I appreciate this essay because I have experienced a (much milder) version of this “not existing”. It helps me feel seen in certain ways. I also like that it helps me understand a different kind of perspective, and that it helps me make sense of Duncan’s behavior in some of the comment threads. However, I must admit that while I understand intellectually that this is how Duncan experiences things, I myself can’t really imagine it; I don’t understand it on the gut level. The below response is influenced by this essay and also recent discussions on other posts.
The spectrum
There seems to be a spectrum in terms of how much weight people give their own experiences compared to things other people say.
On the one end, we have people who believe so weakly in their own experiences that if someone asks them “Why didn’t you lock the door?”, the first instinct is to doubt themselves and ask “Oh no did I forget?”, even if they know that they had locked the door and even checked it multiple times. (If they hear someone say people like them don’t exist, they conclude “Maybe I don’t actually exist?”)
On the other end, we have people who so firmly believe in their own experiences that even if multiple people tell them something that contradicts their own experience, they will simply laugh it off as ridiculous. (If they hear someone say people like them don’t exist, they think “Of course I exist, therefore they must be wrong.”)
People don’t necessarily belong exclusively to one group. One may be very opinionated about taste in music, while at the same time sensitive about their food preferences.
The need for both sides
Both are important:
We need to be able to listen to alternate explanations of our own experiences and to be able to accept that other people can have experiences that are different from ours, because our personal experiences are just a very tiny part of all of human experience. We want to be able to learn from and cater to all the different perspectives, not just our own limited perspective.
Yet, firm belief in our own experiences is useful for ensuring that we don’t end up with societal beliefs that are divorced from reality. If everyone is too willing to believe others’ words over their own perceptions, if there was no child ready to point out that the emperor is in fact not wearing any clothes, then it seems society would end up with nonsensical beliefs touted by charlatans, beliefs that no one has actually ever personally experienced.
We want, of course, to strike a balance. We want to be able to trust our own experiences: other people’s opinions should not be able to negate our own experiences. And yet, we must also be open to the possibility that we are wrong. We should be able to hold both things in our minds at once and weigh them carefully rather than defaulting to one or the other.
It’s really hard though (for me, at least). In some areas I default far too easily to believing others over myself. And yet in other areas, I find myself slow to update when I hear about experiences that don’t match mine. There’s no vocabulary or concept in my world to describe their experiences, so it gets rounded off to something that matches my world without me realizing it. I can’t tell that I’m doing it until someone explains it to be in a way I can understand. (And sometimes I get the sense that people on the “own perspective” end are simply incapable of realizing that people can have experiences that are different from theirs.)
Working with people from different parts of the spectrum
Some discussions I have with people feel more collaborative. We both believe the other has something useful to say. If I am struggling to express my thoughts, they help by rephrasing or suggesting possibilities based on their understanding, until we converge upon a common understanding. They may disagree with me, but they make what feels like a genuine attempt to understand what I am trying to say and see if there is some truth to it. It feels like we are working together to figure out the truth. I think people like that are on the “believing what others say” end of the spectrum.
Some discussions feel less equal. It feels like they are so sure and confident in their own perspective that it is my job as the person with the different perspective to convince them that they are wrong. I have to explain things from their perspective; they won’t help me understand or clarify my thoughts. It feels like the burden of shifting both of us towards what is true is almost entirely on me. I am the salesperson, trying to sell them my version of reality. They are the customer, waiting to be convinced. I think it’s part of what Frame Control was talking about?
Talking to people like that can be exhausting, and quickly becomes very frustrating when I am under high stress. Maybe this is because I have such weak belief in my own opinions. In some areas, it feels like there’s some kind of mental/emotional cost incurred when I try to express something that is different from what people commonly believe, because a part of myself believes I am wrong and so I have to expend energy to go against both my beliefs and other people’s beliefs.
There are certain conditions, however, where the second type of discussion feels collaborative. Like in the second case, they don’t help you express your thoughts, they don’t reflect back at you, they poke holes in your argument. And yet, moments later, days later, weeks later, you realize that they are thinking about what you said and that they do actually take into consideration the things you said when they make decisions. If there is equality on a higher level (i.e. there are also conversations where they try to change my mind, and in those cases they are the ones putting in the work of convincing me) and they show that they are listening and willing to change their minds, then it also feels like collaborative discussion, just of a different style. The tricky thing is that I don’t think you can tell the difference between the second and third cases immediately, only through repeated interactions.
