Upvoted, you’re talented wrt your writing style. Congratulations on clawing your way back to the lifeworld, after your foray into continental philosophy—which is as close an intellectual equivalent to invading Russia in winter as I’ve ever heard of, with a corresponding rate of never returning.
However, try not to succumb to the classic introspective meta trap, no matter how sweet its Siren call; in the end we only look inward to look outward: not as a goal in itself but as an instrumental stepping stone only. What I’m saying is, less meta more [subject] matter. Especially when paragraphs of meta obscure your post’s conclusion
I’m iffy on grouping your inner homunculus with “perception” rather than “cognition”, but the principle is sound: Show people that the universe is a strange place (still a bit of a lie to children, if anyone it’s us who are strange and ‘the universe’ which is normal) and demonstrate that their brain can deceive them in a way that doesn’t instantly trigger the usual bullshit status squabbles.
If it only takes the loss of a Rubber hand to prevent a loss of face, that is a small price to pay to open someone’s mind.
However, try not to succumb to the classic introspective meta trap, no matter how sweet its Siren call; in the end we only look inward to look outward: not as a goal in itself but as an instrumental stepping stone only. What I’m saying is, less meta more [subject] matter. Especially when paragraphs of meta obscure your post’s conclusion
Thanks for this. I’ve had this implicit anxiety that I haven’t ‘reached the bottom of the meta-rabbit hole.’ When I wrote the post, I definitely wasn’t explicitly thinking of introspection as a stepping stone to something more important.
I’m iffy on grouping your inner homunculus with “perception” rather than “cognition”
I don’t understand this. Can you elaborate? I suspect that you mean that there is no meaningful distinction between perception and cognition, since perception (I would say) is a form of cognition. I should also say that I originally used the word “reasoning,” rather than cognition. Do you think that I should revert the change? Really I meant that we should demonstrate how people’s brains are flawed, rather than how people are flawed. In any event, at least the principle is sound.
What I’m saying is, less meta more [subject] matter. Especially when paragraphs of meta obscure your post’s conclusion
Would you be willing to point out the things that you think are obscuring my conclusion? I’m not sure to what you’re referring.
I suspect that you mean that there is no meaningful distinction between perception and cognition, since perception (I would say) is a form of cognition.
Yes … and no (go away, Zizek!). The question isn’t how to “correctly” partition the brain’s different functions into disjoint, or overlapping, subsets / categories, nor how to label them. Each map you construct should be suited for the given purpose, and in this case talking about “perception” separately from “cognition” is—far from ‘paying rent’—making a subtle mistake. That of a well meaning but slightly disingenuous parent buying into his own explanation.
Bear with me: The reason that the rubber hand illusion and related material may be a good preaching tool is because it neatly sidesteps the many tribal affiliations / social signals associated with correcting someone, it groups itself with “optical illusions” rather than “this is where you reason wrongly”.
It’s a situation a bit like (da-da-dumm!) sailing between Scylla and Charybdis: If you told people you really try to cure them of some of their many cognitive biases, the ones prone to being offended (cough everyone) would be so, and the distinct advantage of the smoke-and-mirrors (well, mirrors at least) ‘perception experiment’ would be lost. On the other hand, the PERCEPTION ONLY, NO COGNITION INVOLVED disclaimer could correctly be seen as disingenious, since we don’t actually care about the perception aspect, not for our purposes, anyways. However, that’s an acceptable price to pay (I’d imagine the ensuant conversation along the lines of “Remember back then, you really wanted to use the rubber [hand] to improve my cognition, didn’t you?”—“Well, admittedly so … sorry, but it was a good hook [with fingers, nonwithstanding], eh? Can we rejoin the love-pile, now?”).
The reason I was iffy on us upholding that distinction was that we’re not undergoing the experiment, and we should be clear on what we’re doing (a function of cognition, rather than one revolving around perception), and which pedagogical trick we’re exploiting for doing so. After all, we still need to be able to look at ourselves in the mirror. Or, you know, at some rubber facsimile of us.
