(Awfully convenient, isn’t it? This trait that already gave us cause to feel superior to others, happens also to make us the only people who can learn the terrible secret thing without going mad! Yeah, right…)
It seemed to me like your parentheticals were you stepping out of the hypothetical and making commentary about the standpoint in your hypotheticals. I apologize if I interpreted that wrong.
My point is that before we can even get to the stage where we’re talking about which of your cases apply, we need to figure out what sort of scenario (from among my four cases, or perhaps others I didn’t list?) we’re dealing with.
Yeah, I think I understood that is what you’re saying, I’m saying I don’t think your point is accurate. I do not think you have to figure out which of your scenarios we’re dealing with. The scenario type is orthogonal to the question I’m asking.
I’m asking if you think it’s possible for these sort of ideas to exist in the real world:
“these ideas are harmful to hear for people who aren’t me/us (because we’re enlightened/rational/hyper-analytic/educated/etc. and they’re not)”
I’m confused about how what you’ve said has a bearing on the answerability of my root question.
Do you think that such things exist?
I...don’t know.
My prior is that they can exist. It’s doesn’t break any laws of physics. I don’t think it breaks any laws of logic. I think there are things that some people are better able to understand than others. It’s not insane to think that some people are less prone to manipulation than others. Just because believing something makes someone feel superior does not logically mean that the thing they believe is wrong.
As far as if they do exist: There are things that have happened on LW like Roko’s basilisk that raise my prior that there are things that some people can hold in their heads safely and others can’t. Of course, that could be down to quirks of individual minds instead of general features of some group. I’d be interested in someone exploring that idea further. When do we go from saying “that’s just a quirk” to “that’s a general feature”? I dunno.
It seemed to me like your parentheticals were you stepping out of the hypothetical and making commentary about the standpoint in your hypotheticals. I apologize if I interpreted that wrong.
That was indeed not my intention.
Yeah, I think I understood that is what you’re saying, I’m saying I don’t think your point is accurate. I do not think you have to figure out which of your scenarios we’re dealing with. The scenario type is orthogonal to the question I’m asking.
I don’t see how that can be. Surely, if you ask me whether some category of thing exists, it is not an orthogonal question, to break that category down into subcategories, and make the same inquiry of each subcategory individually? Indeed, it may be that the original question was intended to refer only to some of the listed subcategories—which we cannot get clear on, until we perform the decomposition!
I’m asking if you think it’s possible for these sort of ideas to exist in the real world:
“these ideas are harmful to hear for people who aren’t me/us (because we’re enlightened/rational/hyper-analytic/educated/etc. and they’re not)”
I’m confused about how what you’ve said has a bearing on the answerability of my root question.
The bearing is simple. Do you think my enumeration of scenarios exhausts the category you describe? If so, then we can investigate, individually, the existence or nonexistence of each scenario. Do you think that there are other sorts of scenarios that I did not list, but that fall into your described category? If so, then I invite you to comment on what those might be.
Just because believing something makes someone feel superior does not logically mean that the thing they believe is wrong.
True enough.
I agree that what you describe breaks no (known) laws of physics or logic. But as I understood it, we were discussing existence, not possibility per se. In that regard, I think that getting down to specifics (at least to the extent of examining the scenarios I listed, or others like them) is really the only fruitful way of resolving this question one way or the other.
I think I see a way towards mutual intelligibility on this, but unfortunately I don’t think I have the bandwidth to get to that point. I will just point out this:
But as I understood it, we were discussing existence, not possibility per se.
I was referring to this part of your text:
It seemed to me like your parentheticals were you stepping out of the hypothetical and making commentary about the standpoint in your hypotheticals. I apologize if I interpreted that wrong.
Yeah, I think I understood that is what you’re saying, I’m saying I don’t think your point is accurate. I do not think you have to figure out which of your scenarios we’re dealing with. The scenario type is orthogonal to the question I’m asking.
I’m asking if you think it’s possible for these sort of ideas to exist in the real world:
I’m confused about how what you’ve said has a bearing on the answerability of my root question.
I...don’t know.
My prior is that they can exist. It’s doesn’t break any laws of physics. I don’t think it breaks any laws of logic. I think there are things that some people are better able to understand than others. It’s not insane to think that some people are less prone to manipulation than others. Just because believing something makes someone feel superior does not logically mean that the thing they believe is wrong.
As far as if they do exist: There are things that have happened on LW like Roko’s basilisk that raise my prior that there are things that some people can hold in their heads safely and others can’t. Of course, that could be down to quirks of individual minds instead of general features of some group. I’d be interested in someone exploring that idea further. When do we go from saying “that’s just a quirk” to “that’s a general feature”? I dunno.
That was indeed not my intention.
I don’t see how that can be. Surely, if you ask me whether some category of thing exists, it is not an orthogonal question, to break that category down into subcategories, and make the same inquiry of each subcategory individually? Indeed, it may be that the original question was intended to refer only to some of the listed subcategories—which we cannot get clear on, until we perform the decomposition!
The bearing is simple. Do you think my enumeration of scenarios exhausts the category you describe? If so, then we can investigate, individually, the existence or nonexistence of each scenario. Do you think that there are other sorts of scenarios that I did not list, but that fall into your described category? If so, then I invite you to comment on what those might be.
True enough.
I agree that what you describe breaks no (known) laws of physics or logic. But as I understood it, we were discussing existence, not possibility per se. In that regard, I think that getting down to specifics (at least to the extent of examining the scenarios I listed, or others like them) is really the only fruitful way of resolving this question one way or the other.
I think I see a way towards mutual intelligibility on this, but unfortunately I don’t think I have the bandwidth to get to that point. I will just point out this:
Hmm, I was more interested in the possibility.