In other words, sometimes it feels like I’m talking to someone from the “own perspective” end of the spectrum but it turns out that they’re more central, it’s just that they are conversing in a different style.
A better culture
I’m not sure how true this concept of the spectrum is, but if it were true, is there anything that would help? Here are some ideas based on what I’ve found helpful:
Help people build trust in their own experiences:
Stop outright invalidating people’s experiences, e.g. “It hurts.” “No, it doesn’t.”; “I hate my baby brother.” “No, you don’t.”
Take care (sometimes? when you have significant influence over someone?) to distinguish between one’s opinions and reality, e.g. “The drink is too sweet for me” instead of “The drink is too sweet”. “I think that X, but I may be wrong.” (I think it’s important for people to learn that “The drink is too sweet” is just someone’s opinion, rather than end up thinking that it is other people’s responsibility/ to phrase it as an opinion.)
Teach people to pay attention to their own experiences (needs to be balanced by the concept that we can have blind spots, we may interpret things wrongly etc.), e.g. instead of saying “It is wrong for anyone to touch you in these places”, we say “This is your body. If anyone touches you in any way that makes you feel uncomfortable, you can say no etc.”)
Take care to listen to people when they aren’t being heard, rather than just dismissing their concerns (e.g. “I’m sure he didn’t mean it”), especially when they are people you are close to or you have power over them
Help people see that people’s opinions are a reflection of their models rather than an indication of the truth or validity of other people’s experiences:
Take pride in harmless differences, especially if they are things that society typically frowns upon (needs to be countered with respect for society’s comfort level with things that are ‘weird’): e.g. “People think it’s childish, but I like reading children’s books!”, or “I know people think I have bad taste, but I really like X.”
Celebrate differences in opinions: e.g. one person says “The first one was the best”, the other person says “Really? I think the last was the nicest, because X”, then the first person responds with “Ah, interesting! I think …” (or anything genuinely positive)
Create space for individual variations:
Acknowledge and accommodate differences, e.g. “You can observe first then join in later if you’d prefer.”
Accommodate (on a societal level) the different types of needs (e.g. wheelchair accessibility) and talk about it, so people know about it (e.g. kitchenware for the blind)
Make it safe for people to express differences e.g. if someone states a different opinion and your response is a “No way! Really?!” and they seem to withdraw or react unexpectedly, make it clear that you are interested in their opinion (e.g. ask a question to learn more) (needs to be genuine)
Help people understand that everyone is different, in ways that we consistently underestimate:
Share about your experiences (like this essay), or write/share articles/essays about people who experience the world differently (e.g. news articles about difficulties faced by people who have learning disorders) or about typical mind fallacy
Things like personality quizzes are perhaps harmful in some ways but they do seem quite successful at encouraging people to talk about their differences?
Encourage people when they share their opinions and participate in conversations (even if badly), because the best way of learning that everyone is different is by having discussions with people who are different. (note that the needs of all parties should still be considered)
“Of course I exist, therefore they must be wrong.”
I think most of the alternatives to the experience described in the post, where incorrect frames keep getting noticed, is considering it an unimportant problem to work on solving, perhaps not even enough to extract “thinking in systematically wrong ways” as a salient distinction from everything else you don’t find perfect about interactions with other people. In the sense that building a perpetual motion machine is not an important problem, it’s not an efficient target for directing effort towards, perhaps it’s literally impossible to make progress on, and so actually trying to do it is concentration on an attempt at causing a miracle. It would be game-changing if somehow successful, but at least the vivid emotional response or detailed comprehension of instances of the problem remaining unsolved is not it.
So in that sense it’s better from the emotional experience and allocation of cognition points of view to care about it more academically, if one’s mind has that flexibility without forgetting that it’s still an actual problem. Which it doesn’t always, hence other things still need to be done. Also the moral status of this move, when available, is not totally clear.
Many acquire the serenity to accept what they cannot change, only to find the ‘cannot change’ is temporary and the serenity is permanent.
