It’s a bit like if you get mathematical proof, but no one else around you understands it, and are now insisting that you demonstrate how this has helped you do things better in terms they can understand, on pain of rejecting the relevance of what you’re saying.
This seems like a reasonable request, and if the value of mathematical/algebraic reasoning had not been presented to me, I would have not invested as many hours as I have into learning math.
I think, though I haven’t tried too much, it’s at least in principle not that difficult to explain the value of mathematical proof to new people: Either give them a bunch of false proofs and let them deal with the confusion, or give them any of the dozens of exercises in Thinking Physics (which are themselves pretty well-motivated) and highlight how an understanding of mathematical proof would help them solve the problems. I am interested in being given a concrete problem, of the nature that Thinking Physics provides, that I could solve more easily with the tools/perspective you describe.
I’m a bit frustrated with you, Oli. I don’t think you’re engaging with the hypothetical in good faith.
A huge portion of my math teaching experience was with preservice elementary and middle school teachers. These were people who would come to my math class as part of a program to get a credential, because they like kids and want to teach kids. And most of them are at best bored of math.
They really didn’t get proof. Proofs were a kind of social ritual. Conveying to them what the value of proving is was not on the table; they did proofs in order to navigate being graded. The only way I was able to get them to engage meaningfully with math was to point out to them that their knowledge of math and good math teaching would impact their students.
I’m guessing most of your math teaching experience is with UC Berkeley student caliber, yes? Of course you can convey proof to someone like that. Or someone like you.
If you imagine you’re in a world where the people around you are more gruff mechanic types, or caring “people-oriented” types, etc., who don’t understand what analytical thinking is… then you’ll find yourself in the position I’m talking about. Giving them Thinking Physics type problems won’t work because they won’t engage with them. After all, you haven’t convinced them of the value of proof-based thinking! You have to show them something that they consider practical.
Please work with me here, Oli. I know you’re smart enough not to have needed me to spell out all of the above. Please turn off the “I must show my rational analysis skills by coming up with a sharp counterargument to literally everything” stuff and actually try to see my point?
I am interested in being given a concrete problem, of the nature that Thinking Physics provides, that I could solve more easily with the tools/perspective you describe.
I like that question. It’s a tricky one, because knowledge of physics isn’t enough to generate Thinking Physics type puzzles. Likewise, I don’t know if I can give you a good puzzle for Looking off the top of my head. I’ll think on that and see if I can come up with something.
Though I warn, even if I do come up with something, I expect you’ll not find it satisfying. E.g., koans are a classic example of puzzles that are vastly easier to solve by Looking than by normal thinking, but Less Wrong style rationality now has a special toolset for hacking some koans apart that zen masters would consider totally and completely missing the point but give rationalists a kind of pride as though their toolset is doing something even better than answering the koans through Looking. (“Ah, but maybe it is better! After all, statistics and logic and blah blah blah!” :-P )
Yes, I don’t think it is possible to convey the value that “understanding proof” provides to everyone. But even for someone who cannot easily understand, asking to be shown the value is a very reasonable response, and if they cannot be shown the value, it makes sense for them to not spend their time learning mathematical proof. Trying to teach them proof, without them seeing any value in it, seems doomed to failure.
I can imagine being in a world where it is similarly hard for me to understand the value of kensho. But in that world the necessary first step for me learning, is to be motivated to learn. As I said, it seems fine if the target audience for this post is not me. And it seems plausible, though obviously sad to me, that my mind is shaped so that I can not understand the value without spending dozens of hours on good faith on following your argument along. And if you continue writing this post-series, I will try to seriously engage with the things you are describing, even without seeing the value directly, because I do think you have some interesting perspectives and this whole area might have some value in it.
What I am trying to say is that for the goal of making me understand kensho, the most effective next step for you, would be to try to show me the value. And you might expect that not to work, or that might simply not be your goal, and that’s completely fine. And in that case I will try to understand the things you are pointing at anyways, but I won’t spend more than half an hour per post that you write. And if that won’t be enough, then I will leave with a mostly unchanged epistemic state, which would make me obviously a bit sad.
