should I indeed keep quiet, until I have done enough work that I can express myself “clearly”?
IMO, the answer here is a resounding “No!”
I think there’s a sort of unfortunate implication in the wording of the fourth guideline that I couldn’t quite erase without spending [so many words it ceased to be a simple statement].
But I do actually think “Do X or explicitly acknowledge that you can’t” means “Do X or Do Y” where Y is acknowledging that you can’t; I don’t actually think doing Y is worse than X, such that the fourth guideline says “Do X unless you suck.”
I mostly think of the fourth guideline as something like “everything in its place” or “everything with its proper epistemic status tags.”
I think there’s a T R E M E N D O U S amount of information that can be conveyed in poetry, that at least gets people looking in the right general direction or standing in the right general vicinity, and that a rationality community that taboo’d it because of its partial illegibility would be cutting off a major source of valuable intuition and wisdom.
(I especially think this because most of the skilled and generative original researchers I have met endorse thinking and speaking in poetry and would be horrified to find themselves in an environment where they could not.)
I think the Duty of an individual trying to not-undermine-rationality is to say “the following is poetry, because poetry is all I have; sorry; seems substantially better than nothing” at the start or the end of the poem. Then no one thinks the poetry is supposed to be airtight and fully legible, and thus the perceived standard of legibility is not undermined.
I think the short statement would be a lot weaker (and better IMO) if “inability” were replaced with “inability or unwillingness”. “Inability” is implying a hierarchy where falsifiable statements are better than the poetry, since the only reason why you would resort to poetry is if you are unable to turn it into falsifiable statements.
I think the Duty of an individual trying to not-undermine-rationality is to say “the following is poetry, because poetry is all I have; sorry; seems substantially better than nothing” at the start or the end of the poem
I just went to grab the link to Logan’s comment on the piranhas to note that in that context, I think including such a disclaimer would make the comment worse. I was sad to find that (I think?) they had edited it to have a disclaimer.
(there are other contexts where I think such a disclaimer is appropriate for logan-poetry-on-LW)
Huh, I guess I misremembered (glad I hedged there). If it was there originally I didn’t notice it which is perhaps evidence that it didn’t, in fact, make the comment noticeably worse.
Yeah, on second thought, please take that as the spirit of a recommendation and not the letter; the main threat vector I see is causing people confusion about what constitutes rigor or precision or a literal claim. I agree that there are a lot of cases where “this is not a literal claim” is pretty obvious on the surface to all-but-Lizardman-constant of the audience, and in those cases do not think a sign saying HERE COMES A POEM is always or even often indicated.
IMO, the answer here is a resounding “No!”
I think there’s a sort of unfortunate implication in the wording of the fourth guideline that I couldn’t quite erase without spending [so many words it ceased to be a simple statement].
But I do actually think “Do X or explicitly acknowledge that you can’t” means “Do X or Do Y” where Y is acknowledging that you can’t; I don’t actually think doing Y is worse than X, such that the fourth guideline says “Do X unless you suck.”
I mostly think of the fourth guideline as something like “everything in its place” or “everything with its proper epistemic status tags.”
I think there’s a T R E M E N D O U S amount of information that can be conveyed in poetry, that at least gets people looking in the right general direction or standing in the right general vicinity, and that a rationality community that taboo’d it because of its partial illegibility would be cutting off a major source of valuable intuition and wisdom.
(I especially think this because most of the skilled and generative original researchers I have met endorse thinking and speaking in poetry and would be horrified to find themselves in an environment where they could not.)
I think the Duty of an individual trying to not-undermine-rationality is to say “the following is poetry, because poetry is all I have; sorry; seems substantially better than nothing” at the start or the end of the poem. Then no one thinks the poetry is supposed to be airtight and fully legible, and thus the perceived standard of legibility is not undermined.
I think the short statement would be a lot weaker (and better IMO) if “inability” were replaced with “inability or unwillingness”. “Inability” is implying a hierarchy where falsifiable statements are better than the poetry, since the only reason why you would resort to poetry is if you are unable to turn it into falsifiable statements.
I changed it to say “aren’t doing so (or can’t).”
I just went to grab the link to Logan’s comment on the piranhas to note that in that context, I think including such a disclaimer would make the comment worse. I was sad to find that (I think?) they had edited it to have a disclaimer.
(there are other contexts where I think such a disclaimer is appropriate for logan-poetry-on-LW)
>I was sad to find that (I think?) they had edited it to have a disclaimer.
(Actually it originally had that disclaimer, or else I probably wouldn’t have posted it.)
Huh, I guess I misremembered (glad I hedged there). If it was there originally I didn’t notice it which is perhaps evidence that it didn’t, in fact, make the comment noticeably worse.
Yeah, on second thought, please take that as the spirit of a recommendation and not the letter; the main threat vector I see is causing people confusion about what constitutes rigor or precision or a literal claim. I agree that there are a lot of cases where “this is not a literal claim” is pretty obvious on the surface to all-but-Lizardman-constant of the audience, and in those cases do not think a sign saying HERE COMES A POEM is always or even often indicated.