— Steven Kaas
I appreciate this essay because I have experienced a (much milder) version of this “not existing”. It helps me feel seen in certain ways. I also like that it helps me understand a different kind of perspective, and that it helps me make sense of Duncan’s behavior in some of the comment threads. However, I must admit that while I understand intellectually that this is how Duncan experiences things, I myself can’t really imagine it; I don’t understand it on the gut level. The below response is influenced by this essay and also recent discussions on other posts.
The spectrum
There seems to be a spectrum in terms of how much weight people give their own experiences compared to things other people say.
On the one end, we have people who believe so weakly in their own experiences that if someone asks them “Why didn’t you lock the door?”, the first instinct is to doubt themselves and ask “Oh no did I forget?”, even if they know that they had locked the door and even checked it multiple times. (If they hear someone say people like them don’t exist, they conclude “Maybe I don’t actually exist?”)
On the other end, we have people who so firmly believe in their own experiences that even if multiple people tell them something that contradicts their own experience, they will simply laugh it off as ridiculous. (If they hear someone say people like them don’t exist, they think “Of course I exist, therefore they must be wrong.”)
People don’t necessarily belong exclusively to one group. One may be very opinionated about taste in music, while at the same time sensitive about their food preferences.
The need for both sides
Both are important:
We need to be able to listen to alternate explanations of our own experiences and to be able to accept that other people can have experiences that are different from ours, because our personal experiences are just a very tiny part of all of human experience. We want to be able to learn from and cater to all the different perspectives, not just our own limited perspective.
Yet, firm belief in our own experiences is useful for ensuring that we don’t end up with societal beliefs that are divorced from reality. If everyone is too willing to believe others’ words over their own perceptions, if there was no child ready to point out that the emperor is in fact not wearing any clothes, then it seems society would end up with nonsensical beliefs touted by charlatans, beliefs that no one has actually ever personally experienced.
We want, of course, to strike a balance. We want to be able to trust our own experiences: other people’s opinions should not be able to negate our own experiences. And yet, we must also be open to the possibility that we are wrong. We should be able to hold both things in our minds at once and weigh them carefully rather than defaulting to one or the other.
It’s really hard though (for me, at least). In some areas I default far too easily to believing others over myself. And yet in other areas, I find myself slow to update when I hear about experiences that don’t match mine. There’s no vocabulary or concept in my world to describe their experiences, so it gets rounded off to something that matches my world without me realizing it. I can’t tell that I’m doing it until someone explains it to be in a way I can understand. (And sometimes I get the sense that people on the “own perspective” end are simply incapable of realizing that people can have experiences that are different from theirs.)
Working with people from different parts of the spectrum
Some discussions I have with people feel more collaborative. We both believe the other has something useful to say. If I am struggling to express my thoughts, they help by rephrasing or suggesting possibilities based on their understanding, until we converge upon a common understanding. They may disagree with me, but they make what feels like a genuine attempt to understand what I am trying to say and see if there is some truth to it. It feels like we are working together to figure out the truth. I think people like that are on the “believing what others say” end of the spectrum.
Some discussions feel less equal. It feels like they are so sure and confident in their own perspective that it is my job as the person with the different perspective to convince them that they are wrong. I have to explain things from their perspective; they won’t help me understand or clarify my thoughts. It feels like the burden of shifting both of us towards what is true is almost entirely on me. I am the salesperson, trying to sell them my version of reality. They are the customer, waiting to be convinced. I think it’s part of what Frame Control was talking about?
Talking to people like that can be exhausting, and quickly becomes very frustrating when I am under high stress. Maybe this is because I have such weak belief in my own opinions. In some areas, it feels like there’s some kind of mental/emotional cost incurred when I try to express something that is different from what people commonly believe, because a part of myself believes I am wrong and so I have to expend energy to go against both my beliefs and other people’s beliefs.
