From 05733195dc87b4989d54471335dd30424b1dfc5e Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: "M. Taylor Saotome-Westlake" Date: Sun, 24 Apr 2022 10:07:51 -0700 Subject: [PATCH] check in for a clean slate for more being alive on Sunday --- .../drafts/a-hill-of-validity-in-defense-of-meaning.md | 8 +++++--- ...eful-approximation-for-a-more-detailed-causal-model.md | 5 +++-- notes/a-hill-of-validity-sections.md | 3 +++ notes/post_ideas.txt | 5 ++--- 4 files changed, 13 insertions(+), 8 deletions(-) diff --git a/content/drafts/a-hill-of-validity-in-defense-of-meaning.md b/content/drafts/a-hill-of-validity-in-defense-of-meaning.md index abe0c01..0f6f411 100644 --- a/content/drafts/a-hill-of-validity-in-defense-of-meaning.md +++ b/content/drafts/a-hill-of-validity-in-defense-of-meaning.md @@ -40,7 +40,7 @@ A month later, I moved out of my mom's house in [Walnut Creek](https://en.wikipe (I would later change my mind about which side of the tunnel is the correct one.) -In Berkeley, I met some really interesting people who seemed quite similar to me along a lot of dimensions, but also very different along some other dimensions having to do with how they were currently living their life! (I see where the pattern-matching facilities in Yudkowsky's brain got that 20% figure from.) This prompted me to do a little bit more reading in some corners of the literature that I had certainly _heard of_, but hadn't already mastered and taken seriously in the previous twelve years of reading everything I could about sex and gender and transgender and feminism and evopsych. (Kay Brown's blog, [_On the Science of Changing Sex_](https://sillyolme.wordpress.com/), was especially helpful.) +In Berkeley, I met some really interesting people who seemed quite similar to me along a lot of dimensions, but also very different along some other dimensions having to do with how they were currently living their life! (I see where the pattern-matching faculties in Yudkowsky's brain got that 20% figure from.) This prompted me to do a little bit more reading in some corners of the literature that I had certainly _heard of_, but hadn't already mastered and taken seriously in the previous twelve years of reading everything I could about sex and gender and transgender and feminism and evopsych. (Kay Brown's blog, [_On the Science of Changing Sex_](https://sillyolme.wordpress.com/), was especially helpful.) Between the reading, and a series of increasingly frustrating private conversations, I gradually became increasingly persuaded that Blanchard _wasn't_ dumb and wrong, that his taxonomy of male-to-female transsexualism is _basically_ correct, at least as a first approximation. So far this story has just been about _my_ experience, and not anyone's theory of transsexualism (which I had assumed for years couldn't possibly apply to me), so let me take a moment to explain the theory now. @@ -90,7 +90,7 @@ Or consider this passage from Julia Serano's _Whipping Girl_ (I know I [keep](/2 "It became obvious that explanation could not account." I don't doubt Serano's reporting of her own phenomenal experiences, but "that explanation could not account" is _not an experience_; it's a _hypothesis_ about psychology, about the _causes_ of the experience. -I could go on ... but do I need to? After having seen enough of these _laughable_ denials of autogynephilia, the main question in my mind has become not, _Is the two-type feminine–androphilic/autogynephilic taxonomy of MtF transsexualism approximately true?_ (answer: yes, obviously) and more, _How dumb do you (proponents of gender-identity theories) think we (the general public) are?_ (answer: very, but this assessment is accurate). +I could go on ... but do I need to? After having seen enough of these _laughable_ denials of autogynephilia, the main question in my mind has become not, _Is the two-type androphilic/autogynephilic taxonomy of MtF transsexualism approximately true?_ (answer: yes, obviously) and more, _How dumb do you (proponents of gender-identity theories) think we (the general public) are?_ (answer: very, but this assessment is accurate). An important caveat must be made: [different causal/etiological stories could be compatible with the same _descriptive_ taxonomy.](/2021/Feb/you-are-right-and-i-was-wrong-reply-to-tailcalled-on-causality/) You shouldn't confuse my mere ridicule with a serious and rigorous critique of the strongest possible case for "gender expression deprivation anxiety" as a theoretical entity, which would be more work. But hopefully I've shown _enough_ work here, that the reader can perhaps empathize with the temptation to resort to ridicule? @@ -215,12 +215,14 @@ https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/MzKKi7niyEqkBPnyu/your-cheerful-price [TODO: proton concession] -[TODO: "Blegg Mode", "Where to Draw the Boundaries?", and failure] +[TODO: "Blegg Mode", "Where to Draw the Boundaries?", and failure /2019/May/hiatus/ ] [TODO: more blogging (https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5aqumaym7Jd2qhDcy/containment-thread-on-the-motivation-and-political-context), 2019 Christmas party, disclaimer on "Categories Were Made"] [TODO: categories clarification from EY—victory?!] +["Univariate fallacy" also a concession] + [TODO: "simplest and best" pronoun proposal, sometimes personally prudent] [TODO: why you should care; no one should like Scott and Eliezer's proposals; knowledge should go forward, not back] diff --git a/content/drafts/the-two-type-taxonomy-is-a-useful-approximation-for-a-more-detailed-causal-model.md b/content/drafts/the-two-type-taxonomy-is-a-useful-approximation-for-a-more-detailed-causal-model.md index c37695a..c7659e7 100644 --- a/content/drafts/the-two-type-taxonomy-is-a-useful-approximation-for-a-more-detailed-causal-model.md +++ b/content/drafts/the-two-type-taxonomy-is-a-useful-approximation-for-a-more-detailed-causal-model.md @@ -12,9 +12,10 @@ Concepts and theories are good to the extent that they can "pay for" their compl Moreover, if relativity hasn't been invented yet, it makes sense to stick with Newtonian gravity as the _best_ theory you have _so far_, even if there are a few anomalies [like the precession of Mercury](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tests_of_general_relativity#Perihelion_precession_of_Mercury) that it struggles to explain. -The same general principles of reasoning apply to psychological theories, even though psychology is a much more difficult subject matter and our available theories are correspondingly much poorer and vaguer. There's no way to make precise quantitative predictions about a human's behavior the way we can about the movements of the planets, but we still know _some_ things about humans, which get expressed as high-level generalities that nevertheless admit many exceptions: if you don't have the complicated true theory that would account for everything, then simple theories plus noise are better than _pretending not to have a theory_. As you learn more, you can try to refine more complicated theories that explain some of the anomalies that looked like "noise" to the simpler theory. +The same general principles of reasoning apply to psychological theories, even though psychology is a much more difficult subject matter and our available theories are correspondingly much poorer and vaguer. There's no way to make precise quantitative predictions about a human's behavior the way we can about the movements of the planets, but we still know _some_ things about humans, which get expressed as high-level generalities that nevertheless admit many exceptions: if you don't have the complicated true theory that would account for everything, then simple theories plus noise are better than _pretending not to have a theory_. As you learn more, you can try to pin down a more complicated theory that explains some of the anomalies that looked like "noise" to the simpler theory. + +What does this look like for psychological theories? In the crudest form, when we notice a pattern of traits that go together, we give it a name. -What does this look like for psychological theories? [If a category seems to come into types, you can reify those as separate sub-categories, like bipolar I and II. The idea that there's something to the idea that bipolar I and II are "different", is s] diff --git a/notes/a-hill-of-validity-sections.md b/notes/a-hill-of-validity-sections.md index 6344732..08732e3 100644 --- a/notes/a-hill-of-validity-sections.md +++ b/notes/a-hill-of-validity-sections.md @@ -729,3 +729,6 @@ Paul says so— Rob says so, too— > Help ourselves think more clearly. (I imagine this including a lot of trying-to-become-more-rational, developing and following relatively open/honest communication norms, and trying to build better mental models of crucial parts of the world.) + +> their verbal theories contradict their own datapoints +https://www.facebook.com/yudkowsky/posts/10159408250519228?comment_id=10159411435619228&reply_comment_id=10159411567794228 diff --git a/notes/post_ideas.txt b/notes/post_ideas.txt index 10c660e..7a1ca30 100644 --- a/notes/post_ideas.txt +++ b/notes/post_ideas.txt @@ -1,10 +1,11 @@ Urgent/needed for healing— +_ Trans Kids on the Margin, and Harms From Misleading Training Data _ The Two-Type Taxonomy Is a Useful Approximation for ... _ A Hill of Validity in Defense of Meaning Big posts— _ Book Review: Charles Murray's Facing Reality: Two Truths About Race in America -_ Trans Kids on the Margin, and Harms From Misleading Training Data + Minor— _ GPT-3 guest post @@ -22,8 +23,6 @@ _ Four Clusters _ Elision _vs_. Choice _ Karnofsky's presentism _ motivation for positing meta-attraction -_ HPMoR on the function of democracy vs. Yarvin's true election -_ Dolezal (working title) _ Blanchard's Dangerous Idea and the Plight of the Lucid Crossdreamer -- 2.17.1