give the evidence not the theory

post by brown (niclas) · 2018-09-28T04:52:31.729Z · LW · GW · 3 comments

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3 comments

I walk up to a friend. "Tea's just great, amirite?"

This is how I think by default. How this belief arose was that I put some leaves in boiling water, waited a little & took a sip, wonderful warmth filled me and the liquid enthrals & entertains for a little while. I then associate the good feels with the cup of tea.

I want to share this feeling. So I condense this experience into some words, I try to pass the good feels to a friend; "Isn't tea great?"

And yet, I've neglected something important, my involvement in the whole process.

Tea = Great, There is added complexity that I'm not taking into account. Great is a two valued function that needs to include me as an argument. Who is it that is doing the enjoying?

Great?(Tea, Niclas) = True.

Whereas for my friend Steve, it may very well be the case that:

Great?(Tea,Steve) = False!

So I've somewhat violently imposed my values on the world [1], and have forced a worldview onto Steve that he now has to disentangle.

Steve's thought process goes something like. "Tea = wonderful" that's false, but "Niclas = good" that's true, but "if person = good, they don't say false things". contradiction.

So Steve can choose to decide maybe tea is actually great, Niclas isn't good or good people may say false things sometimes. Until Steve has the added step of running his Sally-Anne module. "different people have different preferences" or the "yeah some people do like vanilla ice-cream" [2]

Let us say I'd said: "Tea makes me feel all warm inside". Now when Steve tries to understand this: "Tea makes Niclas all warm & gooey" and if he couples that with "Niclas likes to feel all warm" He'll end up with "Nick likes tea"! Which is much closer to the truth, Steve now has my experience-data at his disposal.

Perhaps reporting closer to the experience can reduce inter-person confusion. However if Steve also likes tea, there's no need.

[1] Everywhere I look I see my values.

[2] Some people are just silly, aye?

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comment by Bucky · 2018-09-28T14:07:30.646Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

I guess for obviously subjective things like tea this isn’t much of a problem.If something subjective feels objective it might be. Was this post inspired by any particular example?

Replies from: niclas
↑ comment by brown (niclas) · 2018-09-28T22:26:39.261Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

I don't think I'll give you the exact example. However it was similar to the tea sentence as in it felt "obviously subjective". Thing was, there was also a bit of social good agreeing with me. A closer example might be if I'd said "runs are wonderful", Given society thinks "exercise = good". Steve already felt bad for not doing enough exercise.

Funnily, in my some of my social circles people have had the reverse problem. Friends have felt a little bad expressing that they enjoy exercise. Since in tiny_society_of_mine "exercise = terrible" because I'm fed up of all the exercise-guilt.

Replies from: Bucky
↑ comment by Bucky · 2018-09-29T19:32:10.101Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

That is difficult when it feels obviously subjective to you but the other person takes it objectively. I tend to deliberately just say “I like tea” instead of “tea is great”. Your version sounds useful if you want to explore why you end up with different opinions.