I do not understand the discourse around the word “agency”.
People speak as if they are trying to discover what the word means, as if the word came with a meaning built into it. Words do not work like that. The meaning of a word is what it is generally used to mean within some speech community. Dictionaries are scholarly records of those general usages. Let us consult a few. I will leave out meanings like “government agency” that are not relevant to this conversation.
Chambers: agency: see agent. agent: a person or thing that acts or exerts power
OED: active working or operation, working as a means to an end.
Merriam-Webster: the capacity, condition, or state of acting or of exerting power
That all seems clear enough. But perhaps these definitions and synonyms are too general and vague to articulate some more specialised meaning that has grown up in this community. What do people here mean to convey when they use the word?
Compare the situation for the word “consciousness”. In everyday use we know what it means: the sense of oneself, one’s own presence, being awake and able to interact with the world. The Problems of Consciousness are that we do not know how such a thing comes to be, or how it works, or to what extent it is present in non-human entities of various sorts, or in some borderline cases of humans, or how to even discover the answers to these questions. But we, who are conscious, have no difficulty knowing that we are, and knowing what we mean when we use the word. What we do not know is various physical facts relating to the thing itself. The mystery is not in the word.
So, what do the people who write so much about their puzzlement over “agency” mean by the word (example), in the way that they know what what is meant in the everyday use of the word “conscious”? And given what they mean, what is the real Problem of Agency that they want to solve, the problem that is about things in the world, the problem that exists independently of the words we use to describe it?
I get your point about the word agency which was the main point of the post but as this is lesswrong and since I can’t help myself, why did you pick consciousness as the other concept?
Consciousness has to be one of the most vague words that there is (see Critch’s post on this for example)
I would for example not ascribe to your definition of consciousness that you just said. I would want to talk about awareness and attention and self and non-self. I really don’t like the word consciousness.
Maybe this is actually a good comparison because I really don’t like the word agency either, it is too broad of an umbrella term and as a consequence it is often conflationary as well? So just like how different philsophers think that the hard problem of consciousness is different (as some believe that the idea of qualia makes no sense) so I think people have different definitions of agency. Some mean Embedded agency, some mean something you can take the intentional stance, some mean a sort of infrabayesian perspective on it (with layers of self-reflection and other 4d chess that I don’t understand). If we go to other fields like biology they call a slime mold an agent because it behaves in a way that can be described by a cybernetic control loop. So it seems quite woefully underdefined (in general) but if you talk to specific people who know what they’re doing they often have a precise definition
Idk if it is something that is dependent on something being pre-paradigmatic but I shalt stop yapping now as I realise I got a bit carried away.
Consciousness has to be one of the most vague words that there is
As vague as “agency”, as unproblematic as “agency” in everyday speech.
I am at a loss to understand the striving after a Mysterious Answer to the question “what is agency?”
A rock has none.
Water has very slightly more. It will find it way through the smallest crack in a dam, but cannot gather itself to leap over the top.
A thermostat has slightly more. “Blow winds, and crack your cheeks, rage, blow!”, but the room remains warm.
People have a lot more. Iron filings drawn towards a magnet will be stopped by a sheet of paper, but Romeo will find his way to Juliet whatever obstacles her family places in the way.
Like the dictionary definitions I quoted, that seems clear enough. There is no mystery here. The word “agency” means the capacity to do things, to vary one’s means in order to progress towards goals, and at higher levels, to conceive of and pursue new goals. There is no need to search for a mysterious essence underlying it like a Platonic form or a D&D character stat, or hope to create a plug-in module for “agency” the way Data has an “emotion” chip.
So, what do the people who write so much about their puzzlement over “agency” mean by the word[...]? And given what they mean, what is the real Problem of Agency that they want to solve[...]?
If they could define what they meant by the word, they wouldn’t be puzzled! You can’t ask a natural philosopher from 1820 “what do you mean by ‘vitalism’ and ‘organic’?” and expect them to say “Actually, what I meant was molecules containing chains of carbon atoms”.