A related concept is the aforementioned Wittgenstein’s Ladder. It wasn’t an important remark, but you did ask …
Would you be willing to point out the things that you think are obscuring my conclusion?
Just referring to the paragraphs following your concluding remarks (albeit in “()” (brackets, that is)). While endnotes are unobtrusive, in this format a host of only tangentially related asides detracts from your central message; the coda should provide closure, not be an unrelated personal message to Eliezer.
I had to read this many times for it to really sink in, so I’m going to try performing an ideological Turing test just to make sure that I’m on the same page as you (I assume that term applies to what I’m about to do even though the examples in that post had to do with political and theological arguments):
Our purpose, both in performing the experiment and educating people about cognitive biases, is to demonstrate that people can misinterpret reality. To make a distinction between the purposes of the two forms of demonstration—besides being a useless exercise in this context because it doesn’t allow us to anticipate experiences that we would not be able to anticipate without the distinction—is to mislead the subject into thinking that our purpose in demonstrating illusions is not the same as our purpose in demonstrating biases. Even though we are making a specious distinction, to not make it would be worse because the subject would focus on both our and their social status rather than the argument, and therefore never learn enough to be able to understand that the distinction is specious. Because we (read: all of you and not me) already know that the distinction is specious, there is no reason to make the distinction here.
Once you let me know if I’ve paraphrased your explanation correctly, I’ll edit the OP accordingly.
On the bit about the concluding remarks:
I don’t understand what you mean when you say “(albeit in “()” (brackets, that is)).” Do you mean that these sorts of end notes are usually enclosed in brackets rather than parentheses and it’s a bit confusing because I’ve used so many parentheses throughout the entire post?
Also, I wasn’t sure where else I could say the things that I said at the end of this post, and I didn’t think that things like that would really matter in discussion, only on main. I always assumed that I would eventually remove them. I do think that I needed to say those things, especially because I’m pretty lost here having not yet read the sequences and being inexperienced; I don’t know what tags are appropriate, I don’t know how what I’ve written relates to the content in the sequences and other posts, I don’t explicitly understand the purpose of all of the religious references and therefore how appropriate the title is, etc. Maybe you’re specifically referring to formatting? Is there a way that I could format the notes to make them less obtrusive? As for the part specifically to Eliezer, when I wrote this, I considered what I’m proposing as a possible solution to the problem of, to use some of his words, “generalizing the initiation of the transition.” So even though I can see how it seems unrelated, I think that if I had included the message to him in the rationalist origin story thread then he wouldn’t understand the full context of why I came to that conclusion. On the other hand, I could have put what I said in this post in my comment on that thread, but it seems to me that this subject is deserving of its own post. From my perspective at the time, what I had to say in this post and what I had to say specifically to Eliezer were inextricable, so I put it here. Now I’m thinking maybe I could put the message at the end of my comment in that thread and just include a link saying “Read this first!” Does that clarify the message’s purpose? Tell me what you think about all of that.
Also, when I edit the post, since this is in discussion, should I include notes on what I’ve changed?
Yes; your paraphrasing about covers it. Nicely done, if I may say so. Let me reemphasize that it was a minor point overall, but still one I thought worth mentioning (in passing), if only in a half-sentence.
I meant to say parentheses and just confused them with brackets (not a native speaker, or writer, for that matter). The point only being that a post in a “meta content—subject level content—meta content” format which sandwiches your important content in between meta remarks loses some of its saliency, parentheses or no.
You are doing fine, all the aspects we’re discussing are minor nitpicks. There is no need to worry about the correct tags, or even to overly fret about the amount of meta that’s along for the ride. Insight trumps in-group signalling. My remarks were about on the same order of importance as advising a really long post to include a “tl;dr” summary at the end. I often ready mostly the beginning of a post and the conclusion, to judge whether the rest is likely to be worth the time. In your case, that had the somewhat funny result of wondering what the hell your title was referring to, since all I saw was meta, hyperbolically speaking. So I read more of the middle parts to supposedly fill in the gap, imagine my surprise when I encountered a thoughtful and interesting analysis in there. So while it was my laziness more so than any fault on your part, that’s why I brought it up.
