In practice, I have a somewhat less positive take on the barebones-training wheel version of the real thing: I think it would be also fair to say that experienced IFS practitioners doing the real thing unlearn part of what’s in the books. And sometimes end up in similar place to e.g. experienced IDC practitioners who also end up not doing the protocol described in LW posts. From this perspective, it makes sense to have a label for the core of the approaches which works, distinct from IFS label.
What bothers me about this framing is that experienced practitioners for many different skills end up unlearning some of the advice that’s useful for beginners. It’s just the nature of much knowledge that you need to explain it in a simplified kind-of-false form first, before you have hope of conveying the complete form.
The term “lie to children” should not be taken to imply that it is exclusively used in childhood education. Educators in secondary and post-secondary schools employ increasingly accurate yet still “untrue” models as a means of explicating complex topics.
A typical example of this is found in physics, where the Bohr model of atomic electron shells is still often used to introduce atomic structure before moving on to more complex models based on matrix mechanics; and in chemistry, where the Arrhenius definitions of acids and bases are often introduced, followed (in a manner similar to the historical development of the model) by the Brønsted–Lowry definitions and then the Lewis definitions.
But we don’t say that we should have a separate label for the core of physics or chemistry that works; we just call it all “physics” and “chemistry”.
Or for a different domain where the understanding is built up more from the learner’s own experience and pattern-recognition ability than learning increasingly sophisticated scientific theories, here’s Josh Waitzkin on how chessmasters end up unlearning previous things they knew about the value of individual chess pieces:
So let’s say that [...] we begin on an empty board with just a king and a pawn against a king. These are relatively simple pieces. I learn how they both move, and then I play around with them for a while until I feel comfortable. Then, over time, I learn about bishops in isolation, then knights, rooks, and queens. Soon enough, the movements and values of the chess pieces are natural to me. I don’t have to think about them consciously, but see their potential simultaneously with the figurine itself. Chess pieces stop being hunks of wood or plastic, and begin to take on an energetic dimension. Where the piece currently sits on a chessboard pales in comparison to the countless vectors of potential flying off in the mind. I see how each piece affects those around it. Because the basic movements are natural to me, I can take in more information and have a broader perspective of the board. Now when I look at a chess position, I can see all the pieces at once. The network is coming together.
Next I have to learn the principles of coordinating the pieces. I learn how to place my arsenal most efficiently on the chessboard and I learn to read the road signs that determine how to maximize a given soldier’s effectiveness in a particular setting. These road signs are principles. Just as I initially had to think about each chess piece individually, now I have to plod through the principles in my brain to figure out which apply to the current position and how. Over time, that process becomes increasingly natural to me, until I eventually see the pieces and the appropriate principles in a blink. While an intermediate player will learn how a bishop’s strength in the middlegame depends on the central pawn structure, a slightly more advanced player will just flash his or her mind across the board and take in the bishop and the critical structural components. The structure and the bishop are one. Neither has any intrinsic value outside of its relation to the other, and they are chunked together in the mind.
This new integration of knowledge has a peculiar effect, because I begin to realize that the initial maxims of piece value are far from ironclad. The pieces gradually lose absolute identity. I learn that rooks and bishops work more efficiently together than rooks and knights, but queens and knights tend to have an edge over queens and bishops. Each piece’s power is purely relational, depending upon such variables as pawn structure and surrounding forces. So now when you look at a knight, you see its potential in the context of the bishop a few squares away. Over time each chess principle loses rigidity, and you get better and better at reading the subtle signs of qualitative relativity. Soon enough, learning becomes unlearning. The stronger chess player is often the one who is less attached to a dogmatic interpretation of the principles. This leads to a whole new layer of principles—those that consist of the exceptions to the initial principles. Of course the next step is for those counterintuitive signs to become internalized just as the initial movements of the pieces were. The network of my chess knowledge now involves principles, patterns, and chunks of information, accessed through a whole new set of navigational principles, patterns, and chunks of information, which are soon followed by another set of principles and chunks designed to assist in the interpretation of the last. Learning chess at this level becomes sitting with paradox, being at peace with and navigating the tension of competing truths, letting go of any notion of solidity.
What bothers me about this framing is that experienced practitioners for many different skills end up unlearning some of the advice that’s useful for beginners. It’s just the nature of much knowledge that you need to explain it in a simplified kind-of-false form first, before you have hope of conveying the complete form.
But we don’t say that we should have a separate label for the core of physics or chemistry that works; we just call it all “physics” and “chemistry”.
Or for a different domain where the understanding is built up more from the learner’s own experience and pattern-recognition ability than learning increasingly sophisticated scientific theories, here’s Josh Waitzkin on how chessmasters end up unlearning previous things they knew about the value of individual chess pieces: