Even more confusing: often statements carry useful implications in their subtexts, and often these useful implications are obscured or removed if one tries to keep all meanings explicit and all claims {verifiable/falsifiable}. For example, consider the use of the terms “bleggs” and “rubes” in Eliezer’s post disguised queries. The foreman in the story tells Susan about objects that are “bleggs” and “rubes”, rather than just substituting in the visible criteria about blue-ness and egg-shaped-ness, so that the implication that said objects represent “clusters in thingspace” can guide Susan’s further learning about the objects.
Much useful inference is done by updating the meaning of a term after its creation (as with the bleggs and rubes, or with Einstein’s vs. Newton’s notion of “space”). These update-possibilities would be harder to notice if we regarded words as mere shorthands for particular verifiable criteria. I agree with Yvain’s suggestion to more often make our disputes verifiable, but I have also seen people insist that everything be operationalized into concretely verifiable terms in a manner that may make it harder for them to update their deeper concepts.
Even more confusing: often statements carry useful implications in their subtexts, and often these useful implications are obscured or removed if one tries to keep all meanings explicit and all claims {verifiable/falsifiable}. For example, consider the use of the terms “bleggs” and “rubes” in Eliezer’s post disguised queries. The foreman in the story tells Susan about objects that are “bleggs” and “rubes”, rather than just substituting in the visible criteria about blue-ness and egg-shaped-ness, so that the implication that said objects represent “clusters in thingspace” can guide Susan’s further learning about the objects.
Much useful inference is done by updating the meaning of a term after its creation (as with the bleggs and rubes, or with Einstein’s vs. Newton’s notion of “space”). These update-possibilities would be harder to notice if we regarded words as mere shorthands for particular verifiable criteria. I agree with Yvain’s suggestion to more often make our disputes verifiable, but I have also seen people insist that everything be operationalized into concretely verifiable terms in a manner that may make it harder for them to update their deeper concepts.