Why should “that which can be destroyed by the truth” be destroyed? Because the truth is fundamentally more real and valuable than what it replaces, which must be implemented on a deeper level than “what my current beliefs think.” Similarly, why should “that which can be destroyed by authenticity” be destroyed? Because authenticity is fundamentally more real and valuable than what it replaces, which must be implemented on a deeper level than “what my current beliefs think.” I don’t mean to pitch ‘radical honesty’ here, or other sorts of excessive openness; authentic relationships include distance and walls and politeness and flexible preferences.
To expand on Said and quanticle’s comments here, I find this argument deeply unconvincing, and here’s why. I see three things missing here:
A definition of ‘authentic’ in concrete terms—what kind of behaviour does it entail, with what kind of consequences? This can be a dictionary definition, in exchange for shifting a lot of burden to the following two steps.
An argument that ‘authenticity’ so defined is “real and valuable” enough to be more valuable than anything that might be lost in the course of such behaviour—this is not as simple as a superficial argument by analogy to truth might make it appear, since the argument for believing true things is more complex than that in the first place (for instance, relying on the particular role of true beliefs in decision theory).
An argument that Circling is ‘authentic’ in the manner so defined (presumably, since a defense of Circling seems to be the point of the post).
Currently all three holes here seem to be plugged by the simple use of ‘authentic’ as an applause light.
I think you’re right that the functional role of “authentic” in the above post is as an applause light. But… I think the same goes for “truth,” in the way that you point out in your 2nd point. [In the post as a whole, I think “deep” also doesn’t justify its directionality, but I think that’s perhaps more understandable.]
That is, a description of what ‘truth’ is looks like The Simple Truth, which is about 20 pages long. I’m editing in that link to the relevant paragraph, as well as an IOU for ‘authenticity,’ which I think will be a Project to actually pay down.
But for this comment, let me see if I can write a short version that does enough of the work.
“Truth” is a label we use to distinguish the products of a coherence process, where a ‘statement’ corresponds to ‘reality.’ Untruth is when that coherence process fails, where the statement either corresponds to a different reality than the one we’re in or fails to correspond to any possible reality. There are also interesting edge cases that point out the importance of the process that generates coherence, rather than it merely happening to be true that the two correspond with one another in this instance.
In Public Positions and Private Guts, I identify two sorts of things you might call beliefs, where ‘private guts’ roughly correspond to the actual causal mechanisms leading to a conclusion (which may or may not be well-understood, and generally are difficult to articulate), and ‘public positions’ roughly correspond to the sort of conclusions / justifications you can legibly articulate.
Authenticity is similarly a label we use to distinguish the products of a coherence process, generally between something like ‘outward appearance’ and ‘inward feeling.’ Inauthenticity is when that coherence process fails, where the outward appearance corresponds to a different inward feeling than the one actually felt, or fails to correspond to any possible inward feeling.
Here’s where one of the disclaimers comes in about openness: if I feel that vanilla is a better flavor than strawberry, and also feel that flavor preferences should be private, then it seems more authentic to keep my flavor preferences private than share them.
I think there are a bunch of arguments in favor of authenticity, and a bunch of arguments in favor of inauthenticity. For some example arguments for inauthenticity, note that “Thank someone who gave you a gift even if you don’t like the gift” has an authentic version and an inauthentic version, and many cultures think you get to the authentic version by practicing the inauthentic version; “fake it til you make it” is a heuristic that inauthenticity helps develop authenticity.
A simple argument in favor of authenticity is that knowing more about your preferences, and communicating them more honestly to others, is a useful tool in making your corner of the world look more like you want it to. (See the old okTrends blog post on how variance in ratings is useful.) Decision theory suggests you should attempt to develop true beliefs; it just as clearly suggests you should attempt to develop a true utility function!
Circlers care a lot about differentiating the subtleties of internal experience. But as Paul puts it, If we can’t lie to others, we will lie to ourselves. That might look like a reversal, so let me elaborate: if I have to carefully police my outward appearance for acceptability, then in order to minimize the amount of explicit lying or hiding I have to do I will also have to police my inward feelings for acceptability, and this will get in the way of figuring out what I actually am feeling at the moment, which will get in the way of me understanding myself or moving in the direction that I would reflectively want to move in.
Of course, you can probably imagine how the argument for inauthenticity responds. Suppose I’m annoyed by how another person behaves, but also don’t want to get into an extended conflict; I might prefer to swallow my annoyance instead of trying to fix their behavior, and much of the ‘technology for avoiding civil war’ is about determining what sorts of inward feelings are and aren’t appropriate to express. It might say “because we can’t tell the truth to others, we must lie to ourselves.”
