Your independent impression about X is essentially what you’d believe about X if you weren’t updating your beliefs in light of peer disagreement—i.e., if you weren’t taking into account your knowledge about what other people believe and how trustworthy their judgement seems on this topic relative to yours. Your independent impression can take into account the reasons those people have for their beliefs (inasmuch as you know those reasons), but not the mere fact that they believe what they believe.
Armed with this concept, I try to stick to the following epistemic/discussion norms, and think it’s good for other people to do so as well:
Trying to keep track of my own independent impressions separately from my all-things-considered beliefs (which also takes into account peer disagreement)
Trying to be clear about whether I’m reporting my independent impression or my all-things-considered belief
Feeling comfortable reporting my own independent impression, even when I know it differs from the impressions of people with more expertise in a topic
In contrast, when I actually make decisions, I try to make them based on my all-things-considered beliefs.
For example, my independent impression is that it’s plausible that a stable, global authoritarian regime, or some other unrecoverable dystopia, is more likely than extinction, and that we should prioritise those risks more than we currently do. But I think that this opinion is probably uncommon among people who’ve thought a lot about existential risks. And that makes me somewhat less confident in this opinion and somewhat less likely to actually act on it. But I think it’s still useful for me to keep track of my independent impression and report it sometimes, or else the community might end up with overly certain and overly homogenous beliefs.
This term and concept and these suggested norms aren’t at all original to me—see in particular Naming beliefs and several of the posts tagged Epistemic humility (especially this one). But I wanted a clear, concise description of this specific set of terms and norms so that I could link to it whenever I say I’m reporting my independent impression, ask someone for theirs, or ask someone whether an opinion they’ve given is their independent impression or their all-things-considered belief.
Thanks, I appreciate having something to link to! My independent impression is that it would be even easier to link to and easier to find as a top-level post.
I just re-read this comment by Claire Zabel, which is also good and is probably where I originally encountered the “impressions” vs “beliefs” distinction.
(Though I still think that this shortform serves a somewhat distinct purpose, in that it jumps right to discussing that distinction, uses terms I think are a bit clearer—albeit clunkier—than just “impressions” vs “beliefs”, and explicitly proposes some discussion norms that Claire doesn’t quite explicitly propose.)
Independent impressions
Your independent impression about X is essentially what you’d believe about X if you weren’t updating your beliefs in light of peer disagreement—i.e., if you weren’t taking into account your knowledge about what other people believe and how trustworthy their judgement seems on this topic relative to yours. Your independent impression can take into account the reasons those people have for their beliefs (inasmuch as you know those reasons), but not the mere fact that they believe what they believe.
Armed with this concept, I try to stick to the following epistemic/discussion norms, and think it’s good for other people to do so as well:
Trying to keep track of my own independent impressions separately from my all-things-considered beliefs (which also takes into account peer disagreement)
Trying to be clear about whether I’m reporting my independent impression or my all-things-considered belief
Feeling comfortable reporting my own independent impression, even when I know it differs from the impressions of people with more expertise in a topic
One rationale for that bundle of norms is to avoid information cascades.
In contrast, when I actually make decisions, I try to make them based on my all-things-considered beliefs.
For example, my independent impression is that it’s plausible that a stable, global authoritarian regime, or some other unrecoverable dystopia, is more likely than extinction, and that we should prioritise those risks more than we currently do. But I think that this opinion is probably uncommon among people who’ve thought a lot about existential risks. And that makes me somewhat less confident in this opinion and somewhat less likely to actually act on it. But I think it’s still useful for me to keep track of my independent impression and report it sometimes, or else the community might end up with overly certain and overly homogenous beliefs.
This term and concept and these suggested norms aren’t at all original to me—see in particular Naming beliefs and several of the posts tagged Epistemic humility (especially this one). But I wanted a clear, concise description of this specific set of terms and norms so that I could link to it whenever I say I’m reporting my independent impression, ask someone for theirs, or ask someone whether an opinion they’ve given is their independent impression or their all-things-considered belief.
Thanks, I appreciate having something to link to! My independent impression is that it would be even easier to link to and easier to find as a top-level post.
Thanks for the suggestion—I’ve now gone ahead and made that top-level post :)
I just re-read this comment by Claire Zabel, which is also good and is probably where I originally encountered the “impressions” vs “beliefs” distinction.
(Though I still think that this shortform serves a somewhat distinct purpose, in that it jumps right to discussing that distinction, uses terms I think are a bit clearer—albeit clunkier—than just “impressions” vs “beliefs”, and explicitly proposes some discussion norms that Claire doesn’t quite explicitly propose.)