[HN Gopher] Epistemic legibility: being easy to argue with is a ... ___________________________________________________________________ Epistemic legibility: being easy to argue with is a virtue Author : shrikant Score : 183 points Date : 2022-03-25 14:09 UTC (8 hours ago) (HTM) web link (acesounderglass.com) (TXT) w3m dump (acesounderglass.com) | bertil wrote: | I believe that this is a key aspect of data-driven leadership, | and the Friday meeting that Google founders started and many | other companies imitated: make it easier for employees to argue | against decisions. No organisation is perfect, or even good, so | any effort to make complaints louder, clearer, more structured is | incredibly valuable. One grostesque example of where that chain | of information is broken is how Customer service teams are | isolated. | padobson wrote: | I thought the concept of Epistemic Spot Checks was a great idea, | so I was hoping that there might be some on the blog checking | materials I had previously read so I could compare my intuitions | with the author's hobby, but I didn't find anything. | | The About Me says the author gave up the project after a year or | so, but I'm still curious about updating my own epistemological | toolbox. Does anyone have any suggestions? | skybrian wrote: | Maybe check out other posts on the blog to see how they did it? | They've done epistemic spot checks on book chapters. It sounds | like a lot of work! | | Looks like these blog posts are tagged: | | https://acesounderglass.com/tag/epistemicspotcheck/ | dilippkumar wrote: | Is this author well known in some community? Their writing is | superb, and I have to ask who this is. | red_admiral wrote: | This author is certainly known in the rationalist-ish ("less | wrong", Scott Alexander etc.) community; whether or not they'd | consider themselves a member I don't know. Not all rationalist | posts are that well written, but there are certainly more I've | enjoyed like that. | | I think the author might have heard of Seeing Like a State and | the idea of legibility through the book review on | slatestarcodex, for example. | | EDIT: from their about page, "Before this, I was a software | engineer first at a few FAANG companies and later at start | ups." I guess that counts as another community of sorts? | version_five wrote: | I didn't see it mentioned, I think I "epistemic literacy" is the | other side of the coin. I see examples of people demanding | citations for reasoning that is part of a work, of people just | not understanding something, or of only really being able to | blindly follow based on province or authority without trying to | reconcile back to what they know. | | If there is going to be a standard for legibility, there should | be one for literacy too - it's especially important when learning | from a debate where readers and writers (or sources and sinks) | switch roles, to understand how different positions are engaging | with each other's arguments, not just how they are making them | civilized wrote: | 2 + 2 = 4 [citation needed] | awb wrote: | > I see examples of people demanding citations for reasoning | that is part of a work, of people just not understanding | something, or of only really being able to blindly follow based | on province or authority without trying to reconcile back to | what they know. | | That's a tricky one for me because I see a lot of utility in | asking for sources: | | a) Curiosity. Maybe I really want to know how this person came | to believe what they did even if I'm pretty sure they're wrong. | | b) Challenge. A version of the Socratic Method, helping them | learn through questioning their assumptions. | | c) Learning. A genuine quest for knowledge, that perhaps might | yield more unique or varied results than Google. | | d) Depth. Possibly helping others in a public thread (or the | author) realize that it might be an epistemically illegible | argument requiring greater scrutiny, discussion or evidence. | | I get that asking for sources can also be lazy or ill | intentioned, but for the most part I don't mind it. | adfgadfgaery wrote: | I think you misunderstand OP. The purpose of citations is to | prove facts. The argument made based on those facts does not | need a citation. | | Much of the time it isn't fair to ask for citations even for | specific facts, but that's a separate problem. | TameAntelope wrote: | This is actually a huge pet peeve of mine; when people ask for | a citation for reasoning, and then smugly declaring victory | when no such citation is provided, as if you even could "cite" | analysis. | spacemanmatt wrote: | It's a bit more than a pet peeve for me. It's exactly | shirking any ability to perform or judge analysis, instead | granting total deference to "authorities" that should be | cited to provide credibility. | dataduck wrote: | That's especially fair, as there's a good-faith way of | engaging with such things that they've avoided: "Could you | expand on this please?" | jgod wrote: | Source? | skybrian wrote: | Even expert analysis isn't evidence. At its best, an expert | can give you a sense of the range of possibilities, which | might include things you never thought of. But actually | knowing what's happening in a specific case requires | evidence. | | It seems like being clear about what you're doing (are you | just discussing possibilities or trying to claim something | specific) would go a long way in avoiding such | misunderstandings. | | (And I of course don't know which cases you're talking about, | so I'm just talking about possibilities.) | egberts1 wrote: | "That's gibberish" probably could be better said as "that goes | against all factual truths that I've learned." | [deleted] | AnimalMuppet wrote: | No, "that's gibberish" means " _I can 't tell_ whether it goes | against factual truths, because I can't tell what it's actually | claiming." | | [Edit: And one of the marks of at least some kinds of BS is | that it tries to obscure what is actually being claimed, so | that you can't disprove it.] | yboris wrote: | Any time I heard "epistemic" I am reminded of the stellar paper | "In Praise of