I’ve socially observed that “many/most such people wind up woo” thing you describe. I have a speculation to elaborate on the mechanism of the payload’s collision with peoples’ metaphysics:
I notice that a payload I’ve encountered which sounds to me like what you’re describing has a lot of “one-way” references to it throughout art and culture. When I consider the reference without the payload, it’s kind of like a dangling pointer, and the mind tends to pick whichever of those possible meanings seems most appealing based on internal state. However, considering the reference and payload together makes it seem profoundly obvious that the payload is the best-fitting explanation for the reference, and the lack of an obvious best-fitting explanation before was due to the absence of that particular payload. I call the link “one-way” because the references are not useful for inferring the details of the payload, but the payload is useful for explaining the references. This contrasts against the usual “two-way” relationship between an observation and its explanation, where the observation usefully narrows the size of the relevant explanation-space as well as the explanation justifying the applicability of the observation. (or, the link between descriptions of the payload and the payload behaves like an NP problem, whereas the links between other descriptions and their described things-like-the-payload behave like P problems)
However, due to this strange behavior, I’m not actually convinced that this payload is “a piece of knowledge” in the sense that it’s usually useful to describe things as pieces of knowledge. For things to qualify as pieces of knowledge, I think they need to be transmissible between thinkers and verifiable as having been accurately transmitted, and the payload as I know it meets neither criterion with any sort of reliability. I suspect that the most useful metaphor for the payload and its effects varies based on the reason one’s trying to discuss it.
I like the one way two way distinction for pointers-referents. Another thing I can say about the thing is that it seems to point to our boundary/distinction thresholds bring too rigid or too...assumed across reference classes when that’s not actually appropriate. Like abstractions in general being held too tightly and treated like territory even though we know intellectually that they are map.
When attempting to parse that final sentence, I get “the map for which ordinary maps are the territory”, and some filter in my head tells me that it sounds poetic enough that I should try to force the thought to do something other than just amuse me and then disappear.
While I think I see where you’re coming from in describing those inferences from the thing, I can’t really build on them like I would hope to in a proper conversation, because I tend to keep my understanding of it wrapped up in an e-prime inspired thought as a sort of defense against the quagmire of woo that it seems to commonly get embedded in.
I’ve socially observed that “many/most such people wind up woo” thing you describe. I have a speculation to elaborate on the mechanism of the payload’s collision with peoples’ metaphysics:
I notice that a payload I’ve encountered which sounds to me like what you’re describing has a lot of “one-way” references to it throughout art and culture. When I consider the reference without the payload, it’s kind of like a dangling pointer, and the mind tends to pick whichever of those possible meanings seems most appealing based on internal state. However, considering the reference and payload together makes it seem profoundly obvious that the payload is the best-fitting explanation for the reference, and the lack of an obvious best-fitting explanation before was due to the absence of that particular payload. I call the link “one-way” because the references are not useful for inferring the details of the payload, but the payload is useful for explaining the references. This contrasts against the usual “two-way” relationship between an observation and its explanation, where the observation usefully narrows the size of the relevant explanation-space as well as the explanation justifying the applicability of the observation. (or, the link between descriptions of the payload and the payload behaves like an NP problem, whereas the links between other descriptions and their described things-like-the-payload behave like P problems)
However, due to this strange behavior, I’m not actually convinced that this payload is “a piece of knowledge” in the sense that it’s usually useful to describe things as pieces of knowledge. For things to qualify as pieces of knowledge, I think they need to be transmissible between thinkers and verifiable as having been accurately transmitted, and the payload as I know it meets neither criterion with any sort of reliability. I suspect that the most useful metaphor for the payload and its effects varies based on the reason one’s trying to discuss it.
I like the one way two way distinction for pointers-referents. Another thing I can say about the thing is that it seems to point to our boundary/distinction thresholds bring too rigid or too...assumed across reference classes when that’s not actually appropriate. Like abstractions in general being held too tightly and treated like territory even though we know intellectually that they are map.
When attempting to parse that final sentence, I get “the map for which ordinary maps are the territory”, and some filter in my head tells me that it sounds poetic enough that I should try to force the thought to do something other than just amuse me and then disappear.
While I think I see where you’re coming from in describing those inferences from the thing, I can’t really build on them like I would hope to in a proper conversation, because I tend to keep my understanding of it wrapped up in an e-prime inspired thought as a sort of defense against the quagmire of woo that it seems to commonly get embedded in.