I wonder if it would be possible to screen out some of the misinterpretation and recombination hazards by stealing a page from mystery religions.
Adherents were initiated by stages into the cult; mastery of the current level of mysteries was expected before gaining access to the next.
Rather than develop a specific canon or doctrine, CFAR could build the knowledge that new practices supersede the old, basic practices must come before advanced practices, and precisely what practices should have been tackled previously and will be tackled next into everything instructional they produce for the public.
If this is pervasive in CFAR literature for the public, I would expect the probability of erroneous practice to go down.
Sigh. I continue to forget how much of a problem that is. It is meant in the historical, rather than colloquial, meaning of the word. Since it apparently does not go without saying, the easily misunderstood term should never be used in official communication of any sort.
Do you know what the historical techniques happen to be?
Let’s take Maimonidies whose behavior is well described by Leo Strauss. There’s a law in the Torah against teaching the secrets in the Torah outside of 1-to-1 teaching.
If Leo Strauss is to be believed Maimonidies purpusefully writes wrong things to mislead naive readers and keep advanced knowledge from them.
If CFAR would write purposefully misleading things in their public material to pander down to naive readers and keep advanced knowledge from them, that would produce problems.
the easily misunderstood term should never be used in official communication of any sort.
In the time of the internet don’t use words publically that you wouldn’t use in official communication.
You have just described the same thing Duncan cited as a concern, only substituted a different motive; I am having trouble coming to grips with the purpose of the example as a result.
I propose that the method of organizing knowledge be considered. The goal is not to minimize the information, but to minimize the errors in its transmission. I assume transmission is inevitable; given that, segregating the information into lower-error chunks seems like a viable strategy.
You refered to historical techniques that are used. Generally historical groups actually have defenses against lay people accessing knowledge even if those lay people think they are experts and should be able to access the knowledge.
Whether it’s sworn secrecy, hiding knowledge in plain sight or simple lies to mislead uninitiated readers, there’s a huge toolbox.
I assume transmission is inevitable; given that, segregating the information into lower-error chunks seems like a viable strategy.
Presumably CFAR thinks that their workshop is a low error chunk of consuming their material.
I should amend my assumption to uncontrolled transmission is inevitable. The strategy so far has been to use the workshops, and otherwise decline to distribute the knowledge.
The historical example should be considered in light of what the goals are. The examples you give are strategies employed by organizations trying to deny all knowledge outside of the initiated. Enforcing secrecy and spreading bad information are viable for that goal. CFAR is not trying to deny the knowledge, only to maximize its fidelity. What is the strategy they can use to maximize fidelity in cases where they did not choose to transmit it (like this one)?
Suppose we model everyone who practices state-of-the-art rationality as an initiate, and everyone who wants to read about CFAR’s teachings as a suppliant. If the knowledge is being transmitted outside of the workshops, how do we persuade the suppliants to self-initiate? Imposing some sort of barrier, so that it requires effort to access the knowledge—I suggest by dividing the knowledge up, thus modelling the mysteries. We would want the divided content to be such that people who won’t practice it disengage rather than consume it all passively.
If CFAR were to provide the content, even in this format, I expect the incentive of people to produce posts like the above would be reduced, likewise for the incentive of people to read such collections.
In retrospect, I should have made it explicit I was assuming everyone involved was a (potential) insider at the beginning.
The examples you give are strategies employed by organizations trying to deny all knowledge outside of the initiated.
I think most of the organsiation I’m talking about don’t have a binary intiate/non-initiate criteria whereby the initiated get access to all knowledge. As people learn more they get access to more knowledge. Most scientologists haven’t heard of Xenu. At least that was the case 10 years ago.
If the knowledge is being transmitted outside of the workshops, how do we persuade the suppliants to self-initiate?
LW-Dojo are a way for knowledge to be transmitted outside of workshops. I also think that alumni are generally encouraged to explain knowledge to other people. Peer-to-peer instruction has natural filter that reduce completely passive consumption.
That doesn’t mean that inherently impossible to transmit knowledge via writting but it’s hard.
basic practices must come before advanced practices
We aren’t at a point yet where we distinguish “basic” from “advanced” practices. Most of what CFAR teaches is a 4-day workshop. CFAR doesn’t try to teach anything that takes a year to understand.
The idea that basics are somehow easy to understand also mistakes a lot about what learning deep knowledge is about.
Basics are hard because they are fundamentals and affect a lot.
When dancing Salsa there was the saying: “At congresses beginners take the intermediate classes, intermediates take the advanced classes and the advanced people take the beginners classes”.
Today I was at my meditation/movement class and the teacher (with ~15 years in the method and likely much more than 10000 hours of meditation) was saying that she still fails to have a good grasp on the basic of rhythm and that it alludes her.
We aren’t at a point yet where we distinguish “basic” from “advanced” practices.