But I have a sense that more is possible, and that it is possible to have difficult conversations in ways that end well, and that doing so requires careful, empirical development of knowledge and skill. When we choose swallow our annoyances, we can do so authentically, in a way that actually digests them; when we choose to bring our annoyances, we can do so in a way that makes the world better.
I do have much to say about this concept as you’ve described it. I wonder if you would prefer such comments here, or saved for the fuller description/explanation posts which you intend (if I understand your comments correctly) to write in the future?
(This is complicated by the fact that I also, now, have comments I’d like to make about this post, which depend on the concept of ‘authenticity’ as you describe it. I worry that such comments will simply result in you saying “ah, well, I can’t properly respond to that until I write the real post explaining ‘authenticity’”—yet they would be comments relevant to the points made in this post, rather than comments about the concept as such.)
(This, by the way, is why I prefer Eliezer’s method of starting from the dependencies…)
(This, by the way, is why I prefer Eliezer’s method of starting from the dependencies…)
I wanted to note that if dependencies are randomly already present in some fraction of the population, the ‘reverse order’ lets you convey your point to growing fractions of the population (as you go back and fill in more and more dependencies), whereas the ‘linear order’ doesn’t let you convey your point until the end (when everyone is able to get it at once).
Yes, this is a fair point. (There does remain the fact that the dependencies ought to be marked, so that those who lack them can clearly see that they lack a specific, recognized dependency, and so that they may be able to trust that the author will later fill them in, to fulfill the ‘IOU’, as you say. But that aside, I agree that your point does make the case for the “dependencies first” order less clear.)
I do have much to say about this concept as you’ve described it. I wonder if you would prefer such comments here, or saved for the fuller description/explanation posts which you intend (if I understand your comments correctly) to write in the future?
Hmm. Rather than saving such comments for the future post, I’d rather see them on the draft of it, so that it’s polished by the time it gets published, instead of going through many revisions in the open or the fuller meaning being hidden in deep comment trees. But if it takes a while to write the other post, then that imposes the cost of missing out on the comments on this post. My guess is you should write comments here, tho I will be more likely than normal to say “ah, I’ll respond to that later.”
Rather than saving such comments for the future post, I’d rather see them on the draft of it
Sorry, by “the draft of it” are you referring to… the grandparent comment? That is, you’re saying you’d like those comments here, in this thread? Or did you mean something else?
Oh—are you referring, then, to the LW “share draft” feature? (I haven’t used this functionality, myself, which may be the reason for my confusion—apologies!)
Either that or Google Docs. But anyway, I currently don’t expect to get started on such a draft until Friday, probably, and so I think you should comment here if you want to get such comments out sooner than then.
To expand on Said and quanticle’s comments here, I find this argument deeply unconvincing, and here’s why. I see three things missing here:
A definition of ‘authentic’ in concrete terms—what kind of behaviour does it entail, with what kind of consequences? This can be a dictionary definition, in exchange for shifting a lot of burden to the following two steps.
An argument that ‘authenticity’ so defined is “real and valuable” enough to be more valuable than anything that might be lost in the course of such behaviour—this is not as simple as a superficial argument by analogy to truth might make it appear, since the argument for believing true things is more complex than that in the first place (for instance, relying on the particular role of true beliefs in decision theory).
An argument that Circling is ‘authentic’ in the manner so defined (presumably, since a defense of Circling seems to be the point of the post).
Currently all three holes here seem to be plugged by the simple use of ‘authentic’ as an applause light.
I think you’re right that the functional role of “authentic” in the above post is as an applause light. But… I think the same goes for “truth,” in the way that you point out in your 2nd point. [In the post as a whole, I think “deep” also doesn’t justify its directionality, but I think that’s perhaps more understandable.]
That is, a description of what ‘truth’ is looks like The Simple Truth, which is about 20 pages long. I’m editing in that link to the relevant paragraph, as well as an IOU for ‘authenticity,’ which I think will be a Project to actually pay down.
But for this comment, let me see if I can write a short version that does enough of the work.
“Truth” is a label we use to distinguish the products of a coherence process, where a ‘statement’ corresponds to ‘reality.’ Untruth is when that coherence process fails, where the statement either corresponds to a different reality than the one we’re in or fails to correspond to any possible reality. There are also interesting edge cases that point out the importance of the process that generates coherence, rather than it merely happening to be true that the two correspond with one another in this instance.
In Public Positions and Private Guts, I identify two sorts of things you might call beliefs, where ‘private guts’ roughly correspond to the actual causal mechanisms leading to a conclusion (which may or may not be well-understood, and generally are difficult to articulate), and ‘public positions’ roughly correspond to the sort of conclusions / justifications you can legibly articulate.
