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No nuanced and thoughtful words survive first contact with a person of average intelligence.
A group of people is slightly smarter than its dumbest member
Nuanced/thoughtful words cannot survive in the metamind of a group of people
A group of people is slightly smarter than its dumbest member
Nuanced/thoughtful words cannot survive in the metamind of a group of people
The above is a slight exaggeration, in part because of the same effect it tries to describe.
In order for an idea to disseminate, it must be unequivocal.
Simplicity/complexity is not the only limiting axis.
In order for an idea to disseminate, it must be unequivocal.
Simplicity/complexity is not the only limiting axis.
Consider free will vs determinism. Both of the naive interpretations of this paradox are smooth-brained and awful, but they are unequivocal so they are communicable so they spread.
There is no 3rd option, there is either determinism or chaos. Quantum indeterminacy is a way of tokenizing the unknowable, it doesn't mean the universe itself is chaotic, only that our models and observations are necessarily and intractably imprecise.
If there were truly random numbers hiding in the machinations of cognition, that would be the opposite of âfree willâ: it would be a kind of demonic insanity. Our brains at the least must be deterministic in order to function; you would be unable to make commitments or decisions
Ultimately the feeling of "freedom", the concept of freedom, hinges on the unpredictability of the future. The study of cellular automata reveals that deceptively simple initial conditions can yield computationally intractable complexity https://www.theguardian.com/science/alexs-adventures-in-numberland/2014/dec/15/the-game-of-life-a-beginners-guide
That the whole state of the world flows inevitably from its initial conditions in no way removes our agency; the opposite is true; cognition is wholly contingent on this fact. That the future flows predictably from the past, that the universe is stable, makes agency possible
The computer that predicts the state of the world at time t[n] from time t[0] is at least as big as the world. In truth it is the world. Nothing is pre-determined and if your choices are inevitable it is only from a hypothetical outside perspective that doesn't exist
If god is anything he is a set of rules like:
Each cell with 1 or 0 neighbors dies, as if by solitude.
Each cell with 4 or more neighbors dies, as if by overpopulation.
Each cell with 2 or 3 neighbors survives.
Each cell with 3 neighbors becomes populated.
Some call this Gnon
Each cell with 1 or 0 neighbors dies, as if by solitude.
Each cell with 4 or more neighbors dies, as if by overpopulation.
Each cell with 2 or 3 neighbors survives.
Each cell with 3 neighbors becomes populated.
Some call this Gnon
People who believe in free will have better life outcomes on average. Victims of this were fooled by words. You are a decision making machine: you ingest inputs and map them to actions, you do this in a predictable world.
The error is conflating fatalism (your decisions don't matter) with determinism (the world is stable)
But all this is is a diversion: the point is that the entire misunderstanding is encoded in the four words "free will vs. determinism". Anyone who knows what these four words mean, with no additional context, instantly understands the (false) dichotomy.
Much like the seed of a Conway's Life scenario, these four words generate a complex universe of discourse, in this case founded upon an error. When you propagate the meme, you have about enough bandwidth for its name. We don't actually share ideas, we share seeds of models.
In spite of the fact that words don't map cleanly from mind to mind, we're all running on similar enough neurological hardware for this to work. Jesus explained this in the parable of the sower. https://twitter.com/0x49fa98/status/1025737938682822656
Sacred scriptures are full of model seeds. "All have sinned and fall short of the glory" is about as big as a model seed gets. Notice: simple, unequivocal. "Go ye therefore into all the world". "it is by grace you have been saved"
It takes about 4 model seeds to build a self-propagating memeplex that can cohere with itself over time. https://twitter.com/0x49fa98/status/1022156924035391488
Consider how a single model seed can reshape a social landscape. "Gender is a social construct" You don't need to understand anything about social constructionism to instantly grasp this idea. A supporting fact like "wearing dresses isn't innate to female biology" is all it takes
Whatever nuance academicians might intend with it, it will brook exactly none. The virile version of this idea is simple and above all UNEQUIVOCAL. "socially constructed" = determined by convention = mutable = contingent, not necessary => anyone can have whatever gender they want
This property of model seeds is why itâs important to understand the idea of the "realman", and why the realman is more useful than the steelman. Rationalists have another name for real- and steel-man. They call it "motte and bailey" https://twitter.com/0x49fa98/status/1025367188985663488
The special power of âgender is socially constructed" is that it provokes the equally midwitted counter-position, âgender is innateâ, which is inevitably a losing stance; itâs less true and and even less interesting. Norm inversion ensues https://twitter.com/0x49fa98/status/1027980897033674752
A truthful model is more like: gender and sex are a feedback loop between social performance and biological tendency. Masculine and feminine archetypes are not all good, but the good ones are aspirational, and require work on the part of a man or woman to achieve them
Gender IS performative but rather than being an excuse to reject it, this is grounds to strive towards it, to perfect it, for a man to become an idealized man, and a woman to become an idealized woman, the consummation of their biology, rather than the negation
But this requires nuance, and ideological battles are fought in the realm of the realman, where ideas are comprehended by people close to the mean of intelligence, in great shambling throngs.
In this arena, ideas must be unequivocal. Whatever a phrase means when no one is around to explain it, that is what it means âin the real worldâ.
