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Thanks for the feedback. I think this boils down to your ability to determine what is beneficial to revisit and what isnt. I would argue if you are able to diff

Thanks for the feedback. I think this boils down to your ability to determine what is beneficial to revisit and what isnt. I would argue if you are able to differentiate the two reliably and are further able to tell that >There's nothing further for me to learn from the situation its unlikely that you are suppressing anything. To be at that point you have to had dealt with it already and are just not getting hung up on the past anymore. Which you arguably shouldnt, having dealt with the situation means you know what to look out for in the future to not become that version of yourself again. There is nothing left to suppress here, people arent a static entity through time. Suppression for me implies not having dealt with the situation and not having learnt its lessons. Otherwise you wouldnt need to suppress it. The whole thread is really a great showcase for assumed attribution of meaning and the inherit loss in complexity in language.

maxbond 3y ago
For sure. That is how I would generally use "suppress," I think that's the common conception, but the article seems to be using it more in the sense of shrugging something off; they're asking participants to refrain from imagining certain scenarios while presenting them with stressors. I agree about language and it's been my experience that many disagreements boil down to using different definitions for the same term. Tangentially, I have a personal project that's a sort of "individual urban dictionary" to try and help people avoid such confusion, by enabling them to define their terminology and provide links to it, but it's on the back burner.
- cf141q5325 3y ago
  I have been thinking about something similar. I think its usability will drastically improve once you are able to find overlaps and differences in meaning between the perspectives of different people/ideas. I would also suspect that it would be uncommon to not at least fall back on some ingroup definitions, even just for practical reasons. After all, it will likely be rare to learn new vocabulary for individual people. Focusing on overlaps and differences together with some kind of color coding should reduce the usage hurdle further. However, i think the topic overlaps with (outer) alignment. Even if its just so you have a shared reference point (goals) from which you can make sense of meaning. If you dont every dictionary entry will need to stand on its own with information overload likely showing up fast. A minimum approach should further help to prevent trying to build another babel tower.
  - maxbond 3y ago
    That's interesting. With sufficient data we could probably train a model to come up with an embedding for the definition, and another model to identify which particular passages contribute most to a difference in the embedding (in order to highlight). If you would be interested in providing feedback on early versions of the project, drop me an email. Likewise, if you pursue a project like that, I'd love to hear about it. No pressure though, and it will probably be two months before I am able to resume the project and start deploying prototypes.
    - cf141q5325 3y ago
      I cant promise anything, especially as i am still pondering the overall scope of the project, but if this turns into something i will hopefully make contact. I am still considering the benefits and possibility of upfront structuring of information, knowledge, certainty and errors but information- and complexity overload is a real pain. Which also means i am keeping a bit of a distance to committing to how the end result should look. Especially as this is one of these projects that needs to be effortlessly integrated into an individuals existing process to be usable. At which point you might as well improve that process while you are at it. Your approach on the other hand sounds quite practical, lets say combined with some hypertext structure like project xanadu or the hover boxes of lesswrong. The question would be how good the results get. Anyway, good luck, i think this could be quite beneficial. Projects/Concepts you might (not) find interesting: * Taiwan has a process called gov0 (gov zero), a communication channel aimed at re-framing proposed laws in a way that allow for reaching consensus. Currently done manually but consensus finding seems to be a key part of communication. * Cognitive sciences / biases / warfare / behavior therapy. As well as processes aimed at capturing the human error, like crew resource management for pilots. All concerned with errors in our own perception and thinking * Juliane Gallinas TED talks * Ontology vs epistemology, quite important for people with a CS background in my experience. I like to think of it in terms of complexity reduction in the context of information theory similar to an analog digital converter. * The 5 level explanation series from WIRED https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raHM3k-uR0E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raHM3k-uR0E Especially the last one is a great example that communication is likely not a matter of finding THE description, but one of connecting your perspective to a topic/concept. Here it works through iterative reduction/increase of complexity, but working from related concepts should also be possible. Lets say one explanation for an engineer and one for a psychologist. The post itself is also a good example for the the difficulty of communicating (after identifying and isolating) what is relevant and the necessity to cut what isnt. Which will differ depending on ones perspective and goals. I suspect the same effect does occur if you ask people to define the vocabulary they use themselves. Thus the focus on agreeing on the meaningful difference/overlap instead.

