if it did.
Update: I find that I’m still using “construction”.
I note that it would agree will with the word “construct”. Most social constructs are things that are true because we believe in them, subjunctively sustained. There’s a bit of a negative vibe on “construct”, but it’s so neurotic there’s no way it can survive and mostly it’s just trying to say “we can change it! It’s our choice!” which is true.
Scott has defined “Hyperstition” as this, in Give up 70% of the way through a hyperstitious slur cascade