Hi! I’ve also been thinking and working a bit on this idea. Here are some brief answers to your questions.
Yes, something like this exist. There are many projects pursuing different varieties of the idea you are sketching. Perhaps the smoothest computer program for this is https://www.swarmcheck.ai/. An older, more complicated software is https://www.norsys.com/. It is also possible to use https://roamresearch.com/, or https://obsidian.md/ for similar applications. https://www.kialo-edu.com/ also does something similar. As you are probably well aware, there is a host of related forecasting initiatives. In analytical philosophy, theorists have been discussing the structure of an ideal graph like this for a while. See J. S. Ullian and W. V. O. Quine’s The Web of Belief (1970) for a short intro to relevant concepts.
I tend to think so. Everything depends on implementation though. It is not feasible if usage is tedious or complex.
I have given this a bit of thought, and now tend to think that it would be quite useful to get an overview of the main arguments.
I think it could be useful to most areas, and particularly to see interconnections between cause areas.
The idea is typically referred to as mind-mapping or argument-diagrams. For clarity, it is probably best to use these names. However, the name I like the most (even though it is not practical) is ‘logical knowledge graph’, because the edges in the graph structure would constitute logical inferences, and the nodes would be propositions. I also like ‘digital knowledge infrastructure’.
This is a cool project! I, for one, would love to see more thought invested in this.
I’m glad to hear you are interested, and I appreciate the resources/links!
Re (1): I’m a big fan of Kialo (even though I have not been active in community discussions in the past few years). I actually have been working a forum post that would highlight its potential use for some issues in the EA community. Still, Kialo is much more narrowly focused on pro/con argumentation structure rather than diagramming concepts/observations/etc. more broadly. Additionally, I have seen Bayesian networks (although I can’t remember if I saw Norsys), but these tend to lack the semantically-richer relationship descriptions such as “study X has finding Y” and “study X has some methodological feature/assumption Z.” This issue also seems to apply to the other platforms you mentioned (although SwarmCheck seems like it could potentially be a nice tool for some similar issues, perhaps as a more detailed form of Kialo). In hindsight, I should probably have made this emphasis on semantic/etc. relationships clearer in my question/post; I’ll make an edit regarding that.
Re (5): I used to sometimes call this concept a mind map or argument diagram, but I don’t like doing that anymore since I don’t think those terms really capture the idea. While “collaborative mind map” might come somewhat close, many of the mind maps and descriptions of mind maps that I have seen put a strong emphasis on hierarchical relationships (e.g., a central overarching topic node that branches out into individual categories), whereas the system I have in mind would not require such a hierarchical structure. It also is not just an argument diagram, since it would extend beyond the individual arguments/claims themselves, potentially including details and observations not expressed in argument form.
Good! Yeah, I didn’t mean to say that any of these capture all the specifics of your idea, but merely that there is a lot of interest in this sort of thing. It’s probably worthwhile pursuing this in more detail, I’d be interested in seeing more on this.
Hi! I’ve also been thinking and working a bit on this idea. Here are some brief answers to your questions.
Yes, something like this exist. There are many projects pursuing different varieties of the idea you are sketching. Perhaps the smoothest computer program for this is https://www.swarmcheck.ai/. An older, more complicated software is https://www.norsys.com/. It is also possible to use https://roamresearch.com/, or https://obsidian.md/ for similar applications. https://www.kialo-edu.com/ also does something similar. As you are probably well aware, there is a host of related forecasting initiatives. In analytical philosophy, theorists have been discussing the structure of an ideal graph like this for a while. See J. S. Ullian and W. V. O. Quine’s The Web of Belief (1970) for a short intro to relevant concepts.
I tend to think so. Everything depends on implementation though. It is not feasible if usage is tedious or complex.
I have given this a bit of thought, and now tend to think that it would be quite useful to get an overview of the main arguments.
I think it could be useful to most areas, and particularly to see interconnections between cause areas.
The idea is typically referred to as mind-mapping or argument-diagrams. For clarity, it is probably best to use these names. However, the name I like the most (even though it is not practical) is ‘logical knowledge graph’, because the edges in the graph structure would constitute logical inferences, and the nodes would be propositions. I also like ‘digital knowledge infrastructure’.
This is a cool project! I, for one, would love to see more thought invested in this.
I’m glad to hear you are interested, and I appreciate the resources/links!
Re (1): I’m a big fan of Kialo (even though I have not been active in community discussions in the past few years). I actually have been working a forum post that would highlight its potential use for some issues in the EA community. Still, Kialo is much more narrowly focused on pro/con argumentation structure rather than diagramming concepts/observations/etc. more broadly. Additionally, I have seen Bayesian networks (although I can’t remember if I saw Norsys), but these tend to lack the semantically-richer relationship descriptions such as “study X has finding Y” and “study X has some methodological feature/assumption Z.” This issue also seems to apply to the other platforms you mentioned (although SwarmCheck seems like it could potentially be a nice tool for some similar issues, perhaps as a more detailed form of Kialo). In hindsight, I should probably have made this emphasis on semantic/etc. relationships clearer in my question/post; I’ll make an edit regarding that.
Re (5): I used to sometimes call this concept a mind map or argument diagram, but I don’t like doing that anymore since I don’t think those terms really capture the idea. While “collaborative mind map” might come somewhat close, many of the mind maps and descriptions of mind maps that I have seen put a strong emphasis on hierarchical relationships (e.g., a central overarching topic node that branches out into individual categories), whereas the system I have in mind would not require such a hierarchical structure. It also is not just an argument diagram, since it would extend beyond the individual arguments/claims themselves, potentially including details and observations not expressed in argument form.
Good! Yeah, I didn’t mean to say that any of these capture all the specifics of your idea, but merely that there is a lot of interest in this sort of thing. It’s probably worthwhile pursuing this in more detail, I’d be interested in seeing more on this.