I disagree with your conclusion on the grounds that I think you’re interpreting the passage in a different way than the author intended it.
My interpretation is more along the lines of “Steve Jobs, on seeing the profound economic destitution in the East, examined his beliefs about human utility functions. Finding that Western values/practices seemed to promote utility better than Eastern values/practices in developing countries (and perhaps that they do even in developed countries), he decided that the East should adopt the West’s values/practices.”
I loved the dissection into multiple biases, and I agree with your dissection based on your reading of the passage, but I think the author is saying something different and more in line with the prevalent beliefs on Less Wrong.
Yes and no. This is a reasonable defense of Steve Jobs, but not a reasonable defense of using the statement as a reply to Crowley’s theory of yoga. The first conclusion of the statement—that India needs more Western values—is okay. The second conclusion—that therefore, the West can’t learn from Indian “spiritual wisdom”—doesn’t follow. To reply to Crowley’s theory, it needs to prove the second conclusion.
I voted up Yvain’s post, but I had a very similar interpretation to Erik’s. The literal interpretation of the statement is indeed reversed stupidity: taken literally, it’s a stupid statement. But since the maker of the statement is smart enough to know that “West should look East for enlightenment” is false, he seems smart enough that he should know that “The East should look West for enlightenment” is also false. So, either the maker of the statement is not smart, or he doesn’t intend the statement to be taken literally and actually means a different proposition through implicature.
When reading the original quote, I doubted that Steve Jobs actually believes that the West has nothing to look for in the East, or that better living conditions in the West are the same thing as enlightenment. (After reading Jobs’ actual quote, this intuition is confirmed.) The quote also presupposes that listeners are familiar with the trope that the West should always look East for Enlightenment. I think the quote should best be understood as a negation of that trope. “The East should West for enlightenment” can’t be the correct interpretation, because we all know it’s stupid. Rather, it probably means something like “What the West should learn from the East is overestimated and what the East should learn from the West is underestimated.”
This is like Einstein’s quote “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” We know Einstein is smart enough that he can’t possible agree that imagination is always important than knowledge; I’m sure if asked, he would agree that some pieces of knowledge are more important than some flights of fancy. So this statement must mean something different than what it says literally. What Einstein is really saying is something like “the value of imagination is underestimated relative to the value of knowledge.”
Yvain said: This anecdote is short, witty, flattering, and utterly opaque to reason. It bears all the hallmarks of the Dark Arts.
Actually, I don’t think it’s opaque to reason. To me, it sounds like a perfectly reasonable claim which was then “Darkened” for rhetorical effect, to sound literary and poetic, or to appeal to people only capable of Dark thinking in absolutes.
The goal (e.g. the implied proposition), and probable effect of this statement may make people think more rationally about the benefits and Eastern and Western worldviews. Yet there is definitely Dark Arts going on, because the means to doing this muddies the waters in order to sound profound.
One of the problems with using implicature in this manner is that both extreme and reasonable interpretations of a phrase like this are possible (Eastern philosophy could be anywhere between over-rated and worthless based on this statement), and you can switch between the interpretations depending on your audience.
I think this quote speaks to the problem of trying to communicate rational thinking, yet find a way to do so that doesn’t involve a million qualifiers or long words. “What the West should learn from the East is overestimated and what the East should learn from the West is underestimated” is more reasonable than the original statement, yet it just doesn’t pack the same punch. It’s unlikely to be as memorable or to have much of an impact on the thought habits of the listeners. I think many rationalists wonder what is the virtue of using rational language when it spreads 0 rational thinking to average listeners, and instead take rational propositions and Darken their communication to make them comprehensible and hearable.
I think you may very well be correct in your interpretation of the original authors intention. However, I think Yvain’s is more spot on for the majority of the upvotes the comment got.
In his youth, Steve Jobs went to India to be enlightened. After seeing that the nation claiming to be the source of this great spiritual knowledge was full of hunger, ignorance, squalor, poverty, prejudice, and disease, he came back and said that the East should look to the West for enlightenment.
....or maybe the quotation and by extension the entire comment were meant to suggest that traditionally materialist concerns like sanitation, wealth and longevity are more deserving of the title enlightenment and than our categorizing of enlightenment to only mean the spirit is not entirely accurate. Expressing wonder at reductionist, material understanding of the universe shouldn’t be new to this crowd. Expressing value judgements do not a dark art make.
...or maybe it meant to ignore all Indian claims to enlightenment....
There is a lot of nonsense on OB and LW about separating content from style; the occasional attempts to translate into positivist verifiable claims or examples of Dark Arts often say more about the person doing the translating than illuminating the text for the reader.
Yvain obviously interpreted this in a very specific way. Yvain has a good basis for asking Phil to clarify the issues. These sorts of things are more valuable as discussions and instead it was turned into a broadcast.