I think that a) Val has obtained a real and valuable skill, b) Oli is engaging in good faith and making a reasonable request, and c) that there is a type of post that Val could conceivably write which Oli would find satisfactory.
I hope to eventually prove this by achieving enough skill in this area myself (making the assumption I’m correct in understand what Val’s skill is), obtaining the value, and then conveying this in a convincing manner such that anyone reasoning as Oli does is motivated by my case.
I’m honestly flummoxed about how to create the type of post you’re suggesting. Given the clarity of everything else you’ve written here about this, I’m inclined to believe you. And I’d much like to write that post, or see it written. Any pointers?
Thanks! Okay, some pointers :) You asked for them!
Your writing style is characteristcally evocative—the kind of writing I’d use to point at the majesty of stars, the tragedy of death, and the grandeur of all that could be. It’s emotional, and that is perhaps both its strength and its weakness.
You have the right style to conjure strong feelings around things one already believes and endorses (perfect for Solstice), but perhaps less so to convince people of things they’re skeptical of. A pastor’s rousing sermon about Jesus’s love for all mankind, while moving to his congregation, does little to convince me about the matter.
Attitude
Unfortunately, it seems that people who don’t know how to intentionally Look literally cannot conceptually understand what Looking is for . . .
I emphatically reject this. You’ve observed that you don’t feel understood when you explain your experience and inferred that this is a deficiency on the part of the listener rather than the explainer. I think that’s the wrong inference, even if many explainers have struggled similarly. Explaining is hard. But even supposing you are completely right, most listeners are not going to respond charitably to claims of “you couldn’t possibly understand”. (I’ll be directly harsh and say I think accusing someone of not engaging in good faith rather than doubting your own communication is suggestive of the wrong attitude.)
Rightly or wrongly, beneath the post there is an undertone with a few sentiments: “Oh my god, guys!!”, “This is something really, really important and you couldn’t possibly understand, I’m frustrated”, and “You don’t get it! Only special people get it.” (And perhaps a hint of enjoying the fact you have a special secret that others don’t. We’re all human, after all.)
The tone I think would be persuasive is along the lines of “I think I’m onto something big, I think it’s had big benefits, I’d like you too benefit too, this is difficult to convey, but please hear out my best case.”
Content
At the end of the day, I think this is about providing a clear and solid case for why you believe what you believe. Sketching out it lightly, the case I might make could look like:
Observations: I spent time meditating; I have experienced benefits X and Y.
Model: Meditation and minfulness consist of moving parts A1, A2, A3, which predict results X and Y. (Here are my models of neuroscience, attention, etc.)
Claim: Meditation and mindfulness practice has given me be benefits X and Y.
Listeners might then doubt any of the pieces. They might be incredulous that I experienced such exteme benefits (your claims are pretty extreme), they might doubt that even if I experienced these benefits, that they were attritutable to what I’m claiming is the cause (rather than say, placebo or mania), or they might find my model implausible (brains don’t work that way!). But at least if I have a 3rd person, mechanistic model, we can argue about its correctness.
Maybe I should add that we can analogize Kensho/enlightenment to consciousness. If we imagine some unconscious AIs modelling the possible existence, possible purpose, and expected observations you would get if humans have this “consciousness” thing, I think they could reasonably do that even if there was no way for them to experience consciousness from the inside with their own minds. They could talk about how it worked and what its benefits were without “seeing” it from the inside. I think they could use that understanding to decide if they want to self-modify to have consciousness, and that a convincing case could be made “from the outside”.
Summing up a rambly response, I think a good post on enlightenment has at least one of the following:
1) Your observations, inferences, and why the reader should trust them.
2) A 3rd party perspective, mechanistic model for how enlightenment works and the resultant predictions.
To close, the post I’d write would large be this is what I’ve experienced, this is the evidence, and this is my model for WHY.
One more pointer—clarity on the purpose of a post is paramount. From your comments, it seems like a few different purposes got mixed in:
a) Kensho/Looking are very powerful, I want to motivate you to try them.
b) There is a puzzle around communicating things which you can only conceptually understand once you’ve experienced them. (I’d focus mostly on the puzzle and make it clear Kensho is but an example in this post.)