This is a good point; I have assumed that there would eventually be a hierarchy of sorts established. I was allowing for instruction being developed (whether by CFAR or someone else) even down below the levels that are usually assumed in-community. When Duncan says,
Picture throwing out a complete text version of our current best practices, exposing it to the forces of memetic > selection and evolution.
I interpret this to mean even by people who have no experience of thinking-about-thinking at all. As you aptly point out, the fundamentals are very hard—there may be demand for just such materials from future advanced rationalists for exactly that reason. So what I suggest is that the components of the instruction be segregated while retaining clear structure, and in this way minimize the skimming and corruption problems.
That being said, I fully endorse the priority choices CFAR has made thus far, and I do not share the (apparent) intensity of Duncan’s concern. I therefore understand if even evaluating whether this is a problem is a low priority.
This is a good point; I have assumed that there would eventually be a hierarchy of sorts established.
“Eventually” is a key word. I think in ten years CFAR’s curriculum will be more settled than it is today.
Take triggers action plans (TAP). They are considered a basic. In the scientific literature and in CFAR’s first workshops they were called “implementation intentions”. CFAR found that it’s useful to have a short word with TAP to be the concept more usable.
That’s not a change in something basic.
That being said, I fully endorse the priority choices CFAR has made thus far, and I do not share the (apparent) intensity of Duncan’s concern.
A while ago someone in this community tried to write a guide for a self-help technique. Let’s call him Bob. Bob read the official guide. The offical guide for the techique referenced a few ingridents that Bob didn’t kow. To do the technique properly the person doing it needs to do X and Y. Bob didn’t know what X and Y were supposed to be. Bob however was widely read in the self-help literature so he simply replaced X and Y with M and N while writting his own guide for the technique.
Bob also didn’t have much experience with actually using the technique. In that case I told Bob, don’t publish that guide and I think the draft for the guide didn’t circulate further or got more work.
I think before I went to me first self-help seminar I was like Bob. I spent 4 years spending 3 hours per day at a personal development forum where I was a moderator, so I thought I know what I was talking about. LessWrong draw people like that you read a lot but who often don’t practice techniques enough.
From this writeup take the part about CoZE exercises. The writeup says that it’s good to develop a playful attitude but if you look at it’s step by step list the steps it gives likely don’t develop a playful attitude. I don’t know the quality of CFAR’s CoZE teachings but if CFAR knows how to actually teach people to do them with a playful attitude, CFAR alumni do something that person trying to follow the writeup won’t do.
Having read the writeup might make it harder for someone who comes to CFAR to actually understand what CFAR teaches as CoZE because the person has already a preconveiced notion.
I wonder if it would be possible to screen out some of the misinterpretation and recombination hazards by stealing a page from mystery religions.
Adherents were initiated by stages into the cult; mastery of the current level of mysteries was expected before gaining access to the next.
Rather than develop a specific canon or doctrine, CFAR could build the knowledge that new practices supersede the old, basic practices must come before advanced practices, and precisely what practices should have been tackled previously and will be tackled next into everything instructional they produce for the public.
If this is pervasive in CFAR literature for the public, I would expect the probability of erroneous practice to go down.
Yes, we should definitely make CFAR/LW look more like a cult :-/
Sigh. I continue to forget how much of a problem that is. It is meant in the historical, rather than colloquial, meaning of the word. Since it apparently does not go without saying, the easily misunderstood term should never be used in official communication of any sort.
I apologize for the lack of clarity.
Do you know what the historical techniques happen to be?
Let’s take Maimonidies whose behavior is well described by Leo Strauss. There’s a law in the Torah against teaching the secrets in the Torah outside of 1-to-1 teaching. If Leo Strauss is to be believed Maimonidies purpusefully writes wrong things to mislead naive readers and keep advanced knowledge from them.
If CFAR would write purposefully misleading things in their public material to pander down to naive readers and keep advanced knowledge from them, that would produce problems.
In the time of the internet don’t use words publically that you wouldn’t use in official communication.
You have just described the same thing Duncan cited as a concern, only substituted a different motive; I am having trouble coming to grips with the purpose of the example as a result.
I propose that the method of organizing knowledge be considered. The goal is not to minimize the information, but to minimize the errors in its transmission. I assume transmission is inevitable; given that, segregating the information into lower-error chunks seems like a viable strategy.
You refered to historical techniques that are used. Generally historical groups actually have defenses against lay people accessing knowledge even if those lay people think they are experts and should be able to access the knowledge.
Whether it’s sworn secrecy, hiding knowledge in plain sight or simple lies to mislead uninitiated readers, there’s a huge toolbox.
Presumably CFAR thinks that their workshop is a low error chunk of consuming their material.
I should amend my assumption to uncontrolled transmission is inevitable. The strategy so far has been to use the workshops, and otherwise decline to distribute the knowledge.
The historical example should be considered in light of what the goals are. The examples you give are strategies employed by organizations trying to deny all knowledge outside of the initiated. Enforcing secrecy and spreading bad information are viable for that goal. CFAR is not trying to deny the knowledge, only to maximize its fidelity. What is the strategy they can use to maximize fidelity in cases where they did not choose to transmit it (like this one)?
