Thought pattern that I’ve noticed: I seem to have two sets of epistemic states at any time: one more stable set that more accurately reflects my “actual” beliefs that changes fairly slowly, and one set of “hypothesis” beliefs that changes rapidly. Usually when I think some direction is interesting, I alternate my hypothesis beliefs between assuming key claims are true or false and trying to convince myself either way, and if I succeed then I integrate it into my actual beliefs. In practice this might look like alternating between trying to prove something is impossible and trying to exhibit an example, or taking strange premises seriously and trying to figure out its consequences. I think this is probably very confusing to people because usually when talking to people who are already familiar with alignment I’m talking about implications of my hypothesis beliefs, because that’s the frontier of what I’m thinking about, and from the outside it looks like I’m constantly changing my mind about things. Writing this up partially to have something to point people to and partially to push myself to communicate this more clearly.
I think this pattern is common among intellectuals, and I’m surprised it’s causing confusion. Are you labeling your exploratory beliefs and statements appropriately? An “epistemic status” note for posts here goes a long way, and in private conversation I often say out loud “I’m exploring here, don’t take it as what I fully believe” in conversations at work and with friends.
I think I do a poor job of labelling my statements (at least, in conversation. usually I do a bit better in post format). Something something illusion of transparency. To be honest, I didn’t even realize explicitly that I was doing this until fairly recent reflection on it.
Thought pattern that I’ve noticed: I seem to have two sets of epistemic states at any time: one more stable set that more accurately reflects my “actual” beliefs that changes fairly slowly, and one set of “hypothesis” beliefs that changes rapidly. Usually when I think some direction is interesting, I alternate my hypothesis beliefs between assuming key claims are true or false and trying to convince myself either way, and if I succeed then I integrate it into my actual beliefs. In practice this might look like alternating between trying to prove something is impossible and trying to exhibit an example, or taking strange premises seriously and trying to figure out its consequences. I think this is probably very confusing to people because usually when talking to people who are already familiar with alignment I’m talking about implications of my hypothesis beliefs, because that’s the frontier of what I’m thinking about, and from the outside it looks like I’m constantly changing my mind about things. Writing this up partially to have something to point people to and partially to push myself to communicate this more clearly.
I think this pattern is common among intellectuals, and I’m surprised it’s causing confusion. Are you labeling your exploratory beliefs and statements appropriately? An “epistemic status” note for posts here goes a long way, and in private conversation I often say out loud “I’m exploring here, don’t take it as what I fully believe” in conversations at work and with friends.
I think I do a poor job of labelling my statements (at least, in conversation. usually I do a bit better in post format). Something something illusion of transparency. To be honest, I didn’t even realize explicitly that I was doing this until fairly recent reflection on it.