There’s a dictum: “1) Tell them what you’re going to tell them, 2) Tell them, 3) Tell them what you’ve told them.” Going by your CFAR classes too, I feel like you don’t like telling people what you’re going to tell them (you even want them to be confused). I think this unsurprisingly results in confusion.
I do feel some exasperation. You’re right in picking up on that.
My experience is that even when I’m not exasperated, this doesn’t convey to people who haven’t done any Looking. I don’t mean that as a judgment against anyone; it’s just a really strong phenomenon, and I think it’s getting conflated with my frustration.
But I’ll take your push-back seriously and reflect on this.
They might be incredulous that I experienced such exteme benefits
Even if the believe that Valentine has actually got those extreme benefits that’s going to make them believe that Valentine is doing something special and not something very basic.
In New Age circles you have plenty of people who believes in the magical powers of enlightment and who spent years searching for it with nothing to show for it. The openness about making extreme claims is one of the key differences that distinguishes New Age thinking from other spiritual traditions and the empiric results of it are poor.
I’m honestly flummoxed about how to create the type of post you’re suggesting. Given the clarity of everything else you’ve written here about this, I’m inclined to believe you. And I’d much like to write that post, or see it written. Any pointers?
But even for someone who cannot easily understand, asking to be shown the value is a very reasonable response, and if they cannot be shown the value, it makes sense for them to not spend their time learning mathematical proof.
I didn’t say, or think, that Ben’s response was unreasonable. I was trying to illustrate via analogy why giving him what he was asking for was going to be extremely hard.
I also wasn’t trying to convince Ben, or anyone else, to seek kensho or do meditation or anything of the sort. I had hoped that the self-reference of the problem would encourage some people to want to learn to Look, which is why I gave some guidelines at the end for going in that direction if one wants. Unfortunately, it seems that people who don’t know how to intentionally Look literally cannot conceptually understand what Looking is for, so if y’all need that before you’ll try (which is understandable but still kind of frustrating from over here), then I guess you ain’t tryin’!
…at least, not consciously as a result of this post.
I think what I was trying to say doesn’t require Looking to understand. The analogy of conveying the value of proof should make sense even if what it’s analogous to doesn’t.
My frustration with Oli there was about him arguing with the analogy rather than using the analogy to try to understand what I was saying. This is a communication problem I’ve had with him in person too, so I was hoping to cut through the whole process by pointing at the meta-level of the communication and saying “Come on, man.”
This seems like a reasonable request, and if the value of mathematical/algebraic reasoning had not been presented to me, I would have not invested as many hours as I have into learning math.
I think, though I haven’t tried too much, it’s at least in principle not that difficult to explain the value of mathematical proof to new people: Either give them a bunch of false proofs and let them deal with the confusion, or give them any of the dozens of exercises in Thinking Physics (which are themselves pretty well-motivated) and highlight how an understanding of mathematical proof would help them solve the problems. I am interested in being given a concrete problem, of the nature that Thinking Physics provides, that I could solve more easily with the tools/perspective you describe.
I’m a bit frustrated with you, Oli. I don’t think you’re engaging with the hypothetical in good faith.
A huge portion of my math teaching experience was with preservice elementary and middle school teachers. These were people who would come to my math class as part of a program to get a credential, because they like kids and want to teach kids. And most of them are at best bored of math.
They really didn’t get proof. Proofs were a kind of social ritual. Conveying to them what the value of proving is was not on the table; they did proofs in order to navigate being graded. The only way I was able to get them to engage meaningfully with math was to point out to them that their knowledge of math and good math teaching would impact their students.
I’m guessing most of your math teaching experience is with UC Berkeley student caliber, yes? Of course you can convey proof to someone like that. Or someone like you.
If you imagine you’re in a world where the people around you are more gruff mechanic types, or caring “people-oriented” types, etc., who don’t understand what analytical thinking is… then you’ll find yourself in the position I’m talking about. Giving them Thinking Physics type problems won’t work because they won’t engage with them. After all, you haven’t convinced them of the value of proof-based thinking! You have to show them something that they consider practical.
