I personally think it’s important to separate philosophical speculation from well-developed rigorous work, and Critch’s stuff on boundaries seems to land well in the former category.
This is a communicative norm not an epistemic norm—you’re welcome to believe whatever you like about Critch’s stuff, but when you cite it as if it’s widely-understood (across the LW community, or elsewhere) to be a credible, well-developed idea, then this undermines our ability to convey the ideas that are widely-understood to be credible.
important to separate philosophical speculation from well-developed rigorous work
Sure.
when you cite it as if it’s widely-understood (across the LW community, or elsewhere) to be credible
I don’t think I did though? My use of “reference” was merely in the sense of explaining the intended meaning of the word “boundary” I used in the top level comment, so it’s mostly about definitions and context of what I was saying. (I did assume that the reference would plausibly be understood, and I linked to a post on the topic right there in the original comment to gesture at the intended sense and context of the word. There’s also been a post on the meaning of this very word just yesterday.)
And then M. Y. Zuo started talking about credibility, which still leaves me confused about what’s going on, despite some clarifying back and forth.
And then M. Y. Zuo started talking about credibility, which still leaves me confused about what’s going on, despite some clarifying back and forth.
A reference implies some associated credibility, as in the example found in comment #4:
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has no reference entry for “boundary concept” nor any string matches at all to “deontological agent” or “deontological agent design”.
e.g. referencing entries in an encyclopedia, usually presumed to be authoritative to some degree, which grants some credibility to what’s written regarding the topic
By the way, I’m not implying Andrew_Critch’s credibility is zero, but it’s certainly a lot lower then SEP, so much so that I think most LW readers, who likely haven’t heard of him, would sooner group his writings with random musings then SEP entries.
I’m fairly certain the widely accepted definition of ‘reference’ encompasses the idea of referencing entries in an encyclopedia. So in this case I wouldn’t trust ‘TVTropes’ at all.
I personally think it’s important to separate philosophical speculation from well-developed rigorous work
Yes, but of course Critch is the tip of a rather large iceberg. Rationalists tend to think you should familiarise yourself with a mass of ideas virtually none of which have been rigourously proven.
I personally think it’s important to separate philosophical speculation from well-developed rigorous work, and Critch’s stuff on boundaries seems to land well in the former category.
This is a communicative norm not an epistemic norm—you’re welcome to believe whatever you like about Critch’s stuff, but when you cite it as if it’s widely-understood (across the LW community, or elsewhere) to be a credible, well-developed idea, then this undermines our ability to convey the ideas that are widely-understood to be credible.
Sure.
I don’t think I did though? My use of “reference” was merely in the sense of explaining the intended meaning of the word “boundary” I used in the top level comment, so it’s mostly about definitions and context of what I was saying. (I did assume that the reference would plausibly be understood, and I linked to a post on the topic right there in the original comment to gesture at the intended sense and context of the word. There’s also been a post on the meaning of this very word just yesterday.)
And then M. Y. Zuo started talking about credibility, which still leaves me confused about what’s going on, despite some clarifying back and forth.
A reference implies some associated credibility, as in the example found in comment #4:
e.g. referencing entries in an encyclopedia, usually presumed to be authoritative to some degree, which grants some credibility to what’s written regarding the topic
By the way, I’m not implying Andrew_Critch’s credibility is zero, but it’s certainly a lot lower then SEP, so much so that I think most LW readers, who likely haven’t heard of him, would sooner group his writings with random musings then SEP entries.
Hence why I was surprised.
Well, I’m pretty sure that’s not what the word means, but in any case that’s not what I meant by it, so that point isn’t relevant to any substantive disagreement, which does seem present; it’s best to taboo “reference” in this context.
It appears you linked to tvtropes.org?
I’m fairly certain the widely accepted definition of ‘reference’ encompasses the idea of referencing entries in an encyclopedia. So in this case I wouldn’t trust ‘TVTropes’ at all.
Here’s Merriam-Webster:
Yes, but of course Critch is the tip of a rather large iceberg. Rationalists tend to think you should familiarise yourself with a mass of ideas virtually none of which have been rigourously proven.