This is not a criticism, but just a suggestion that the world of give-and-take, persuasion and rebuttal can be a lot more valuable than posting an instantiation of meaning for the comment that is highly suspect at best.
I disagree with your conclusion on the grounds that I think you’re interpreting the passage in a different way than the author intended it.
My interpretation is more along the lines of “Steve Jobs, on seeing the profound economic destitution in the East, examined his beliefs about human utility functions. Finding that Western values/practices seemed to promote utility better than Eastern values/practices in developing countries (and perhaps that they do even in developed countries), he decided that the East should adopt the West’s values/practices.”
I loved the dissection into multiple biases, and I agree with your dissection based on your reading of the passage, but I think the author is saying something different and more in line with the prevalent beliefs on Less Wrong.
Yes and no. This is a reasonable defense of Steve Jobs, but not a reasonable defense of using the statement as a reply to Crowley’s theory of yoga. The first conclusion of the statement—that India needs more Western values—is okay. The second conclusion—that therefore, the West can’t learn from Indian “spiritual wisdom”—doesn’t follow. To reply to Crowley’s theory, it needs to prove the second conclusion.
Nowhere does it state that “the West can’t learn from Indian “spritiual wisdom”″.
I voted up Yvain’s post, but I had a very similar interpretation to Erik’s. The literal interpretation of the statement is indeed reversed stupidity: taken literally, it’s a stupid statement. But since the maker of the statement is smart enough to know that “West should look East for enlightenment” is false, he seems smart enough that he should know that “The East should look West for enlightenment” is also false. So, either the maker of the statement is not smart, or he doesn’t intend the statement to be taken literally and actually means a different proposition through implicature.
When reading the original quote, I doubted that Steve Jobs actually believes that the West has nothing to look for in the East, or that better living conditions in the West are the same thing as enlightenment. (After reading Jobs’ actual quote, this intuition is confirmed.) The quote also presupposes that listeners are familiar with the trope that the West should always look East for Enlightenment. I think the quote should best be understood as a negation of that trope. “The East should West for enlightenment” can’t be the correct interpretation, because we all know it’s stupid. Rather, it probably means something like “What the West should learn from the East is overestimated and what the East should learn from the West is underestimated.”
This is like Einstein’s quote “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” We know Einstein is smart enough that he can’t possible agree that imagination is always important than knowledge; I’m sure if asked, he would agree that some pieces of knowledge are more important than some flights of fancy. So this statement must mean something different than what it says literally. What Einstein is really saying is something like “the value of imagination is underestimated relative to the value of knowledge.”
Actually, I don’t think it’s opaque to reason. To me, it sounds like a perfectly reasonable claim which was then “Darkened” for rhetorical effect, to sound literary and poetic, or to appeal to people only capable of Dark thinking in absolutes.
The goal (e.g. the implied proposition), and probable effect of this statement may make people think more rationally about the benefits and Eastern and Western worldviews. Yet there is definitely Dark Arts going on, because the means to doing this muddies the waters in order to sound profound.
One of the problems with using implicature in this manner is that both extreme and reasonable interpretations of a phrase like this are possible (Eastern philosophy could be anywhere between over-rated and worthless based on this statement), and you can switch between the interpretations depending on your audience.
I think this quote speaks to the problem of trying to communicate rational thinking, yet find a way to do so that doesn’t involve a million qualifiers or long words. “What the West should learn from the East is overestimated and what the East should learn from the West is underestimated” is more reasonable than the original statement, yet it just doesn’t pack the same punch. It’s unlikely to be as memorable or to have much of an impact on the thought habits of the listeners. I think many rationalists wonder what is the virtue of using rational language when it spreads 0 rational thinking to average listeners, and instead take rational propositions and Darken their communication to make them comprehensible and hearable.
I think you may very well be correct in your interpretation of the original authors intention. However, I think Yvain’s is more spot on for the majority of the upvotes the comment got.
....or maybe the quotation and by extension the entire comment were meant to suggest that traditionally materialist concerns like sanitation, wealth and longevity are more deserving of the title enlightenment and than our categorizing of enlightenment to only mean the spirit is not entirely accurate. Expressing wonder at reductionist, material understanding of the universe shouldn’t be new to this crowd. Expressing value judgements do not a dark art make.
...or maybe it meant to ignore all Indian claims to enlightenment....
There is a lot of nonsense on OB and LW about separating content from style; the occasional attempts to translate into positivist verifiable claims or examples of Dark Arts often say more about the person doing the translating than illuminating the text for the reader.
Yvain obviously interpreted this in a very specific way. Yvain has a good basis for asking Phil to clarify the issues. These sorts of things are more valuable as discussions and instead it was turned into a broadcast.
This is not a criticism, but just a suggestion that the world of give-and-take, persuasion and rebuttal can be a lot more valuable than posting an instantiation of meaning for the comment that is highly suspect at best.
As a sidenote, it’s a very good sign that this discussion has followed the path of