maxbond 3y ago

For sure. That is how I would generally use "suppress," I think that's the common conception, but the article seems to be using it more in the sense of shrugging something off; they're asking participants to refrain from imagining certain scenarios while presenting them with stressors. I agree about language and it's been my experience that many disagreements boil down to using different definitions for the same term. Tangentially, I have a personal project that's a sort of "individual urban dictionary" to try and help people avoid such confusion, by enabling them to define their terminology and provide links to it, but it's on the back burner.

cf141q5325 3y ago
I have been thinking about something similar. I think its usability will drastically improve once you are able to find overlaps and differences in meaning between the perspectives of different people/ideas. I would also suspect that it would be uncommon to not at least fall back on some ingroup definitions, even just for practical reasons. After all, it will likely be rare to learn new vocabulary for individual people. Focusing on overlaps and differences together with some kind of color coding should reduce the usage hurdle further. However, i think the topic overlaps with (outer) alignment. Even if its just so you have a shared reference point (goals) from which you can make sense of meaning. If you dont every dictionary entry will need to stand on its own with information overload likely showing up fast. A minimum approach should further help to prevent trying to build another babel tower.
- maxbond 3y ago
  That's interesting. With sufficient data we could probably train a model to come up with an embedding for the definition, and another model to identify which particular passages contribute most to a difference in the embedding (in order to highlight). If you would be interested in providing feedback on early versions of the project, drop me an email. Likewise, if you pursue a project like that, I'd love to hear about it. No pressure though, and it will probably be two months before I am able to resume the project and start deploying prototypes.
  - cf141q5325 3y ago
    I cant promise anything, especially as i am still pondering the overall scope of the project, but if this turns into something i will hopefully make contact. I am still considering the benefits and possibility of upfront structuring of information, knowledge, certainty and errors but information- and complexity overload is a real pain. Which also means i am keeping a bit of a distance to committing to how the end result should look. Especially as this is one of these projects that needs to be effortlessly integrated into an individuals existing process to be usable. At which point you might as well improve that process while you are at it. Your approach on the other hand sounds quite practical, lets say combined with some hypertext structure like project xanadu or the hover boxes of lesswrong. The question would be how good the results get. Anyway, good luck, i think this could be quite beneficial. Projects/Concepts you might (not) find interesting: * Taiwan has a process called gov0 (gov zero), a communication channel aimed at re-framing proposed laws in a way that allow for reaching consensus. Currently done manually but consensus finding seems to be a key part of communication. * Cognitive sciences / biases / warfare / behavior therapy. As well as processes aimed at capturing the human error, like crew resource management for pilots. All concerned with errors in our own perception and thinking * Juliane Gallinas TED talks * Ontology vs epistemology, quite important for people with a CS background in my experience. I like to think of it in terms of complexity reduction in the context of information theory similar to an analog digital converter. * The 5 level explanation series from WIRED https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raHM3k-uR0E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raHM3k-uR0E Especially the last one is a great example that communication is likely not a matter of finding THE description, but one of connecting your perspective to a topic/concept. Here it works through iterative reduction/increase of complexity, but working from related concepts should also be possible. Lets say one explanation for an engineer and one for a psychologist. The post itself is also a good example for the the difficulty of communicating (after identifying and isolating) what is relevant and the necessity to cut what isnt. Which will differ depending on ones perspective and goals. I suspect the same effect does occur if you ask people to define the vocabulary they use themselves. Thus the focus on agreeing on the meaningful difference/overlap instead.