There are certain conditions, however, where the second type of discussion feels collaborative. Like in the second case, they don’t help you express your thoughts, they don’t reflect back at you, they poke holes in your argument. And yet, moments later, days later, weeks later, you realize that they are thinking about what you said and that they do actually take into consideration the things you said when they make decisions. If there is equality on a higher level (i.e. there are also conversations where they try to change my mind, and in those cases they are the ones putting in the work of convincing me) and they show that they are listening and willing to change their minds, then it also feels like collaborative discussion, just of a different style. The tricky thing is that I don’t think you can tell the difference between the second and third cases immediately, only through repeated interactions.
In other words, sometimes it feels like I’m talking to someone from the “own perspective” end of the spectrum but it turns out that they’re more central, it’s just that they are conversing in a different style.
A better culture
I’m not sure how true this concept of the spectrum is, but if it were true, is there anything that would help? Here are some ideas based on what I’ve found helpful:
Help people build trust in their own experiences:
Stop outright invalidating people’s experiences, e.g. “It hurts.” “No, it doesn’t.”; “I hate my baby brother.” “No, you don’t.”
Take care (sometimes? when you have significant influence over someone?) to distinguish between one’s opinions and reality, e.g. “The drink is too sweet for me” instead of “The drink is too sweet”. “I think that X, but I may be wrong.” (I think it’s important for people to learn that “The drink is too sweet” is just someone’s opinion, rather than end up thinking that it is other people’s responsibility/ to phrase it as an opinion.)
Teach people to pay attention to their own experiences (needs to be balanced by the concept that we can have blind spots, we may interpret things wrongly etc.), e.g. instead of saying “It is wrong for anyone to touch you in these places”, we say “This is your body. If anyone touches you in any way that makes you feel uncomfortable, you can say no etc.”)
Take care to listen to people when they aren’t being heard, rather than just dismissing their concerns (e.g. “I’m sure he didn’t mean it”), especially when they are people you are close to or you have power over them
Help people see that people’s opinions are a reflection of their models rather than an indication of the truth or validity of other people’s experiences:
Take pride in harmless differences, especially if they are things that society typically frowns upon (needs to be countered with respect for society’s comfort level with things that are ‘weird’): e.g. “People think it’s childish, but I like reading children’s books!”, or “I know people think I have bad taste, but I really like X.”
Celebrate differences in opinions: e.g. one person says “The first one was the best”, the other person says “Really? I think the last was the nicest, because X”, then the first person responds with “Ah, interesting! I think …” (or anything genuinely positive)
Create space for individual variations:
Acknowledge and accommodate differences, e.g. “You can observe first then join in later if you’d prefer.”
Accommodate (on a societal level) the different types of needs (e.g. wheelchair accessibility) and talk about it, so people know about it (e.g. kitchenware for the blind)
Make it safe for people to express differences e.g. if someone states a different opinion and your response is a “No way! Really?!” and they seem to withdraw or react unexpectedly, make it clear that you are interested in their opinion (e.g. ask a question to learn more) (needs to be genuine)
Help people understand that everyone is different, in ways that we consistently underestimate:
Share about your experiences (like this essay), or write/share articles/essays about people who experience the world differently (e.g. news articles about difficulties faced by people who have learning disorders) or about typical mind fallacy
Things like personality quizzes are perhaps harmful in some ways but they do seem quite successful at encouraging people to talk about their differences?
Encourage people when they share their opinions and participate in conversations (even if badly), because the best way of learning that everyone is different is by having discussions with people who are different. (note that the needs of all parties should still be considered)
I think most of the alternatives to the experience described in the post, where incorrect frames keep getting noticed, is considering it an unimportant problem to work on solving, perhaps not even enough to extract “thinking in systematically wrong ways” as a salient distinction from everything else you don’t find perfect about interactions with other people. In the sense that building a perpetual motion machine is not an important problem, it’s not an efficient target for directing effort towards, perhaps it’s literally impossible to make progress on, and so actually trying to do it is concentration on an attempt at causing a miracle. It would be game-changing if somehow successful, but at least the vivid emotional response or detailed comprehension of instances of the problem remaining unsolved is not it.
So in that sense it’s better from the emotional experience and allocation of cognition points of view to care about it more academically, if one’s mind has that flexibility without forgetting that it’s still an actual problem. Which it doesn’t always, hence other things still need to be done. Also the moral status of this move, when available, is not totally clear.
alas I have but one strong upvote to give