Suppose we model everyone who practices state-of-the-art rationality as an initiate, and everyone who wants to read about CFAR’s teachings as a suppliant. If the knowledge is being transmitted outside of the workshops, how do we persuade the suppliants to self-initiate? Imposing some sort of barrier, so that it requires effort to access the knowledge—I suggest by dividing the knowledge up, thus modelling the mysteries. We would want the divided content to be such that people who won’t practice it disengage rather than consume it all passively.
If CFAR were to provide the content, even in this format, I expect the incentive of people to produce posts like the above would be reduced, likewise for the incentive of people to read such collections.
In retrospect, I should have made it explicit I was assuming everyone involved was a (potential) insider at the beginning.
I think most of the organsiation I’m talking about don’t have a binary intiate/non-initiate criteria whereby the initiated get access to all knowledge. As people learn more they get access to more knowledge. Most scientologists haven’t heard of Xenu. At least that was the case 10 years ago.
LW-Dojo are a way for knowledge to be transmitted outside of workshops. I also think that alumni are generally encouraged to explain knowledge to other people. Peer-to-peer instruction has natural filter that reduce completely passive consumption.
That doesn’t mean that inherently impossible to transmit knowledge via writting but it’s hard.
Agreed. The more I consider the problem, the higher my confidence that investing enough energy in the process is a bad investment for them.
Another romantic solution waiting for the appropriate problem. I should look into detaching from the idea.
Call it something like “gnostic practices” so that hoi polloi have no idea what it means, but it sounds respectable :-)
We aren’t at a point yet where we distinguish “basic” from “advanced” practices. Most of what CFAR teaches is a 4-day workshop. CFAR doesn’t try to teach anything that takes a year to understand.
The idea that basics are somehow easy to understand also mistakes a lot about what learning deep knowledge is about. Basics are hard because they are fundamentals and affect a lot.
When dancing Salsa there was the saying: “At congresses beginners take the intermediate classes, intermediates take the advanced classes and the advanced people take the beginners classes”.
Today I was at my meditation/movement class and the teacher (with ~15 years in the method and likely much more than 10000 hours of meditation) was saying that she still fails to have a good grasp on the basic of rhythm and that it alludes her.
This is a good point; I have assumed that there would eventually be a hierarchy of sorts established. I was allowing for instruction being developed (whether by CFAR or someone else) even down below the levels that are usually assumed in-community. When Duncan says,
I interpret this to mean even by people who have no experience of thinking-about-thinking at all. As you aptly point out, the fundamentals are very hard—there may be demand for just such materials from future advanced rationalists for exactly that reason. So what I suggest is that the components of the instruction be segregated while retaining clear structure, and in this way minimize the skimming and corruption problems.
That being said, I fully endorse the priority choices CFAR has made thus far, and I do not share the (apparent) intensity of Duncan’s concern. I therefore understand if even evaluating whether this is a problem is a low priority.
“Eventually” is a key word. I think in ten years CFAR’s curriculum will be more settled than it is today.
Take triggers action plans (TAP). They are considered a basic. In the scientific literature and in CFAR’s first workshops they were called “implementation intentions”. CFAR found that it’s useful to have a short word with TAP to be the concept more usable.
That’s not a change in something basic.
A while ago someone in this community tried to write a guide for a self-help technique. Let’s call him Bob. Bob read the official guide. The offical guide for the techique referenced a few ingridents that Bob didn’t kow. To do the technique properly the person doing it needs to do X and Y. Bob didn’t know what X and Y were supposed to be. Bob however was widely read in the self-help literature so he simply replaced X and Y with M and N while writting his own guide for the technique.
Bob also didn’t have much experience with actually using the technique. In that case I told Bob, don’t publish that guide and I think the draft for the guide didn’t circulate further or got more work.
I think before I went to me first self-help seminar I was like Bob. I spent 4 years spending 3 hours per day at a personal development forum where I was a moderator, so I thought I know what I was talking about. LessWrong draw people like that you read a lot but who often don’t practice techniques enough.
From this writeup take the part about CoZE exercises. The writeup says that it’s good to develop a playful attitude but if you look at it’s step by step list the steps it gives likely don’t develop a playful attitude. I don’t know the quality of CFAR’s CoZE teachings but if CFAR knows how to actually teach people to do them with a playful attitude, CFAR alumni do something that person trying to follow the writeup won’t do.
Having read the writeup might make it harder for someone who comes to CFAR to actually understand what CFAR teaches as CoZE because the person has already a preconveiced notion.
http://lesswrong.com/lw/n5h/unofficial_canon_on_applied_rationality/d4et suggests that this is writeup of CoZE does indeed recommend things fundamentally opposed to CFAR teachings.
Doing things like this in a playful way is a basic. A basic that’s hard to learn.