Where true data driven testing and validation isn’t possible, which coincidentally involves most of the theories we get all excited and huffy about, theories will suck.
A “Narcissistic Contrarian” is just someone who can see that your theory sucks too.
In the realm of non testable theories, theories will be generated as responses to other theories. The more intellectually compulsive you are, the more you are driven to follow that thread of criticism, and in the limit you won’t stop until you can no longer find the error in the thread, whether yourself, or in a valid critique by others. The more obscure the theory, the less it has been subjected to criticism, and the harder to find a valid critique.
Honest, intelligent, diligent people who compulsively care about the truth will stop at some personal tweak to obscure theories lacking widespread criticism, not because they’re trying to “create an identity”, but because that is where the trail has grown cold.
With less diligence, you simply stop when you cease interacting with people who can beat your kung fu. Your position is no longer problematic at that point. The easiest way is to live in a monoculture.
People who live in monocultures stop earlier. Those who don’t live in a monoculture will have influences from the monocultures, and “combine positions not normally met in the same person.”
Some people are just intellectually compulsive, and don’t spend their days saying or doing things primarily to present an image to others. No doubt that attitude is hard for those who do to comprehend, just as it is difficult for those who don’t to get their head around the attitude of those who do.
I’m extremely intellectually compulsive if I do say so perhaps immodestly; just for example, I read a lot of books by people I expect to disagree with, and in fields I start out with no clue about; but I’m trying to get better and better at knowing where to draw the line—and to share some of thoughts on on this in part so they can be criticized.
With less diligence, you simply stop when you cease interacting with people who can beat your kung fu.
Well, here I am, still interacting with you. Maybe my kung fu is being beaten, maybe not (by the way, sadly, David Carradine died a few years back in a Bangkok hotel of asphyxiation—at least that’s what Wikipedia says—I looked it up because I had the notion maybe it was very recent. I used to like Kung Fu, but then when Carradine became such an action/adventure B actor, I was disillusioned—such are the follies of youth).
I’m extremely intellectually compulsive if I do say so perhaps immodestly
To break a little bad news, calling yourself “intellectually compulsive” really isn’t complimenting yourself.
The Official Ideology is that a concern for the truth is an overriding value, quite like how purity and obeying God are overriding values to the religious. In the Official Ideology, what everyone professes to believe, there is a certain status given to zealots for Truth, just as there is a certain status given to zealots for God.
Stripped of the ideology, ideas are a means to accomplishing things in the world. Indulging in a compulsion to tidy them up regardless of any intent or plan to use them is intellectual OCD, mental masturbation, or both, depending on the precise drive/reward structure of the compulsion.
Well, here I am, still interacting with you. Maybe my kung fu is being beaten, maybe not
Well, as you yourself say, you’re kind of intellectually compulsive, so that you have the diligence of the zealot, and wouldn’t be one of the less diligent who stop when their arguments stop winning, or the even less diligent, who just don’t care if their arguments win or not.
I’d note that I’ve been following the Official Ideology by characterizing the compulsion to tidy up ideas as “diligence”. Engaging in compulsive activity is not diligence. The road to recovery is long for Ideaholics.
I’m extremely intellectually compulsive if I do say so perhaps immodestly
To break a little bad news, calling yourself “intellectually compulsive” really isn’t complimenting yourself.
Generally I expect (and get) a higher quality of sarcasm than this from LW.
In your prev. post to which I was responding—headed “Not everything is signaling”, you seemed to be reading me as thinking everything is signalling,
In saying
Some people are just intellectually compulsive, and don’t spend their days saying or doing things primarily to present an image to others. No doubt that attitude is hard for those who do to comprehend, just as it is difficult for those who don’t to get their head around the attitude of those who do.
It seemed like you might be promoting being “intellectually compulsive” with the withering clause “No doubt that attitude is hard for those who do [my interp: mostly preoccupy themselves with presenting an image] to comprehend”. I hope you can see why I inferred that the “intellectually compulsive” were a superior fraternity to those who “mostly preoccupy themselves with presenting an image”.
But it seems that by your lights, the intellectually compulsive are trumped by those who know that
ideas are a means to accomplishing things in the world. Indulging in a compulsion to tidy them up regardless of any intent or plan to use them is intellectual OCD, mental masturbation, or both, depending on the precise drive/reward structure of the compulsion.