Epistemic Irresponsibility: How Lazy and Ignorant | Can You Be?" by Michael Bishop | | Arguing that in numerous settings, even crude simple linear | mathematical models outperform experts in a variety of tasks. | | https://www.jstor.org/stable/20118248 | [deleted] | bruhvinston wrote: | MaxMoney wrote: | ganzuul wrote: | ...Falsifiable? The author uses a lot of words and seems to | appreciate brevity, but isn't the entire article summarized by | this one word? | fellowniusmonk wrote: | I took it as more in the realm of information theory and less | about hard science or even content. | | Less about falsifiable or correct and "does this compile". | | More "can I easily grok what this function is trying to do even | if it isn't compiling". | | I see this term as an attempt to define a precursor to "Cogent" | or maybe it's an attempt to give "Cogent" a more formalized | definition. | ganzuul wrote: | I got the additional impression that there are bounds to how | freely the reader can interpret the narrative. Thus freed | from endless mental contortion to make the argument work, the | reader can assume that they are not too ignorant to | understand the wit of the author but actually able to judge | them as lacking. - The author has not made themself beyond | reproach by presenting an irrefutable argument. | fellowniusmonk wrote: | Ah, yeah, that makes sense. | | I hadn't thought in terms of hostile argument... you see | this in verbal argument sometimes, where a person rambles | or says vaguely contradicting things to prevent themselves | from alienating their fan base. | | Ambiguity lets people who endorse you to contort their | interpretation into something they like. | | So I think their advocating for specificity makes sense, it | helps ensure that the argument is about some _thing_ and | you're not engaging with some unknown meta game that lives | outside the argument itself. | [deleted] | khafra wrote: | Falsifiability is about grounding out in an experiment that can | be performed. Epistemic legibility is a generalization of the | concept, where the arguer highlights the cruxes of potential | disagreement, and points to whatever evidence they feel is | convincing--whether that's experiments you can replicate, | official records, expert opinions, or their own introspection. | ganzuul wrote: | Ah, refutable. | jl6 wrote: | An excellent piece of terminology. Closely related to the concept | of "not even wrong", I think? | spacemanmatt wrote: | That description ("not ever wrong") is some of my favorite | academic side-eye. | beebmam wrote: | Superbly written and argued. Assessing an argument's Epistemic | Legibility is a new tool in my toolbox for identifying weak | arguments. | | > I expect having a handle with which to say "no I don't have a | concise argument about why this work is wrong, and that's a fact | about the work" to be very useful. | | This was my favorite quote from the article | awb wrote: | I've seen "Source?" used as a concise critique against what I | consider to be epistemically illegible arguments. | renewiltord wrote: | Yeah, but P(Valid Critique | Source) is low. For instance, | behold as I use it illegitimately against you: "Would you | mind linking to where you've seen this use of 'Source?'?" | | Besides, legibility is about the argument - it doesn't make | sense to talk about a "Source". The source is me. I am the | one making the argument. | | Statements of fact aren't arguments. "There is a giant | octopus besieging NYC right now". There's no argument there. | It is merely a statement. | | An example legible argument is: | | - There is likely a lot of squid ink covering NYC | | - This is likely because there is a positively colossal squid | creature floating above NYC at the moment | | - Squid creatures (colossal or otherwise) discharge ink when | attacked | | - We are attacking this humongous monstrosity | | In fact, "Source?" works better against a legible argument | since you can identify which part needs the extra stuff. This | argument is fairly legible and is practically just | syllogisms. It's merely the case that a premise is wrong - | something which you can conclude by asking for the source for | a crucial premise. | | With an illegible argument, you could debunk the source of | one of the claims and still be unable to trace its impact on | the conclusion. | | For instance: | | It's probably raining in NYC right now because it's kind of | the conditions that would cause rain if you know what I mean. | But there's also this squid creature in the air. It rains | when there's squids. Here, read this article about colossal | squid ink rain. We all know that squid rain is a thing. | yboris wrote: | Also reminds me of "computational kindness" where, for example, | you give people 2 specific date-times to have lunch, rather than | asking them to look through their entire calendar and come up | with something (it's easier to check two time slots than to think | about all your obligations). | | Comes from Brian Christian and Tom Griffiths' "Algorithms to Live | By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions" | | https://boingboing.net/2016/06/17/algorithms-to-live-by-what... | chrisweekly wrote: | ATLB is such a great book. I need to reread it now that I've | learned how to take better notes. | fsociety wrote: | What'd you learn for taking better notes? Always curious how | to improve note-taking. | leobg wrote: | Exactly. Have been hoping to find more books by the same | author, but apparently it's the only one he has written? | ZeroGravitas wrote: | One of the authors has another couple of books that sound | similarly interesting. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Christian | leobg wrote: | Good point. Thank you. | miga wrote: | How different is "comprehensibility" from "epistemic legibility"? | | Comprehensible arguments are easier to argue with, and favoured | by rhetorics. | droopyEyelids wrote: | A comprehensible argument isnt necessarily easy to test. | | One of the first points he makes in the piece! | morelisp wrote: | No. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-03-25 23:00 UTC)