Those names were fake explanations for how living things work. “Living thing” was an ordinary expression. Everyone could and can tell the difference between a dog and a rock. No-one knew how it works that some things are alive and some are not, so they gave it a name and mistook that for an explanation.
There is a real, empirical, phenomenon in chemistry. Some molecules contain carbon chains, and some molcules don’t. Usually experiments starting with carbon-chain molecules end with carbon-chain molecules, and experiments without carbon-chain molecules end up without carbon-chain molecules. But not always. It’s an almost-conservation law.
I feel like you’re telling the 19th century chemist “You speak as though you’re trying to discover what the word “organic” means. Words don’t work like that. The meaning of a word is what it is generally used to mean within some speech community [...].”
The chemist is trying to discover what the word ‘organic compound’ means. It’s not vacuous. They need to discover that molecules exist, that molecules are made of atoms, that those atoms are conserved, and that the “organic” vs “inorganic” distinction they’ve been puzzling over is about carbon atoms. The chemists are not arguing over which known concept the word “organic” refers to. They using to words “organic” and “inorganic” to point to natural concepts they don’t yet understand and ask what is the natural shape of those concepts.
EDIT I think it’s fine to say “Agency is a nebulous word that might mean many things. When you’re writing with confusion about agency, please taboo the word ‘agency’ so we understand what you’re pointing to better”. But I would put that on the word ‘consciousness’ much, much more than ‘agency’.
I feel like you’re telling the 19th century chemist “You speak as though you’re trying to discover what the word “organic” means. Words don’t work like that. The meaning of a word is what it is generally used to mean within some speech community [...].”
I am (if he has not already realised this himself).
The chemist is trying to discover what the word ‘organic compound’ means.
No, he’s trying to discover things about organic compounds (which simply meant chemical substances found in living organisms but not yet outside of them). What these substances are made of, how they are created, their role in organisms, and so on. This is not discovering the meaning of “organic compound”.
Wikipedia tells me that “Little consensus exists among chemists on the exact definition of organic compound”. This is not a lack of consensus about their chemistry.
I do not understand the discourse around the word “agency”.
People speak as if they are trying to discover what the word means, as if the word came with a meaning built into it. Words do not work like that. The meaning of a word is what it is generally used to mean within some speech community. Dictionaries are scholarly records of those general usages. Let us consult a few. I will leave out meanings like “government agency” that are not relevant to this conversation.
Chambers: agency: see agent. agent: a person or thing that acts or exerts power
OED: active working or operation, working as a means to an end.
Merriam-Webster: the capacity, condition, or state of acting or of exerting power
Roget’s Thesaurus: causation, efficacy, power, operation, work, force, instrumentality.
That all seems clear enough. But perhaps these definitions and synonyms are too general and vague to articulate some more specialised meaning that has grown up in this community. What do people here mean to convey when they use the word?
Compare the situation for the word “consciousness”. In everyday use we know what it means: the sense of oneself, one’s own presence, being awake and able to interact with the world. The Problems of Consciousness are that we do not know how such a thing comes to be, or how it works, or to what extent it is present in non-human entities of various sorts, or in some borderline cases of humans, or how to even discover the answers to these questions. But we, who are conscious, have no difficulty knowing that we are, and knowing what we mean when we use the word. What we do not know is various physical facts relating to the thing itself. The mystery is not in the word.
So, what do the people who write so much about their puzzlement over “agency” mean by the word (example), in the way that they know what what is meant in the everyday use of the word “conscious”? And given what they mean, what is the real Problem of Agency that they want to solve, the problem that is about things in the world, the problem that exists independently of the words we use to describe it?
I get your point about the word agency which was the main point of the post but as this is lesswrong and since I can’t help myself, why did you pick consciousness as the other concept?