Please work with me here, Oli. I know you’re smart enough not to have needed me to spell out all of the above. Please turn off the “I must show my rational analysis skills by coming up with a sharp counterargument to literally everything” stuff and actually try to see my point?
I like that question. It’s a tricky one, because knowledge of physics isn’t enough to generate Thinking Physics type puzzles. Likewise, I don’t know if I can give you a good puzzle for Looking off the top of my head. I’ll think on that and see if I can come up with something.
Though I warn, even if I do come up with something, I expect you’ll not find it satisfying. E.g., koans are a classic example of puzzles that are vastly easier to solve by Looking than by normal thinking, but Less Wrong style rationality now has a special toolset for hacking some koans apart that zen masters would consider totally and completely missing the point but give rationalists a kind of pride as though their toolset is doing something even better than answering the koans through Looking. (“Ah, but maybe it is better! After all, statistics and logic and blah blah blah!” :-P )
But… I will try.
Yes, I don’t think it is possible to convey the value that “understanding proof” provides to everyone. But even for someone who cannot easily understand, asking to be shown the value is a very reasonable response, and if they cannot be shown the value, it makes sense for them to not spend their time learning mathematical proof. Trying to teach them proof, without them seeing any value in it, seems doomed to failure.
I can imagine being in a world where it is similarly hard for me to understand the value of kensho. But in that world the necessary first step for me learning, is to be motivated to learn. As I said, it seems fine if the target audience for this post is not me. And it seems plausible, though obviously sad to me, that my mind is shaped so that I can not understand the value without spending dozens of hours on good faith on following your argument along. And if you continue writing this post-series, I will try to seriously engage with the things you are describing, even without seeing the value directly, because I do think you have some interesting perspectives and this whole area might have some value in it.
What I am trying to say is that for the goal of making me understand kensho, the most effective next step for you, would be to try to show me the value. And you might expect that not to work, or that might simply not be your goal, and that’s completely fine. And in that case I will try to understand the things you are pointing at anyways, but I won’t spend more than half an hour per post that you write. And if that won’t be enough, then I will leave with a mostly unchanged epistemic state, which would make me obviously a bit sad.
I think that a) Val has obtained a real and valuable skill, b) Oli is engaging in good faith and making a reasonable request, and c) that there is a type of post that Val could conceivably write which Oli would find satisfactory.
I hope to eventually prove this by achieving enough skill in this area myself (making the assumption I’m correct in understand what Val’s skill is), obtaining the value, and then conveying this in a convincing manner such that anyone reasoning as Oli does is motivated by my case.
Thanks! Okay, some pointers :) You asked for them!
Your writing style is characteristcally evocative—the kind of writing I’d use to point at the majesty of stars, the tragedy of death, and the grandeur of all that could be. It’s emotional, and that is perhaps both its strength and its weakness.
You have the right style to conjure strong feelings around things one already believes and endorses (perfect for Solstice), but perhaps less so to convince people of things they’re skeptical of. A pastor’s rousing sermon about Jesus’s love for all mankind, while moving to his congregation, does little to convince me about the matter.
Attitude
I emphatically reject this. You’ve observed that you don’t feel understood when you explain your experience and inferred that this is a deficiency on the part of the listener rather than the explainer. I think that’s the wrong inference, even if many explainers have struggled similarly. Explaining is hard. But even supposing you are completely right, most listeners are not going to respond charitably to claims of “you couldn’t possibly understand”. (I’ll be directly harsh and say I think accusing someone of not engaging in good faith rather than doubting your own communication is suggestive of the wrong attitude.)
Rightly or wrongly, beneath the post there is an undertone with a few sentiments: “Oh my god, guys!!”, “This is something really, really important and you couldn’t possibly understand, I’m frustrated”, and “You don’t get it! Only special people get it.” (And perhaps a hint of enjoying the fact you have a special secret that others don’t. We’re all human, after all.)
The tone I think would be persuasive is along the lines of “I think I’m onto something big, I think it’s had big benefits, I’d like you too benefit too, this is difficult to convey, but please hear out my best case.”
