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Comment by tiarat2 on The topic is not the content · 2021-07-27T04:46:53.001Z · LW · GW

From Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance (highlight mine)

John looks at the motorcycle and he sees steel in various shapes and has negative feelings about these steel shapes and turns off the whole thing. I look at the shapes of the steel now and I see ideas. He thinks I’m working on parts. I’m working on concepts.

If the work is exciting at the conceptual level, the content won't matter. It's only when you construe the content conceptually as something aversive does the problem arise.

Content is neutral.

As a UX designer, 90% of my work involves drawing rectangles. But that's now how I(or any other designer) see it. Conceptually I'm making an Interface.

Comment by tiarat2 on Do We Believe Everything We're Told? · 2021-05-28T10:45:02.943Z · LW · GW

This paper gives a logical account. Excerpt - 

To take a more extreme example, when we read the following:

You’re a tree.

we must believe this claim as we do. But our belief only lasts the fraction of a second that it takes us to conclude that we're not a tree, and we'll therefore likely have no recollection of it.

So, although we always believe a claim upon it entering our mind - whether it was produced by our own mind or someone else’s - that belief can also then be replaced with equal ease, and possibly by an immediately preceding belief, and possibly within such a short period of time that we have no recollection of our brief belief. Therefore, upon being presented with this theory of belief formation, and then thinking about how we form beliefs in practice, we may falsely recall, or imagine, cases of us not believing claims upon them entering our mind. Also, as will be explained in part seven, the briefness of such beliefs is one of several reasons why our belief of every claim that enters our mind doesn't naturally come to our attention.

To think X is to believe X

Regarding claims, as explained, if claim X exists in our mind, then we must be either thinking X or thinking about X. Therefore, as we're simply thinking 'There's milk in the fridge', we're not thinking about this claim. That is, we're simply thinking about the existence of milk in the fridge, and not about this claim about the existence of milk in the fridge. Therefore, as we're simply thinking this claim, its content can't exist in our mind as the content of a claim, because that would involve thinking about the claim. And if, as we're simply thinking this claim, its content doesn't exist in our mind as the content of a mere claim - a mere representation - then the only other logical possibility is that it exists in our mind as reality. And to say that the content of a claim exists in our mind as reality is to say that we believe it. Therefore, simply thinking 'There's milk in the fridge' involves believing that there's milk in the fridge. And the same logic applies to our thinking any claim: thinking claim X necessarily involves believing X.

Comment by tiarat2 on “PR” is corrosive; “reputation” is not. · 2021-04-29T05:30:26.196Z · LW · GW

A visual demonstration of this principle can found here