Alas, I’m unlikely to prioritize writing except when I lose control of my motivations and I can’t help it.[1] But there’s nothing stopping someone else extracting what they learn from my other comments¹²³ re deference and making post(s) from it, no attribution required.
(Arguably it’s often more educational to learn something from somebody who’s freshly gone through the process of learning it. Knowledge-of-transition can supplement knowledge-of-target-state.)
Haphazardly selected additional points on deference:
“They say O(H)=1:2. | Then I can infer that they updated from 1:6 to 1:2 by multiplying with a likelihood ratio of 3:1. And because C and D, I can update on that likelihood ratio in order to end up with a posterior of O(H)=6:1. | The equal weight view would have me adjust down, whereas Bayes tells me to adjust up.”
“Ask the experts. They’re likely the most informed on the issue. Unfortunately, they’re also among the groups most heavily selected for belief in the hypothesis.”
It’s sort of paradoxical. As a result of my investigations into social epistemology 2 years ago, I came away with the conclusion that I ought to focus ~all my learning-efforts on trying to (recursively) improve my own cognition, with ~no consideration for my ability to teach anyone anything of what I learn. My motivation to share my ideas is an impurity that I’ve been trying hard to extinguish. Writing is not useless, but progress toward my goal is much faster when I automatically think in the language I construct purely to communicate with myself.
Thanks for the thoughtful & generous response and interesting links Emrik :) The natural cluster of questions that include deference has been on my mind ever since I learned about epistemic learned helplessness years ago, so I appreciate the pointers.
I confess to being a bit alarmed by your footnote. For reasoning transparency’s sake, would you be willing to share how you were led to the conclusion to turn inward? I have in my own way been trying to improve clarity of thought, although my reasons include an extrinsic component (e.g. I really like helping people figure out their problems, or fail productively in trying), and even the intrinsic component (clarity makes my heart sing) often points me outward (cf. steps 3 and 8 here) and can also look like teaching others. And I’ve noticed that both can speed up my progress greatly despite reducing time spent just thinking, the former akin to being Alice not Bob, and the latter in a way a bit like “pruning the branching factor” or making me realize I had been overlooking fruitful branches or just modeling the whole thing wrongly. This is the overall “vibe” from which I doubt the effectiveness of your inward turn.
But that’s admittedly not the real reason I’m writing this; my real reason echoes Julia’s comment.
Thank you for appreciating! 🕊️
Alas, I’m unlikely to prioritize writing except when I lose control of my motivations and I can’t help it.[1] But there’s nothing stopping someone else extracting what they learn from my other comments¹ ² ³ re deference and making post(s) from it, no attribution required.
(Arguably it’s often more educational to learn something from somebody who’s freshly gone through the process of learning it. Knowledge-of-transition can supplement knowledge-of-target-state.)
Haphazardly selected additional points on deference:
Succinctly, the difference between Equal-Weight deference and Bayes
“They say O(H)=1:2. | Then I can infer that they updated from 1:6 to 1:2 by multiplying with a likelihood ratio of 3:1. And because C and D, I can update on that likelihood ratio in order to end up with a posterior of O(H)=6:1. | The equal weight view would have me adjust down, whereas Bayes tells me to adjust up.”
Paradox of Expert Opinion
“Ask the experts. They’re likely the most informed on the issue. Unfortunately, they’re also among the groups most heavily selected for belief in the hypothesis.”
It’s sort of paradoxical. As a result of my investigations into social epistemology 2 years ago, I came away with the conclusion that I ought to focus ~all my learning-efforts on trying to (recursively) improve my own cognition, with ~no consideration for my ability to teach anyone anything of what I learn. My motivation to share my ideas is an impurity that I’ve been trying hard to extinguish. Writing is not useless, but progress toward my goal is much faster when I automatically think in the language I construct purely to communicate with myself.
Thanks for the thoughtful & generous response and interesting links Emrik :) The natural cluster of questions that include deference has been on my mind ever since I learned about epistemic learned helplessness years ago, so I appreciate the pointers.
I confess to being a bit alarmed by your footnote. For reasoning transparency’s sake, would you be willing to share how you were led to the conclusion to turn inward? I have in my own way been trying to improve clarity of thought, although my reasons include an extrinsic component (e.g. I really like helping people figure out their problems, or fail productively in trying), and even the intrinsic component (clarity makes my heart sing) often points me outward (cf. steps 3 and 8 here) and can also look like teaching others. And I’ve noticed that both can speed up my progress greatly despite reducing time spent just thinking, the former akin to being Alice not Bob, and the latter in a way a bit like “pruning the branching factor” or making me realize I had been overlooking fruitful branches or just modeling the whole thing wrongly. This is the overall “vibe” from which I doubt the effectiveness of your inward turn.
But that’s admittedly not the real reason I’m writing this; my real reason echoes Julia’s comment.