I write an explanation of what I believe on a topic. If the explanation is very load-bearing for my belief, that means that if someone convinces me that a parameter is wrong or points out a methodology/math error, I’ll change my mind to whatever the corrected result is. In other words, my belief is very sensitive to the reasoning in the explanation. If the explanation is not load-bearing, my belief is really determined by a bunch of other stuff; the explanation might be helpful to people for showing one way I think I think about the question, but quibbling with the explanation wouldn’t change my mind.
This is related to Is That Your True Rejection?; I find my version of the concept more helpful for working with collaborators who share almost all background assumptions with me.
Isn’t this “cruxiness”? Which I agree is a quite useful concept. Maybe you don’t like that term for some reason. But curious whether I am misunderstanding what you are saying here.
The move I was gesturing at—which I haven’t really seen other people do—is saying
This sequence of reasoning [is/isn’t] cruxy for me
as opposed to the usual use of “cruxiness” which is like
I think P and you think ¬P. We agree that Q would imply P and ¬Q would imply ¬P; the crux is Q.
or
I believe P. This is based on a bunch of stuff but Q is the step/assumption/parameter/whatever that I expect is most interesting to interlocutors or you’re most likely to change my mind on or something.
fwiw I think Lightcone staff regularly say “this is / isn’t cruxy for me”. (But not sure how common it is elsewhere)
But, a thing I initially interpreted this post as saying that felt interesting was having more of a habit of which bits are cruxy and which are more like interesting background. (Thinking another 5 min I don’t think this is that helpful a habit because when I’m writing posts I’m basically always already writing stuff that was cruxy for me)
Some things are more legible than others. If I believe something based on dozen pieces of evidence all pointing in the same direction, removing one piece of evidence wouldn’t significantly change the outcome.
(Of course, removing all of them would change my mind; and even removing a few of them would make me suspicious about the remaining ones.)
So sometimes it makes sense to write things that are not cruxy.
Concept: epistemic loadbearingness.
I write an explanation of what I believe on a topic. If the explanation is very load-bearing for my belief, that means that if someone convinces me that a parameter is wrong or points out a methodology/math error, I’ll change my mind to whatever the corrected result is. In other words, my belief is very sensitive to the reasoning in the explanation. If the explanation is not load-bearing, my belief is really determined by a bunch of other stuff; the explanation might be helpful to people for showing one way I think I think about the question, but quibbling with the explanation wouldn’t change my mind.
This is related to Is That Your True Rejection?; I find my version of the concept more helpful for working with collaborators who share almost all background assumptions with me.
Isn’t this “cruxiness”? Which I agree is a quite useful concept. Maybe you don’t like that term for some reason. But curious whether I am misunderstanding what you are saying here.
Hmm, yeah, oops. I forgot about “cruxiness.”
The move I was gesturing at—which I haven’t really seen other people do—is saying
as opposed to the usual use of “cruxiness” which is like
or
fwiw I think Lightcone staff regularly say “this is / isn’t cruxy for me”. (But not sure how common it is elsewhere)
But, a thing I initially interpreted this post as saying that felt interesting was having more of a habit of which bits are cruxy and which are more like interesting background. (Thinking another 5 min I don’t think this is that helpful a habit because when I’m writing posts I’m basically always already writing stuff that was cruxy for me)
Some things are more legible than others. If I believe something based on dozen pieces of evidence all pointing in the same direction, removing one piece of evidence wouldn’t significantly change the outcome.
(Of course, removing all of them would change my mind; and even removing a few of them would make me suspicious about the remaining ones.)
So sometimes it makes sense to write things that are not cruxy.