I mention this because sometimes in rationalist contexts, I’ve felt a pressure to not talk about models that are missing Gears. I don’t like that. I think that Gears-ness is a really super important thing to track, and I think there’s something epistemically dangerous about failing to notice a lack of Gears. Clearly noting, at least in your own mind, where there are and aren’t Gears seems really good to me. But I think there are other capacities that are also important when we’re trying to get epistemology right
A good way to notice the lack of gears is to explicitly label the non-gearsy steps.
My high school calculus teacher would draw a big cloud with the word “POOF!” while saying “Woogie Woogie Boogie!” when there was an unproven but vital statement (since high school calculus doesn’t rigorously prove many of the calculus notions). Ever since, whenever I explain math to someone I always make very clear what statements I don’t feel like going through the proofs of or will prove later (“Magic”), or who’s proofs I don’t know (“Dark Magic”), as opposed to those that I’ll happily explain.
Similarly, emergent phenomena should be called “Magic” (Though, this only works after internalizing that mysterious answers aren’t answers. It’s just “Gears work in mysterious ways”, but in an absurd enough way to make it clear that the problem is with your understanding).
A good way to notice the lack of gears is to explicitly label the non-gearsy steps.
My high school calculus teacher would draw a big cloud with the word “POOF!” while saying “Woogie Woogie Boogie!” when there was an unproven but vital statement (since high school calculus doesn’t rigorously prove many of the calculus notions). Ever since, whenever I explain math to someone I always make very clear what statements I don’t feel like going through the proofs of or will prove later (“Magic”), or who’s proofs I don’t know (“Dark Magic”), as opposed to those that I’ll happily explain.
Similarly, emergent phenomena should be called “Magic” (Though, this only works after internalizing that mysterious answers aren’t answers. It’s just “Gears work in mysterious ways”, but in an absurd enough way to make it clear that the problem is with your understanding).