I recall hearing “it’s not obvious that X” a lot in the rationality community, particularly in Robin Hanson’s writing.
Sometimes people make a claim without really explaining it. Actually, this happens a lot of times. Often times the claim is made implicitly. This is fine if that claim is obvious.
But if the claim isn’t obvious, then that link in the chain is broken and the whole argument falls apart. Not that it’s been proven wrong or anything, just that it needs work. You need to spend the time establishing that claim. That link in the chain. So then, it is useful in these situations to point out when a link in the chain isn’t obvious when it was being presumed obvious. I am a fan of “it’s not obvious that X”.
Agreed, but in many contexts, one should strive to be clear to what extent “it’s not obvious that X” implies “I don’t think X is true in the relevant context or margin”. Many arguments that involve this are about universality or distant extension of something that IS obvious in more normal circumstances.
Robin Hanson generally does specify that he’s saying X isn’t obvious (and is quite likely false) in some extreme circumstances, and his commenters are … not obviously understanding that.
Hm, I might be having a brain fart but I’m not seeing it. My point is that people will make an argument “A is true based on X, Y and Z”, someone will point out “it’s not obvious that Y”, and that comment is useful because it leads to a discussion about whether Y is true.
Gotcha. I appreciate you pointing it out. I’m glad to get the feedback that it initially wasn’t clear, both for self-improvement purposes and for the more immediate purpose of improving the title.
(It’s got me thinking about variable names in programming. There’s something more elegant about being concise, but then again, humans are biased towards expecting short inferential distances, so I probably should err on the side of longer more descriptive variable names. And post title!)
“It’s not obvious” is a useful critique
I recall hearing “it’s not obvious that X” a lot in the rationality community, particularly in Robin Hanson’s writing.
Sometimes people make a claim without really explaining it. Actually, this happens a lot of times. Often times the claim is made implicitly. This is fine if that claim is obvious.
But if the claim isn’t obvious, then that link in the chain is broken and the whole argument falls apart. Not that it’s been proven wrong or anything, just that it needs work. You need to spend the time establishing that claim. That link in the chain. So then, it is useful in these situations to point out when a link in the chain isn’t obvious when it was being presumed obvious. I am a fan of “it’s not obvious that X”.
Agreed, but in many contexts, one should strive to be clear to what extent “it’s not obvious that X” implies “I don’t think X is true in the relevant context or margin”. Many arguments that involve this are about universality or distant extension of something that IS obvious in more normal circumstances.
Robin Hanson generally does specify that he’s saying X isn’t obvious (and is quite likely false) in some extreme circumstances, and his commenters are … not obviously understanding that.
Hm, I’m having a little trouble thinking about the distinction between X in the current context vs X universally. Do you have any examples?
Glad to hear you’ve noticed this from Hanson too and it’s not just me.
I think you might have reversed your opening line?
Hm, I might be having a brain fart but I’m not seeing it. My point is that people will make an argument “A is true based on X, Y and Z”, someone will point out “it’s not obvious that Y”, and that comment is useful because it leads to a discussion about whether Y is true.
Suggested title: If it’s not obvious, then how do we know it’s true?
Changed to “It’s not obvious” is a useful critique.
Okay, I thought you intended to say “People claim ‘it’s obvious that X’” when X wasn’t obvious. Your new title is more clear.
Gotcha. I appreciate you pointing it out. I’m glad to get the feedback that it initially wasn’t clear, both for self-improvement purposes and for the more immediate purpose of improving the title.
(It’s got me thinking about variable names in programming. There’s something more elegant about being concise, but then again, humans are biased towards expecting short inferential distances, so I probably should err on the side of longer more descriptive variable names. And post title!)