Extremely so; you only ever get good non-specifics as the result having iteratively built up good specifics.
b) possible to do?
In general, yes. In this case? Fairly likely not; it’s bad poetry, the senses that generated are high variance, likely nonsense, some chance of some sense. And alignment is hard and understanding minds is hard.
c) something you wish to do in this conversation?
Not so much, I guess. I mean, I think some of the metaphors I gave, e.g. the one about the 10 year old, are quite specific in themselves, in the sense that there’s some real thing that happens when a human grows up which someone could go and think about in a well-defined way, since it’s a real thing in the world; I don’t know how to make more specific what, if anything, is supposed to be abstracted from that as an idea for understanding minds, and more-specific-ing seems hard enough that I’d rather rest it.
Thanks for noting explicitly. (Though, your thing about “deflecting” seems, IDK what, like you’re mad that I’m not doing something, or something, and I’d rather you figure out on your own what it is you’re expecting from people explicitly and explicitly update your expectations, so that you don’t accidentally incorrectly take me (or whoever you’re talking to) to have implicitly agreed to do something (maybe I’m wrong that’s what happened). It’s connotatively false to say I’m “intentionally deflecting” just because I’m not doing the thing you wanted / expected. Specific-ing isn’t the only good conversational move and some good conversational moves go in the opposite direction.)
Mostly, all good. (I’m mainly making this comment about process because it’s a thing that crops up a lot and seems sort of important to interactions in general, not because it particularly matters in this case.) Just, “I meant you’re intentionally moving the conversation away from trying to nail down specifics”; so, it’s true that (1) I was intentionally doing X, and (2) X entails not particularly going toward nailing down specifics, and (3) relative to trying to nail down specifics, (2) entails systematically less nailing down of specifics. But it’s not the case that I intended to avoid nailing down specifics; I just was doing something else. I’m not just saying that I wasn’t *deliberately* avoiding specifics, I’m saying I was behaving differently from someone who has a goal or subgoal of avoiding specifics. Someone with such a goal might say some things that have the sole effect of moving the conversation away from specifics. For example, they might provide fake specifics to distract you from the fact they’re not nailing down specifics; they might mock you or otherwise punish you for asking for specifics; they might ask you / tell you not to ask questions because they call for specifics; they might criticize questions for calling for specifics; etc. In general there’s a potentially adversarial dynamic here, where someone intends Y but pretends not to intend Y, and does this by acting as though they intend X which entails pushing against Y; and this muddies the waters for people just intending X, not Y, because third parties can’t distinguish them. Anyway, I just don’t like the general cultural milieu of treating it as an ironclad inference that if someone’s actions systematically result in Y, they’re intending Y. It’s really not a valid inference in theory or practice. The situation is sometimes muddied, such that it’s appropriate to treat such people *as though* they’re intending Y, but distinguishing this from a high-confidence proposition that they are in fact intending Y (even non-deliberately!) is important IMO.
a) worth doing?
Extremely so; you only ever get good non-specifics as the result having iteratively built up good specifics.
b) possible to do?
In general, yes. In this case? Fairly likely not; it’s bad poetry, the senses that generated are high variance, likely nonsense, some chance of some sense. And alignment is hard and understanding minds is hard.
c) something you wish to do in this conversation?
Not so much, I guess. I mean, I think some of the metaphors I gave, e.g. the one about the 10 year old, are quite specific in themselves, in the sense that there’s some real thing that happens when a human grows up which someone could go and think about in a well-defined way, since it’s a real thing in the world; I don’t know how to make more specific what, if anything, is supposed to be abstracted from that as an idea for understanding minds, and more-specific-ing seems hard enough that I’d rather rest it.
Thanks for noting explicitly. (Though, your thing about “deflecting” seems, IDK what, like you’re mad that I’m not doing something, or something, and I’d rather you figure out on your own what it is you’re expecting from people explicitly and explicitly update your expectations, so that you don’t accidentally incorrectly take me (or whoever you’re talking to) to have implicitly agreed to do something (maybe I’m wrong that’s what happened). It’s connotatively false to say I’m “intentionally deflecting” just because I’m not doing the thing you wanted / expected. Specific-ing isn’t the only good conversational move and some good conversational moves go in the opposite direction.)
Mostly, all good. (I’m mainly making this comment about process because it’s a thing that crops up a lot and seems sort of important to interactions in general, not because it particularly matters in this case.) Just, “I meant you’re intentionally moving the conversation away from trying to nail down specifics”; so, it’s true that (1) I was intentionally doing X, and (2) X entails not particularly going toward nailing down specifics, and (3) relative to trying to nail down specifics, (2) entails systematically less nailing down of specifics. But it’s not the case that I intended to avoid nailing down specifics; I just was doing something else. I’m not just saying that I wasn’t *deliberately* avoiding specifics, I’m saying I was behaving differently from someone who has a goal or subgoal of avoiding specifics. Someone with such a goal might say some things that have the sole effect of moving the conversation away from specifics. For example, they might provide fake specifics to distract you from the fact they’re not nailing down specifics; they might mock you or otherwise punish you for asking for specifics; they might ask you / tell you not to ask questions because they call for specifics; they might criticize questions for calling for specifics; etc. In general there’s a potentially adversarial dynamic here, where someone intends Y but pretends not to intend Y, and does this by acting as though they intend X which entails pushing against Y; and this muddies the waters for people just intending X, not Y, because third parties can’t distinguish them. Anyway, I just don’t like the general cultural milieu of treating it as an ironclad inference that if someone’s actions systematically result in Y, they’re intending Y. It’s really not a valid inference in theory or practice. The situation is sometimes muddied, such that it’s appropriate to treat such people *as though* they’re intending Y, but distinguishing this from a high-confidence proposition that they are in fact intending Y (even non-deliberately!) is important IMO.