Authenticity is similarly a label we use to distinguish the products of a coherence process, generally between something like ‘outward appearance’ and ‘inward feeling.’ Inauthenticity is when that coherence process fails, where the outward appearance corresponds to a different inward feeling than the one actually felt, or fails to correspond to any possible inward feeling.
Here’s where one of the disclaimers comes in about openness: if I feel that vanilla is a better flavor than strawberry, and also feel that flavor preferences should be private, then it seems more authentic to keep my flavor preferences private than share them.
I think there are a bunch of arguments in favor of authenticity, and a bunch of arguments in favor of inauthenticity. For some example arguments for inauthenticity, note that “Thank someone who gave you a gift even if you don’t like the gift” has an authentic version and an inauthentic version, and many cultures think you get to the authentic version by practicing the inauthentic version; “fake it til you make it” is a heuristic that inauthenticity helps develop authenticity.
A simple argument in favor of authenticity is that knowing more about your preferences, and communicating them more honestly to others, is a useful tool in making your corner of the world look more like you want it to. (See the old okTrends blog post on how variance in ratings is useful.) Decision theory suggests you should attempt to develop true beliefs; it just as clearly suggests you should attempt to develop a true utility function!
Circlers care a lot about differentiating the subtleties of internal experience. But as Paul puts it, If we can’t lie to others, we will lie to ourselves. That might look like a reversal, so let me elaborate: if I have to carefully police my outward appearance for acceptability, then in order to minimize the amount of explicit lying or hiding I have to do I will also have to police my inward feelings for acceptability, and this will get in the way of figuring out what I actually am feeling at the moment, which will get in the way of me understanding myself or moving in the direction that I would reflectively want to move in.
Of course, you can probably imagine how the argument for inauthenticity responds. Suppose I’m annoyed by how another person behaves, but also don’t want to get into an extended conflict; I might prefer to swallow my annoyance instead of trying to fix their behavior, and much of the ‘technology for avoiding civil war’ is about determining what sorts of inward feelings are and aren’t appropriate to express. It might say “because we can’t tell the truth to others, we must lie to ourselves.”
But I have a sense that more is possible, and that it is possible to have difficult conversations in ways that end well, and that doing so requires careful, empirical development of knowledge and skill. When we choose swallow our annoyances, we can do so authentically, in a way that actually digests them; when we choose to bring our annoyances, we can do so in a way that makes the world better.
Thank you, this is somewhat helpful.
I do have much to say about this concept as you’ve described it. I wonder if you would prefer such comments here, or saved for the fuller description/explanation posts which you intend (if I understand your comments correctly) to write in the future?
(This is complicated by the fact that I also, now, have comments I’d like to make about this post, which depend on the concept of ‘authenticity’ as you describe it. I worry that such comments will simply result in you saying “ah, well, I can’t properly respond to that until I write the real post explaining ‘authenticity’”—yet they would be comments relevant to the points made in this post, rather than comments about the concept as such.)
(This, by the way, is why I prefer Eliezer’s method of starting from the dependencies…)
I wanted to note that if dependencies are randomly already present in some fraction of the population, the ‘reverse order’ lets you convey your point to growing fractions of the population (as you go back and fill in more and more dependencies), whereas the ‘linear order’ doesn’t let you convey your point until the end (when everyone is able to get it at once).
Yes, this is a fair point. (There does remain the fact that the dependencies ought to be marked, so that those who lack them can clearly see that they lack a specific, recognized dependency, and so that they may be able to trust that the author will later fill them in, to fulfill the ‘IOU’, as you say. But that aside, I agree that your point does make the case for the “dependencies first” order less clear.)
Hmm. Rather than saving such comments for the future post, I’d rather see them on the draft of it, so that it’s polished by the time it gets published, instead of going through many revisions in the open or the fuller meaning being hidden in deep comment trees. But if it takes a while to write the other post, then that imposes the cost of missing out on the comments on this post. My guess is you should write comments here, tho I will be more likely than normal to say “ah, I’ll respond to that later.”
Sorry, by “the draft of it” are you referring to… the grandparent comment? That is, you’re saying you’d like those comments here, in this thread? Or did you mean something else?
I meant “the draft of the future post,” which doesn’t exist yet.
Oh—are you referring, then, to the LW “share draft” feature? (I haven’t used this functionality, myself, which may be the reason for my confusion—apologies!)
Either that or Google Docs. But anyway, I currently don’t expect to get started on such a draft until Friday, probably, and so I think you should comment here if you want to get such comments out sooner than then.
This link seems to go to the wrong place.
Whoops, that was an artifact of a rewrite. Fixed, thanks.