When a rationalist is engaged in conversation, it is very likely that they are seeking truth and that they want (or would at least claim to want) to know the truth regardless of the emotions that it might stir up. Emotions are seen as something that must be overcome and subjected to logic.
On LW that’s often the case but not always. A discussion about akrasia might not only be about gathering objective knowledge that’s true but also about personally overcoming akrasia. Coaching conversations are about more than just the search for truth.
I don’t think that it’s good to say untruths during coaching conversations but the search for truth still isn’t the main objective. The main objective is personal change.
There’s an NLP axiom that goes: The “Meaning” of Communication is the Response You Get
It’s very empirical and following it is useful for coaching interaction.
When I have my coaching hat on, I often communicate in that frame.
Frank Herbert writes in Dune:
All the way to the arena, though, the Baron sat back among
the armored cushions of his car, casting covert glances at the
Count beside him, wondering why the Emperor’s errand
boy had thought it necessary to make that particular kind of
joke in front of the Houses Minor. It was obvious that
Fenring seldom did anything he felt to be unnecessary, or
used two words where one would do, or held himself to a
single meaning in a single phrase.
There nothing wrong with expressing multiple meaning with a single phrase.
In some enviroments I communicate like that and going for a single meaning would be limiting.
There a mode of talking that’s about expressing what I feel as richly as possible. There the point isn’t to find words that the other person will understand but to find words that I feel describe my experience well on a phemological level.
On LW that’s often the case but not always. A discussion about akrasia might not only be about gathering objective knowledge that’s true but also about personally overcoming akrasia. Coaching conversations are about more than just the search for truth. I don’t think that it’s good to say untruths during coaching conversations but the search for truth still isn’t the main objective. The main objective is personal change.
There’s an NLP axiom that goes: The “Meaning” of Communication is the Response You Get It’s very empirical and following it is useful for coaching interaction.
When I have my coaching hat on, I often communicate in that frame.
Frank Herbert writes in Dune:
There nothing wrong with expressing multiple meaning with a single phrase. In some enviroments I communicate like that and going for a single meaning would be limiting.
There a mode of talking that’s about expressing what I feel as richly as possible. There the point isn’t to find words that the other person will understand but to find words that I feel describe my experience well on a phemological level.