Do you have an ELI5-level intro to what the naturalist frame is, and what other frames you’re comparing to? It feels a bit like you’re arguing against a strawman, rather than providing either a contrast to an existing LW-common framing or just a set of hints on how to improve one’s model of the universe. I’m not sure how “naturalism” differs in theory, or if it’s “just” a practice of understanding that’s compatible with other empirical methods.
Ordinarily, when someone is trying to solve a problem, experimentation is where they begin.
Not at all. Observation is where everybody starts. Observation and hypothesis generation are intertwined, but experimenting is definitely later (though experiments are also observations, so the bigger cycle happens as well). Where the models actually come from has not been sufficiently explained, to my knowledge, but observation is definitely sufficient to narrow down hypotheses.
Unfortunately, observation can find correlations, but often not very strong ones, and without causality. Experimentation creates unusual/extreme/simple contexts, which make the correlations much more visible, AND through differences in treatment, give evidence of causality. Note that this doesn’t quite sound like your use of “experiment”—if you just want to know if an intervention has a desirable impact, that’s more of a test or treatment-candidate than an experiment. The difference is whether you’re trying to improve your model of the universe (through an experiment) or trying to directly improve an outcome (through trial and testing).
Honestly, many of the points and examples in your posts are really worthwhile, and they’re on topics where the models of behavior and reaction are complex and individual enough that formal hypothesis identification and experimentation is probably of limited value. I value noticing this and having mechanisms to address things without understanding them. I don’t think it’s necessary to call it a contradictory thing from empiricism, it’s just a set of tools to use in conjunction. Or I completely misunderstand the idea, also very possible.
My guess at an answer to your question, although I’m not 100% sure I grok Logan’s frame:
I think you’re right that everyone literally starts with observation, but in practice people often move pretty quickly to problem-solving. Or, if they take awhile before starting to problem solve, what’s happening in the meantime is less like “more observation” and more like “observe once (badly), form a stereotype model of what’s going on, and then notice the stereotype repeatedly until it prompts them to start experimenting, without ever really deeply observing.”
I think the Naturalism sequence is making a fairly strong (but IMO obviously true) claim that people do very little Original Seeing (and the amount of original seeing here Logan is suggesting is multiple weeks of patient observation, actively investing in getting good at seeing all the details of what’s going on with a phenomenon. I think hardly anyone does that).
(edit: also, it seems like you’re contrasting this with “other formal/deliberate theories on how to observe/act” as opposed to “stuff random people do most of the time”)
>I don’t know anyone who recommends “don’t put much effort into understanding, just try stuff and see if it works”, so I didn’t expect that was the baseline that this sequence is arguing against.
@Dagon, I caution you that if you read this sequence (or the intro one) with the assumption that it’s primarily trying to argue something, you’ll probably be at risk of badly misinterpreting me.
I have a story that you’re looking for and evaluating arguments here because you don’t know what naturalism is or why it might be worth learning, so you hope to find motivating claims and arguments for paying attention to any of this in the first place. If this is a true story about you, I think that’s pretty reasonable! I think it would be ridiculous of me to be like, “Here’s a huge amount of work I suggest that you take on without having any particular reason for doing so,” and I’m not very surprised if this sequence comes off that way to lots of people. But its actual intended audience is people who already want to learn something like this, for some reason, and are ready to do so.
This sequence is somewhere between a syllabus outline and a how-to guide. If you read a book about “how to design and tend a vegetable patch” through an argumentative lens, I expect you’re going to find a lot of completely unsupported or incoherent arguments everywhere, it’ll be pretty frustrating, and you probably won’t learn nearly as much about how to design and tend a vegetable patch as you otherwise might. “How To Garden” is a completely different book from “Raised Bed Organic Gardening Is Better Than All of the Other Kinds of Gardening, and Here Is Why.” I have tried to write the former type of book so far, not the latter.
Oh perhaps some of the confusion with this post in particular is coming from the fact that I tried to contrast three different frameworks for experimentation. Sometimes when people contrast different frameworks, they are doing that because they want to convince the reader that one of them is better than the others. I’m definitely not trying to do that here! I contrasted three experimental frameworks because in order to take the actions that are part of the overall naturalist investigative method, it’s important to deliberately avoid falling into either of the other two near-by frames. I was trying to describe the mindset that the actions comprising naturalist experimentation come from.
Your story is pretty close. I’m looking for the “what it is” first, and I kind of hope the “why it might be worth learning” is as obvious from that as it seems. There’s already parts of the sequence that I’ve enjoyed and found worth learning, especially examples of very complex interactions that are difficult to reduce to independently-modelable parts. But it’s not adding up in my head to anything coherent enough to get a name, certainly not something as evocative as “Naturalism”.
I apologize for my treating it as “compared to empiricism”. It may be I’m overreacting to openings like “Ordinarily, when someone is trying to solve a problem, experimentation is where they begin.”, which is both incorrect AND implies that this is something very different from “ordinary”.
Thanks. I think I was looking for that very basic statement of what is being compared, in order to figure out when it’s useful and when more traditional (but still rigorous) methods would be useful.
“other formal/deliberate theories on how to observe/act” as opposed to “stuff random people do most of the time”
Yeah, this didn’t occur to me. I don’t know anyone who recommends “don’t put much effort into understanding, just try stuff and see if it works”, so I didn’t expect that was the baseline that this sequence is arguing against.
I realize this is only a response to one small thing in your comment and perhaps I will come back to the rest later, but I want to point out that according to me, I am definitely not arguing against anything at all.