Consciousness has to be one of the most vague words that there is (see Critch’s post on this for example)
I would for example not ascribe to your definition of consciousness that you just said. I would want to talk about awareness and attention and self and non-self. I really don’t like the word consciousness.
Maybe this is actually a good comparison because I really don’t like the word agency either, it is too broad of an umbrella term and as a consequence it is often conflationary as well? So just like how different philsophers think that the hard problem of consciousness is different (as some believe that the idea of qualia makes no sense) so I think people have different definitions of agency. Some mean Embedded agency, some mean something you can take the intentional stance, some mean a sort of infrabayesian perspective on it (with layers of self-reflection and other 4d chess that I don’t understand). If we go to other fields like biology they call a slime mold an agent because it behaves in a way that can be described by a cybernetic control loop. So it seems quite woefully underdefined (in general) but if you talk to specific people who know what they’re doing they often have a precise definition
Idk if it is something that is dependent on something being pre-paradigmatic but I shalt stop yapping now as I realise I got a bit carried away.
As vague as “agency”, as unproblematic as “agency” in everyday speech.
I am at a loss to understand the striving after a Mysterious Answer to the question “what is agency?”
A rock has none.
Water has very slightly more. It will find it way through the smallest crack in a dam, but cannot gather itself to leap over the top.
A thermostat has slightly more. “Blow winds, and crack your cheeks, rage, blow!”, but the room remains warm.
People have a lot more. Iron filings drawn towards a magnet will be stopped by a sheet of paper, but Romeo will find his way to Juliet whatever obstacles her family places in the way.
Like the dictionary definitions I quoted, that seems clear enough. There is no mystery here. The word “agency” means the capacity to do things, to vary one’s means in order to progress towards goals, and at higher levels, to conceive of and pursue new goals. There is no need to search for a mysterious essence underlying it like a Platonic form or a D&D character stat, or hope to create a plug-in module for “agency” the way Data has an “emotion” chip.
If they could define what they meant by the word, they wouldn’t be puzzled! You can’t ask a natural philosopher from 1820 “what do you mean by ‘vitalism’ and ‘organic’?” and expect them to say “Actually, what I meant was molecules containing chains of carbon atoms”.
Those names were fake explanations for how living things work. “Living thing” was an ordinary expression. Everyone could and can tell the difference between a dog and a rock. No-one knew how it works that some things are alive and some are not, so they gave it a name and mistook that for an explanation.
There is a real, empirical, phenomenon in chemistry. Some molecules contain carbon chains, and some molcules don’t. Usually experiments starting with carbon-chain molecules end with carbon-chain molecules, and experiments without carbon-chain molecules end up without carbon-chain molecules. But not always. It’s an almost-conservation law.
I feel like you’re telling the 19th century chemist “You speak as though you’re trying to discover what the word “organic” means. Words don’t work like that. The meaning of a word is what it is generally used to mean within some speech community [...].”
The chemist is trying to discover what the word ‘organic compound’ means. It’s not vacuous. They need to discover that molecules exist, that molecules are made of atoms, that those atoms are conserved, and that the “organic” vs “inorganic” distinction they’ve been puzzling over is about carbon atoms. The chemists are not arguing over which known concept the word “organic” refers to. They using to words “organic” and “inorganic” to point to natural concepts they don’t yet understand and ask what is the natural shape of those concepts.
EDIT I think it’s fine to say “Agency is a nebulous word that might mean many things. When you’re writing with confusion about agency, please taboo the word ‘agency’ so we understand what you’re pointing to better”. But I would put that on the word ‘consciousness’ much, much more than ‘agency’.
I am (if he has not already realised this himself).
No, he’s trying to discover things about organic compounds (which simply meant chemical substances found in living organisms but not yet outside of them). What these substances are made of, how they are created, their role in organisms, and so on. This is not discovering the meaning of “organic compound”.
Wikipedia tells me that “Little consensus exists among chemists on the exact definition of organic compound”. This is not a lack of consensus about their chemistry.