Hmm it’s not that I find them confusing, and I even managed to explain them to someone who didn’t know about them. I think it just feels… too high complexity or something. Like there’s a simpler version just around the corner.
Maybe I’d benefit from 3 positive and negative real life examples of each level.
I had that experience at first. A bit like some chemistry professor just told me “the stages of boiling” as if we can objectively divide things into stages from almost-boiling water to a heavy boil, and I’m like, this level of descriptive accuracy sounds like it belongs in a cooking class rather than chemistry.
I also had the experience of explaining the levels to a friend. I got a “why is this important” type reaction. When I gave examples of mistakes people could make if they interpreted things at the wrong level (EG interpreting “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” as a factual question rather than signalling political allegiance), my friend said something along the lines of “that’s just a dumb mistake, I don’t need the levels to understand that”.
Right...! I think that’s a very good point on the usefulness of the model. Like, I find it interesting and useful as a model, but I don’t think I’ve ever applied it in practice.
Hmm it’s not that I find them confusing, and I even managed to explain them to someone who didn’t know about them. I think it just feels… too high complexity or something. Like there’s a simpler version just around the corner. Maybe I’d benefit from 3 positive and negative real life examples of each level.
maybe something closer to
causal reality
social reality
being causal about social reality
being social about being causal about social reality
not there yet, but closer for me.
I had that experience at first. A bit like some chemistry professor just told me “the stages of boiling” as if we can objectively divide things into stages from almost-boiling water to a heavy boil, and I’m like, this level of descriptive accuracy sounds like it belongs in a cooking class rather than chemistry.
I also had the experience of explaining the levels to a friend. I got a “why is this important” type reaction. When I gave examples of mistakes people could make if they interpreted things at the wrong level (EG interpreting “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” as a factual question rather than signalling political allegiance), my friend said something along the lines of “that’s just a dumb mistake, I don’t need the levels to understand that”.
Right...! I think that’s a very good point on the usefulness of the model. Like, I find it interesting and useful as a model, but I don’t think I’ve ever applied it in practice.