Do you have an ELI5-level intro to what the naturalist frame is, and what other frames you’re comparing to? It feels a bit like you’re arguing against a strawman, rather than providing either a contrast to an existing LW-common framing or just a set of hints on how to improve one’s model of the universe. I’m not sure how “naturalism” differs in theory, or if it’s “just” a practice of understanding that’s compatible with other empirical methods.
Not at all. Observation is where everybody starts. Observation and hypothesis generation are intertwined, but experimenting is definitely later (though experiments are also observations, so the bigger cycle happens as well). Where the models actually come from has not been sufficiently explained, to my knowledge, but observation is definitely sufficient to narrow down hypotheses.
Unfortunately, observation can find correlations, but often not very strong ones, and without causality. Experimentation creates unusual/extreme/simple contexts, which make the correlations much more visible, AND through differences in treatment, give evidence of causality. Note that this doesn’t quite sound like your use of “experiment”—if you just want to know if an intervention has a desirable impact, that’s more of a test or treatment-candidate than an experiment. The difference is whether you’re trying to improve your model of the universe (through an experiment) or trying to directly improve an outcome (through trial and testing).
Honestly, many of the points and examples in your posts are really worthwhile, and they’re on topics where the models of behavior and reaction are complex and individual enough that formal hypothesis identification and experimentation is probably of limited value. I value noticing this and having mechanisms to address things without understanding them. I don’t think it’s necessary to call it a contradictory thing from empiricism, it’s just a set of tools to use in conjunction. Or I completely misunderstand the idea, also very possible.
The Naturalism Sequence is an overall explanation of what Naturalism is.
My guess at an answer to your question, although I’m not 100% sure I grok Logan’s frame:
I think you’re right that everyone literally starts with observation, but in practice people often move pretty quickly to problem-solving. Or, if they take awhile before starting to problem solve, what’s happening in the meantime is less like “more observation” and more like “observe once (badly), form a stereotype model of what’s going on, and then notice the stereotype repeatedly until it prompts them to start experimenting, without ever really deeply observing.”
I think the Naturalism sequence is making a fairly strong (but IMO obviously true) claim that people do very little Original Seeing (and the amount of original seeing here Logan is suggesting is multiple weeks of patient observation, actively investing in getting good at seeing all the details of what’s going on with a phenomenon. I think hardly anyone does that).
(edit: also, it seems like you’re contrasting this with “other formal/deliberate theories on how to observe/act” as opposed to “stuff random people do most of the time”)
Thanks @Raemon. I agree with all of that.
>I don’t know anyone who recommends “don’t put much effort into understanding, just try stuff and see if it works”, so I didn’t expect that was the baseline that this sequence is arguing against.
@Dagon, I caution you that if you read this sequence (or the intro one) with the assumption that it’s primarily trying to argue something, you’ll probably be at risk of badly misinterpreting me.
I have a story that you’re looking for and evaluating arguments here because you don’t know what naturalism is or why it might be worth learning, so you hope to find motivating claims and arguments for paying attention to any of this in the first place. If this is a true story about you, I think that’s pretty reasonable! I think it would be ridiculous of me to be like, “Here’s a huge amount of work I suggest that you take on without having any particular reason for doing so,” and I’m not very surprised if this sequence comes off that way to lots of people. But its actual intended audience is people who already want to learn something like this, for some reason, and are ready to do so.
This sequence is somewhere between a syllabus outline and a how-to guide. If you read a book about “how to design and tend a vegetable patch” through an argumentative lens, I expect you’re going to find a lot of completely unsupported or incoherent arguments everywhere, it’ll be pretty frustrating, and you probably won’t learn nearly as much about how to design and tend a vegetable patch as you otherwise might. “How To Garden” is a completely different book from “Raised Bed Organic Gardening Is Better Than All of the Other Kinds of Gardening, and Here Is Why.” I have tried to write the former type of book so far, not the latter.
Oh perhaps some of the confusion with this post in particular is coming from the fact that I tried to contrast three different frameworks for experimentation. Sometimes when people contrast different frameworks, they are doing that because they want to convince the reader that one of them is better than the others. I’m definitely not trying to do that here! I contrasted three experimental frameworks because in order to take the actions that are part of the overall naturalist investigative method, it’s important to deliberately avoid falling into either of the other two near-by frames. I was trying to describe the mindset that the actions comprising naturalist experimentation come from.
Your story is pretty close. I’m looking for the “what it is” first, and I kind of hope the “why it might be worth learning” is as obvious from that as it seems. There’s already parts of the sequence that I’ve enjoyed and found worth learning, especially examples of very complex interactions that are difficult to reduce to independently-modelable parts. But it’s not adding up in my head to anything coherent enough to get a name, certainly not something as evocative as “Naturalism”.
I apologize for my treating it as “compared to empiricism”. It may be I’m overreacting to openings like “Ordinarily, when someone is trying to solve a problem, experimentation is where they begin.”, which is both incorrect AND implies that this is something very different from “ordinary”.
Thanks. I think I was looking for that very basic statement of what is being compared, in order to figure out when it’s useful and when more traditional (but still rigorous) methods would be useful.
Yeah, this didn’t occur to me. I don’t know anyone who recommends “don’t put much effort into understanding, just try stuff and see if it works”, so I didn’t expect that was the baseline that this sequence is arguing against.
I realize this is only a response to one small thing in your comment and perhaps I will come back to the rest later, but I want to point out that according to me, I am definitely not arguing against anything at all.