Upvoted, you’re talented wrt your writing style. Congratulations on clawing your way back to the lifeworld, after your foray into continental philosophy—which is as close an intellectual equivalent to invading Russia in winter as I’ve ever heard of, with a corresponding rate of never returning.
However, try not to succumb to the classic introspective meta trap, no matter how sweet its Siren call; in the end we only look inward to look outward: not as a goal in itself but as an instrumental stepping stone only. What I’m saying is, less meta more [subject] matter. Especially when paragraphs of meta obscure your post’s conclusion
I’m iffy on grouping your inner homunculus with “perception” rather than “cognition”, but the principle is sound: Show people that the universe is a strange place (still a bit of a lie to children, if anyone it’s us who are strange and ‘the universe’ which is normal) and demonstrate that their brain can deceive them in a way that doesn’t instantly trigger the usual bullshit status squabbles.
If it only takes the loss of a Rubber hand to prevent a loss of face, that is a small price to pay to open someone’s mind.
Thanks for this. I’ve had this implicit anxiety that I haven’t ‘reached the bottom of the meta-rabbit hole.’ When I wrote the post, I definitely wasn’t explicitly thinking of introspection as a stepping stone to something more important.
I don’t understand this. Can you elaborate? I suspect that you mean that there is no meaningful distinction between perception and cognition, since perception (I would say) is a form of cognition. I should also say that I originally used the word “reasoning,” rather than cognition. Do you think that I should revert the change? Really I meant that we should demonstrate how people’s brains are flawed, rather than how people are flawed. In any event, at least the principle is sound.
Would you be willing to point out the things that you think are obscuring my conclusion? I’m not sure to what you’re referring.
Yes … and no (go away, Zizek!). The question isn’t how to “correctly” partition the brain’s different functions into disjoint, or overlapping, subsets / categories, nor how to label them. Each map you construct should be suited for the given purpose, and in this case talking about “perception” separately from “cognition” is—far from ‘paying rent’—making a subtle mistake. That of a well meaning but slightly disingenuous parent buying into his own explanation.
Bear with me: The reason that the rubber hand illusion and related material may be a good preaching tool is because it neatly sidesteps the many tribal affiliations / social signals associated with correcting someone, it groups itself with “optical illusions” rather than “this is where you reason wrongly”.
It’s a situation a bit like (da-da-dumm!) sailing between Scylla and Charybdis: If you told people you really try to cure them of some of their many cognitive biases, the ones prone to being offended (cough everyone) would be so, and the distinct advantage of the smoke-and-mirrors (well, mirrors at least) ‘perception experiment’ would be lost. On the other hand, the PERCEPTION ONLY, NO COGNITION INVOLVED disclaimer could correctly be seen as disingenious, since we don’t actually care about the perception aspect, not for our purposes, anyways. However, that’s an acceptable price to pay (I’d imagine the ensuant conversation along the lines of “Remember back then, you really wanted to use the rubber [hand] to improve my cognition, didn’t you?”—“Well, admittedly so … sorry, but it was a good hook [with fingers, nonwithstanding], eh? Can we rejoin the love-pile, now?”).
The reason I was iffy on us upholding that distinction was that we’re not undergoing the experiment, and we should be clear on what we’re doing (a function of cognition, rather than one revolving around perception), and which pedagogical trick we’re exploiting for doing so. After all, we still need to be able to look at ourselves in the mirror. Or, you know, at some rubber facsimile of us.
A related concept is the aforementioned Wittgenstein’s Ladder. It wasn’t an important remark, but you did ask …
Just referring to the paragraphs following your concluding remarks (albeit in “()” (brackets, that is)). While endnotes are unobtrusive, in this format a host of only tangentially related asides detracts from your central message; the coda should provide closure, not be an unrelated personal message to Eliezer.
