Logos01 probably shouldn’t have brought up Baudrillard, who is among the sloppiest and most obscure thinkers of the last century. Baudrillard’s model of abstraction is pretty terrible. Much better to user analytic philosophy’s terminology rather than post-structuralism’s terminology. In analytic philosophy we talk about abstract objects, “types” or “kinds”. These are ubiquitous, not especially mysterious, and utterly essential to the representation of knowledge. “Electron”, “Homo sapiens”, “the combustion engine”, “Mozart’s 10th Symphony”, “the Human Genome”, etc. To map without abstract objects one would have to speak only of particulars and extensionally defined sets. And that’s just the nouns—whether one can even use verbs without recourse to abstraction is another issue entirely. Open up any scientific journal article and you will see named entities which are abstract objects. There are schools of thought that hold that kinds can ultimately be reduced to classes determined only by resemblance or predicate—in an attempt to dissolve the supposed mystery of what abstract objects are. But even the most strident nominalists don’t propose to actually do away with their usage.
None of that is particularly controversial and that’s basically what Baudrillard means by “second-order simulacra”. Now the question is, to what extent is it permissible to make statements about types which are not true of all of the particulars which instantiate that type? Call these “generalizations”. We know from the limit cases that it can be both permissible and impermissible. “The Bobcat is found in North America” seems true and informative—and yet there are bobcats in zoos outside that region. At the other end “Birds can talk” is mis-informative even though there are a few species of bird that can learn to talk.
The criterion for whether a generalization is permissible is chiefly pragamatic. You wouldn’t say “The candy is safe” if there were a few razor blades mixed in because people are used to not having any razor blades mixed in at all! The fact about the candy that is worth communicating is that there are razor blades in a few of them. You’re trying to warn people!
I think Logos’s race examples above are wrong. Whether one specifies the race of the typical family depends on whether or not race is a relevant variable in what you are trying to communicate. If all you want to do is express to a Boston Red Sox fan that he or she shouldn’t expect to find other fans in New York you would just say “New Yorkers don’t like the Red Sox.” There is no reason to say “New Yorkers are white people who don’t like the Red Sox”—even if the vast, vast majority of New Yorkers were white this would be communicating unnecessary detail given the goal of the communication. But if you’re trying to constrain someone’s expectations about what kind of people they will meet in New York saying “New Yorkers are white people who don’t like the Red Sox” is mis-informative if most or a large fraction of New Yorkers aren’t white people.
These are all simple examples which can be solved by adding another sentence at most. But in discussions of sufficient complexity additional specificity really does become untenable. At the limit demanding arbitrary precision would require you to use quantum field theory to build an airplane (Newtonian physics can be thought of as a generalization of quantum mechanics).
There are special cases. One is that people should include additional, irrelevant details in cases where not including them reinforces a popular belief that such details don’t exist. This is especially true when the additional details are newly discovered. If one is speaking to a crowd that thinks, say, all men are heterosexual, it is worth qualifying statements about men that assume heterosexuality since not saying anything about the existence of homosexuals reinforces the false notion that they don’t really exist or are extremely rare. When speaking to crowds who are very familiar with that information, qualifying it may look like additional, irrelevant information. Relatedly, when hearing about social identity no one likes to feel like they’ve been left out of the map. This is both an understandable feeling and an inevitable problem when trying to talk about issues involving social/cultural identity and experience. Almost always even the most carefully PC essay talking about how group x experience behavior y or institution z will ignore some subset of group x. Social types and kinds are particularly rife with exceptions—there is simply too much individual variation. But at some point you have to generalize to talk about social identity. I think among respectful, tolerant and educated people it is helpful to maintain a constant policy of “Yes, we all know this isn’t true for everyone but this is a useful generalization”. Whether or not it makes sense for Less Wrong to adopt that policy is another question.
Almost always even the most carefully PC essay talking about how group x experience behavior y or institution z will ignore some subset of group x.
Using ‘x’, ‘y’, and ‘z’ as labels to represent variable groups reinforces the pernicious stereotype that other letters aren’t worthy of being used as labels to represent variables and don’t count.
I don’t appreciate how lazy these jokes are. Once posting on LW one would assume unnecessary tribal signaling in the form of easy, form-fillable potshots at the religious, “political correctness,” non-nerd popular culture, &c.
After I write a six-paragraph explanation of abstraction and the pragmatics of generalization I reserve the right to tell a lazy joke.
I think you’re reading too much into the joke though. I wasn’t intending to make fun of political correctness- hopefully what I wrote before makes it clear that that is not my attitude. I did find lessdazed comment humorous both for the meta-ness of turning the subject of the paragraph back on the text itself and for the juxtaposition of the concern for inclusiveness being applied to silly, non-human things like variable letters. So I played along. The joke was a good way of emphasizing that that particular concern about generalizations is not about communication or accuracy, but about how we treat people.
Whether lessdazed was trying to make fun of political correctness or not you’ll have to ask him.