So would that be your characterization of those involved in pure mathematics? To say nothing of those who spent centuries collating tables of apparent (as seen from position x,y on earth on x date/time) positions of the planets against the backdrop of the fixed stars which became the raw data for validating Kepler’s and Newton’s theses. Were they OCD mental masturbators whose lives were wasted?
I think perhaps you are spending an inordinate amount of effort making other writers seem like silly straw men. I would suggest you primarily read posts that you can respect, and bother to understand and engage with. I am being serious here, trying not to engage in mere putdown-ism.
Not everything is signaling.
I have a simpler explanation.
Where true data driven testing and validation isn’t possible, which coincidentally involves most of the theories we get all excited and huffy about, theories will suck.
A “Narcissistic Contrarian” is just someone who can see that your theory sucks too.
In the realm of non testable theories, theories will be generated as responses to other theories. The more intellectually compulsive you are, the more you are driven to follow that thread of criticism, and in the limit you won’t stop until you can no longer find the error in the thread, whether yourself, or in a valid critique by others. The more obscure the theory, the less it has been subjected to criticism, and the harder to find a valid critique.
Honest, intelligent, diligent people who compulsively care about the truth will stop at some personal tweak to obscure theories lacking widespread criticism, not because they’re trying to “create an identity”, but because that is where the trail has grown cold.
With less diligence, you simply stop when you cease interacting with people who can beat your kung fu. Your position is no longer problematic at that point. The easiest way is to live in a monoculture.
People who live in monocultures stop earlier. Those who don’t live in a monoculture will have influences from the monocultures, and “combine positions not normally met in the same person.”
Some people are just intellectually compulsive, and don’t spend their days saying or doing things primarily to present an image to others. No doubt that attitude is hard for those who do to comprehend, just as it is difficult for those who don’t to get their head around the attitude of those who do.
I’m extremely intellectually compulsive if I do say so perhaps immodestly; just for example, I read a lot of books by people I expect to disagree with, and in fields I start out with no clue about; but I’m trying to get better and better at knowing where to draw the line—and to share some of thoughts on on this in part so they can be criticized.
Well, here I am, still interacting with you. Maybe my kung fu is being beaten, maybe not (by the way, sadly, David Carradine died a few years back in a Bangkok hotel of asphyxiation—at least that’s what Wikipedia says—I looked it up because I had the notion maybe it was very recent. I used to like Kung Fu, but then when Carradine became such an action/adventure B actor, I was disillusioned—such are the follies of youth).
To break a little bad news, calling yourself “intellectually compulsive” really isn’t complimenting yourself.
The Official Ideology is that a concern for the truth is an overriding value, quite like how purity and obeying God are overriding values to the religious. In the Official Ideology, what everyone professes to believe, there is a certain status given to zealots for Truth, just as there is a certain status given to zealots for God.
Stripped of the ideology, ideas are a means to accomplishing things in the world. Indulging in a compulsion to tidy them up regardless of any intent or plan to use them is intellectual OCD, mental masturbation, or both, depending on the precise drive/reward structure of the compulsion.
Well, as you yourself say, you’re kind of intellectually compulsive, so that you have the diligence of the zealot, and wouldn’t be one of the less diligent who stop when their arguments stop winning, or the even less diligent, who just don’t care if their arguments win or not.
I’d note that I’ve been following the Official Ideology by characterizing the compulsion to tidy up ideas as “diligence”. Engaging in compulsive activity is not diligence. The road to recovery is long for Ideaholics.
Generally I expect (and get) a higher quality of sarcasm than this from LW.
In your prev. post to which I was responding—headed “Not everything is signaling”, you seemed to be reading me as thinking everything is signalling,
In saying
It seemed like you might be promoting being “intellectually compulsive” with the withering clause “No doubt that attitude is hard for those who do [my interp: mostly preoccupy themselves with presenting an image] to comprehend”. I hope you can see why I inferred that the “intellectually compulsive” were a superior fraternity to those who “mostly preoccupy themselves with presenting an image”.
But it seems that by your lights, the intellectually compulsive are trumped by those who know that
So would that be your characterization of those involved in pure mathematics? To say nothing of those who spent centuries collating tables of apparent (as seen from position x,y on earth on x date/time) positions of the planets against the backdrop of the fixed stars which became the raw data for validating Kepler’s and Newton’s theses. Were they OCD mental masturbators whose lives were wasted?
I think perhaps you are spending an inordinate amount of effort making other writers seem like silly straw men. I would suggest you primarily read posts that you can respect, and bother to understand and engage with. I am being serious here, trying not to engage in mere putdown-ism.