I had to read this many times for it to really sink in, so I’m going to try performing an ideological Turing test just to make sure that I’m on the same page as you (I assume that term applies to what I’m about to do even though the examples in that post had to do with political and theological arguments):
Our purpose, both in performing the experiment and educating people about cognitive biases, is to demonstrate that people can misinterpret reality. To make a distinction between the purposes of the two forms of demonstration—besides being a useless exercise in this context because it doesn’t allow us to anticipate experiences that we would not be able to anticipate without the distinction—is to mislead the subject into thinking that our purpose in demonstrating illusions is not the same as our purpose in demonstrating biases. Even though we are making a specious distinction, to not make it would be worse because the subject would focus on both our and their social status rather than the argument, and therefore never learn enough to be able to understand that the distinction is specious. Because we (read: all of you and not me) already know that the distinction is specious, there is no reason to make the distinction here.
Once you let me know if I’ve paraphrased your explanation correctly, I’ll edit the OP accordingly.
On the bit about the concluding remarks:
I don’t understand what you mean when you say “(albeit in “()” (brackets, that is)).” Do you mean that these sorts of end notes are usually enclosed in brackets rather than parentheses and it’s a bit confusing because I’ve used so many parentheses throughout the entire post?
Also, I wasn’t sure where else I could say the things that I said at the end of this post, and I didn’t think that things like that would really matter in discussion, only on main. I always assumed that I would eventually remove them. I do think that I needed to say those things, especially because I’m pretty lost here having not yet read the sequences and being inexperienced; I don’t know what tags are appropriate, I don’t know how what I’ve written relates to the content in the sequences and other posts, I don’t explicitly understand the purpose of all of the religious references and therefore how appropriate the title is, etc. Maybe you’re specifically referring to formatting? Is there a way that I could format the notes to make them less obtrusive? As for the part specifically to Eliezer, when I wrote this, I considered what I’m proposing as a possible solution to the problem of, to use some of his words, “generalizing the initiation of the transition.” So even though I can see how it seems unrelated, I think that if I had included the message to him in the rationalist origin story thread then he wouldn’t understand the full context of why I came to that conclusion. On the other hand, I could have put what I said in this post in my comment on that thread, but it seems to me that this subject is deserving of its own post. From my perspective at the time, what I had to say in this post and what I had to say specifically to Eliezer were inextricable, so I put it here. Now I’m thinking maybe I could put the message at the end of my comment in that thread and just include a link saying “Read this first!” Does that clarify the message’s purpose? Tell me what you think about all of that.
Also, when I edit the post, since this is in discussion, should I include notes on what I’ve changed?
Yes; your paraphrasing about covers it. Nicely done, if I may say so. Let me reemphasize that it was a minor point overall, but still one I thought worth mentioning (in passing), if only in a half-sentence.
I meant to say parentheses and just confused them with brackets (not a native speaker, or writer, for that matter). The point only being that a post in a “meta content—subject level content—meta content” format which sandwiches your important content in between meta remarks loses some of its saliency, parentheses or no.
You are doing fine, all the aspects we’re discussing are minor nitpicks. There is no need to worry about the correct tags, or even to overly fret about the amount of meta that’s along for the ride. Insight trumps in-group signalling. My remarks were about on the same order of importance as advising a really long post to include a “tl;dr” summary at the end. I often ready mostly the beginning of a post and the conclusion, to judge whether the rest is likely to be worth the time. In your case, that had the somewhat funny result of wondering what the hell your title was referring to, since all I saw was meta, hyperbolically speaking. So I read more of the middle parts to supposedly fill in the gap, imagine my surprise when I encountered a thoughtful and interesting analysis in there. So while it was my laziness more so than any fault on your part, that’s why I brought it up.
tl;dr: Your post is fine, now go write new posts.
Out of curiosity, what is your native language?