I’m hoping I can butt in and explain all this.
Logos01 probably shouldn’t have brought up Baudrillard, who is among the sloppiest and most obscure thinkers of the last century. Baudrillard’s model of abstraction is pretty terrible. Much better to user analytic philosophy’s terminology rather than post-structuralism’s terminology. In analytic philosophy we talk about abstract objects, “types” or “kinds”. These are ubiquitous, not especially mysterious, and utterly essential to the representation of knowledge. “Electron”, “Homo sapiens”, “the combustion engine”, “Mozart’s 10th Symphony”, “the Human Genome”, etc. To map without abstract objects one would have to speak only of particulars and extensionally defined sets. And that’s just the nouns—whether one can even use verbs without recourse to abstraction is another issue entirely. Open up any scientific journal article and you will see named entities which are abstract objects. There are schools of thought that hold that kinds can ultimately be reduced to classes determined only by resemblance or predicate—in an attempt to dissolve the supposed mystery of what abstract objects are. But even the most strident nominalists don’t propose to actually do away with their usage.
None of that is particularly controversial and that’s basically what Baudrillard means by “second-order simulacra”. Now the question is, to what extent is it permissible to make statements about types which are not true of all of the particulars which instantiate that type? Call these “generalizations”. We know from the limit cases that it can be both permissible and impermissible. “The Bobcat is found in North America” seems true and informative—and yet there are bobcats in zoos outside that region. At the other end “Birds can talk” is mis-informative even though there are a few species of bird that can learn to talk.
The criterion for whether a generalization is permissible is chiefly pragamatic. You wouldn’t say “The candy is safe” if there were a few razor blades mixed in because people are used to not having any razor blades mixed in at all! The fact about the candy that is worth communicating is that there are razor blades in a few of them. You’re trying to warn people!
I think Logos’s race examples above are wrong. Whether one specifies the race of the typical family depends on whether or not race is a relevant variable in what you are trying to communicate. If all you want to do is express to a Boston Red Sox fan that he or she shouldn’t expect to find other fans in New York you would just say “New Yorkers don’t like the Red Sox.” There is no reason to say “New Yorkers are white people who don’t like the Red Sox”—even if the vast, vast majority of New Yorkers were white this would be communicating unnecessary detail given the goal of the communication. But if you’re trying to constrain someone’s expectations about what kind of people they will meet in New York saying “New Yorkers are white people who don’t like the Red Sox” is mis-informative if most or a large fraction of New Yorkers aren’t white people.
These are all simple examples which can be solved by adding another sentence at most. But in discussions of sufficient complexity additional specificity really does become untenable. At the limit demanding arbitrary precision would require you to use quantum field theory to build an airplane (Newtonian physics can be thought of as a generalization of quantum mechanics).
There are special cases. One is that people should include additional, irrelevant details in cases where not including them reinforces a popular belief that such details don’t exist. This is especially true when the additional details are newly discovered. If one is speaking to a crowd that thinks, say, all men are heterosexual, it is worth qualifying statements about men that assume heterosexuality since not saying anything about the existence of homosexuals reinforces the false notion that they don’t really exist or are extremely rare. When speaking to crowds who are very familiar with that information, qualifying it may look like additional, irrelevant information. Relatedly, when hearing about social identity no one likes to feel like they’ve been left out of the map. This is both an understandable feeling and an inevitable problem when trying to talk about issues involving social/cultural identity and experience. Almost always even the most carefully PC essay talking about how group x experience behavior y or institution z will ignore some subset of group x. Social types and kinds are particularly rife with exceptions—there is simply too much individual variation. But at some point you have to generalize to talk about social identity. I think among respectful, tolerant and educated people it is helpful to maintain a constant policy of “Yes, we all know this isn’t true for everyone but this is a useful generalization”. Whether or not it makes sense for Less Wrong to adopt that policy is another question.
Using ‘x’, ‘y’, and ‘z’ as labels to represent variable groups reinforces the pernicious stereotype that other letters aren’t worthy of being used as labels to represent variables and don’t count.
I don’t appreciate your attempt to erase the experiences of the Greek alphabet!
I don’t appreciate how lazy these jokes are. Once posting on LW one would assume unnecessary tribal signaling in the form of easy, form-fillable potshots at the religious, “political correctness,” non-nerd popular culture, &c.
After I write a six-paragraph explanation of abstraction and the pragmatics of generalization I reserve the right to tell a lazy joke.
I think you’re reading too much into the joke though. I wasn’t intending to make fun of political correctness- hopefully what I wrote before makes it clear that that is not my attitude. I did find lessdazed comment humorous both for the meta-ness of turning the subject of the paragraph back on the text itself and for the juxtaposition of the concern for inclusiveness being applied to silly, non-human things like variable letters. So I played along. The joke was a good way of emphasizing that that particular concern about generalizations is not about communication or accuracy, but about how we treat people.
Whether lessdazed was trying to make fun of political correctness or not you’ll have to ask him.