Content
At the end of the day, I think this is about providing a clear and solid case for why you believe what you believe. Sketching out it lightly, the case I might make could look like:
Listeners might then doubt any of the pieces. They might be incredulous that I experienced such exteme benefits (your claims are pretty extreme), they might doubt that even if I experienced these benefits, that they were attritutable to what I’m claiming is the cause (rather than say, placebo or mania), or they might find my model implausible (brains don’t work that way!). But at least if I have a 3rd person, mechanistic model, we can argue about its correctness.
Maybe I should add that we can analogize Kensho/enlightenment to consciousness. If we imagine some unconscious AIs modelling the possible existence, possible purpose, and expected observations you would get if humans have this “consciousness” thing, I think they could reasonably do that even if there was no way for them to experience consciousness from the inside with their own minds. They could talk about how it worked and what its benefits were without “seeing” it from the inside. I think they could use that understanding to decide if they want to self-modify to have consciousness, and that a convincing case could be made “from the outside”.
Summing up a rambly response, I think a good post on enlightenment has at least one of the following:
1) Your observations, inferences, and why the reader should trust them.
2) A 3rd party perspective, mechanistic model for how enlightenment works and the resultant predictions.
To close, the post I’d write would large be this is what I’ve experienced, this is the evidence, and this is my model for WHY.
One more pointer—clarity on the purpose of a post is paramount. From your comments, it seems like a few different purposes got mixed in:
a) Kensho/Looking are very powerful, I want to motivate you to try them.
b) There is a puzzle around communicating things which you can only conceptually understand once you’ve experienced them. (I’d focus mostly on the puzzle and make it clear Kensho is but an example in this post.)
There’s a dictum: “1) Tell them what you’re going to tell them, 2) Tell them, 3) Tell them what you’ve told them.” Going by your CFAR classes too, I feel like you don’t like telling people what you’re going to tell them (you even want them to be confused). I think this unsurprisingly results in confusion.
Thanks, this is clear and appreciated.
I do feel some exasperation. You’re right in picking up on that.
My experience is that even when I’m not exasperated, this doesn’t convey to people who haven’t done any Looking. I don’t mean that as a judgment against anyone; it’s just a really strong phenomenon, and I think it’s getting conflated with my frustration.
But I’ll take your push-back seriously and reflect on this.
Thanks. :-)
Even if the believe that Valentine has actually got those extreme benefits that’s going to make them believe that Valentine is doing something special and not something very basic.
In New Age circles you have plenty of people who believes in the magical powers of enlightment and who spent years searching for it with nothing to show for it. The openness about making extreme claims is one of the key differences that distinguishes New Age thinking from other spiritual traditions and the empiric results of it are poor.
Appreciation for you, Ruby. :-)
I’m honestly flummoxed about how to create the type of post you’re suggesting. Given the clarity of everything else you’ve written here about this, I’m inclined to believe you. And I’d much like to write that post, or see it written. Any pointers?
I didn’t say, or think, that Ben’s response was unreasonable. I was trying to illustrate via analogy why giving him what he was asking for was going to be extremely hard.
I also wasn’t trying to convince Ben, or anyone else, to seek kensho or do meditation or anything of the sort. I had hoped that the self-reference of the problem would encourage some people to want to learn to Look, which is why I gave some guidelines at the end for going in that direction if one wants. Unfortunately, it seems that people who don’t know how to intentionally Look literally cannot conceptually understand what Looking is for, so if y’all need that before you’ll try (which is understandable but still kind of frustrating from over here), then I guess you ain’t tryin’!
…at least, not consciously as a result of this post.
>”actually try to see my point?”
How do you think that would help? :P
I think what I was trying to say doesn’t require Looking to understand. The analogy of conveying the value of proof should make sense even if what it’s analogous to doesn’t.
My frustration with Oli there was about him arguing with the analogy rather than using the analogy to try to understand what I was saying. This is a communication problem I’ve had with him in person too, so I was hoping to cut through the whole process by pointing at the meta-level of the communication and saying “Come on, man.”