Things that make texts or discussions more “epistemically legible” include: making clear what you actually believe, making clear the evidence you’re really basing your beliefs on (don’t just search for a random hyperlink for a claim — say why you really believe this, even if it’s “gut feeling” or “anecdotal evidence”), making the logical steps of your argument clear (don’t just list assorted evidence and a conclusion — explain what leads to what and how), use examples, pick a vocabulary that’s appropriate to your audience, and write the argument down.[1] I also think that summaries or outlines help.
So why is this important?
I think a lot of discussions are confused for a bunch of reasons. One of these is that it’s hard to understand exactly what other parties are saying and why, both because communicating clearly is hard and because we have a tendency to want to hedge and protect our views — making it harder for others to see how we might be wrong (e.g. because of impostor syndrome).
For instance, I might want to say, “I think a lot of discussions are confused for a bunch of reasons,” and walk away — especially if I find a good hyperlink for “confused” or something. But that would make it very hard to argue with me. I didn’t explain what “confused” really means to me, I didn’t list specific reasons, I didn’t say which discussions, or approximately how many of them. (So what do you argue with? “No, I think very few discussions are ‘confused’?”) I could, instead, write something more specific, like “I think that too many posts on the Forum (for my taste) lead to discussions that misinterpret the claims of the related post or are arguing about details or logical connections that aren’t actually relevant. This happens for a bunch of reasons, some of which I could list, but I’m focusing on a specific thing here that is one of what I’d guess are the top 10 reasons, and here’s how that happens...” This is still pretty vague, but I think it’s better. You can now say, “Here’s my list of 10 reasons that contribute to this phenomenon, and epistemic illegibility doesn’t get into the top 10 — which do you think are less important?” And I imagine that this leads to a more productive discussion.
There are downsides and costs to being more specific or epistemically legible like this — Elizabeth’s post acknowledges them, and notes that not everything should necessarily be epistemically legible. For instance, the rewritten claim above is messier and longer than the original one. (Although I don’t think this always has to be true.) But on the margin, I think I’d prefer more posts that are messier and even longer if they’re also more epistemically legible. And I really like the specific suggestions on how to be legible.
Or, as Elizabeth puts it,
If I hear an epistemically legible argument, I have a lot of options. I can point out places I think the author missed data that impacts their conclusion, or made an illogical leap. I can notice when I know of evidence supporting their conclusions that they didn’t mention. I can see implications of their conclusions that they didn’t spell out. I can synthesize with other things I know, that the author didn’t include.
If I hear an illegible argument, I have very few options. Perhaps the best case scenario is that it unlocks something I already knew subconsciously but was unable to articulate, or needed permission to admit. This is a huge service! But if I disagree with the argument, or even just find it suspicious, my options are kind of crap. I write a response of equally low legibility, which is unlikely to improve understanding for anyone. Or I could write up a legible case for why I disagree, but that is much more work than responding to a legible original, and often more work than went into the argument I’m responding to, because it’s not obvious what I’m arguing against. I need to argue against many more things to be considered comprehensive. If you believe Y because of X, I can debate X. If you believe Y because …:shrug:… I have to imagine every possible reason you could do so, counter all of them, and then still leave myself open to something I didn’t think of. Which is exhausting.
I could also ask questions, but the more legible an argument is, the easier it is to know what questions matter and the most productive way to ask them.
I could walk away, and I am in fact much more likely to do that with an illegible argument. But that ends up creating a tax on legibility because it makes one easier to argue with, which is the opposite of what I want.
I also love reasoning transparency, but feel like it gets at the quality in a different way, with a different emphasis. And I’ve also been using “butterfly idea” a lot.
I like this essay a lot, on this point: Putting Ideas into Words. Excerpt is copied from a different place where I shared the essay, so I don’t remember how relevant it is here specifically.
Writing about something, even something you know well, usually shows you that you didn’t know it as well as you thought. Putting ideas into words is a severe test. The first words you choose are usually wrong; you have to rewrite sentences over and over to get them exactly right. And your ideas won’t just be imprecise, but incomplete too. Half the ideas that end up in an essay will be ones you thought of while you were writing it. Indeed, that’s why I write them.
Once you publish something, the convention is that whatever you wrote was what you thought before you wrote it. These were your ideas, and now you’ve expressed them. But you know this isn’t true. You know that putting your ideas into words changed them. And not just the ideas you published. Presumably there were others that turned out to be too broken to fix, and those you discarded instead.
[...]
Putting ideas into words doesn’t have to mean writing, of course. You can also do it the old way, by talking. But in my experience, writing is the stricter test. You have to commit to a single, optimal sequence of words. Less can go unsaid when you don’t have tone of voice to carry meaning. And you can focus in a way that would seem excessive in conversation.
Title: Epistemic Legibility—“Tl;dr: being easy to argue with is a virtue, separate from being correct.”
Author: Elizabeth
URL: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/oRx3LeqFdxN2JTANJ/epistemic-legibility
Why it’s good:
Things that make texts or discussions more “epistemically legible” include: making clear what you actually believe, making clear the evidence you’re really basing your beliefs on (don’t just search for a random hyperlink for a claim — say why you really believe this, even if it’s “gut feeling” or “anecdotal evidence”), making the logical steps of your argument clear (don’t just list assorted evidence and a conclusion — explain what leads to what and how), use examples, pick a vocabulary that’s appropriate to your audience, and write the argument down.[1] I also think that summaries or outlines help.
So why is this important?
I think a lot of discussions are confused for a bunch of reasons. One of these is that it’s hard to understand exactly what other parties are saying and why, both because communicating clearly is hard and because we have a tendency to want to hedge and protect our views — making it harder for others to see how we might be wrong (e.g. because of impostor syndrome).
For instance, I might want to say, “I think a lot of discussions are confused for a bunch of reasons,” and walk away — especially if I find a good hyperlink for “confused” or something. But that would make it very hard to argue with me. I didn’t explain what “confused” really means to me, I didn’t list specific reasons, I didn’t say which discussions, or approximately how many of them. (So what do you argue with? “No, I think very few discussions are ‘confused’?”) I could, instead, write something more specific, like “I think that too many posts on the Forum (for my taste) lead to discussions that misinterpret the claims of the related post or are arguing about details or logical connections that aren’t actually relevant. This happens for a bunch of reasons, some of which I could list, but I’m focusing on a specific thing here that is one of what I’d guess are the top 10 reasons, and here’s how that happens...” This is still pretty vague, but I think it’s better. You can now say, “Here’s my list of 10 reasons that contribute to this phenomenon, and epistemic illegibility doesn’t get into the top 10 — which do you think are less important?” And I imagine that this leads to a more productive discussion.
There are downsides and costs to being more specific or epistemically legible like this — Elizabeth’s post acknowledges them, and notes that not everything should necessarily be epistemically legible. For instance, the rewritten claim above is messier and longer than the original one. (Although I don’t think this always has to be true.) But on the margin, I think I’d prefer more posts that are messier and even longer if they’re also more epistemically legible. And I really like the specific suggestions on how to be legible.
Or, as Elizabeth puts it,
I also love reasoning transparency, but feel like it gets at the quality in a different way, with a different emphasis. And I’ve also been using “butterfly idea” a lot.
I like this essay a lot, on this point: Putting Ideas into Words. Excerpt is copied from a different place where I shared the essay, so I don’t remember how relevant it is here specifically.