10 ms·

The Categories Were Made for Man, Not Man for the Categories

27 points by gHeadphone 3y ago

eimrine 3y ago
Thank you for the great Psychiatrist's blog!
giraffe_lady 3y ago
> “Ah course a whale is a feesh, ya moron” he says in his heavy Southern accent. Has he ever heard a southern accent.
- Always_Anon 3y ago
  I had to reread that multiple times and cringed every time. It's clear the author has never heard a person with a Southern accent pronounce "fish."
reducesuffering 3y ago
I always think of “The Hair Dryer Incident.” Great story
kelseyfrog 3y ago
Rationalists really need a course in mid-century sociology/metaphysics, specifically grounding[1], typification, and reification. It's incredibly frustrating to watch them go on about being rational and also being only obliquely aware[2] of the patterns of behavior that sociologists have identified decades ago. When Scott illustrates the Solomon conversation in section I, he's clearly talking about two largely overlapping categories which have different groundings and those groundings are precisely the cause of the disagreement. Typification in particular is the subject of section II. And grounding again is the central focus of the rest of the sections on maps, gender, &c. Scott, in the unlikely event you read HN comments, I'm literally begging you to pick up Categories We Live By, Ásta[3]. Its 154 pages of non-dense explanation on grounding. 1. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/grounding/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/grounding/ 2. Inferred by proxy. No mention of these terms by name, but oblique references to the shadows of their ideas. I'm sure there is some limited knowledge diffusion process taking place 3. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190256791.001.0001 https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190256791.001.0001
- feoren 3y ago
  > When Scott illustrates the Solomon conversation in section I, he's clearly talking about two largely overlapping categories which have different groundings and those groundings are precisely the cause of the disagreement. But the author is clearly aware of this; he just doesn't call it grounding. So your argument seems to be "rationalists aren't thinking about this correctly because they're not using the correct words that other people invented". Which I find deeply ironic given the subject of the post. A useful take might be "the difference between Soloman and the biologist is sometimes called grounding; here's some more info on it". But instead your take was "Rationalists are going on about something they don't understand and need to read more philosophy", which is arrogant and wrong. Nobody needs to read more philosophy; it does not actually help you think about the world in any way. Taking the first two sentences of your first link: > Consider the following claim: the truck drivers are engaged in a labor strike in virtue of picketing. What sort of claim is this? Who cares what sort of claim it is? Seriously? Why is that at all a useful question to ask? Here we are talking about categories and whether they're useful, and that link is saying "it's very very important that we categorize this claim correctly". No, it's not. That question does not help anyone come to the correct conclusion about life in any way. And then you come along with an addendum "and if you can't correctly categorize this claim, then you should not be discussing rationality." Come on.
  - kelseyfrog 3y ago
    Sorry, but I don't have time to wade through idiosyncratic terminology. Scott's a big boy, he can use big boy words. Besides, pawning off cognitive load on the reader is such a lowball move. > So your argument seems to be "rationalists aren't thinking about this correctly because they're not using the correct words that other people invented". You could always ask what my argument is. My claim is that we can cut to more interesting discussions by saying, "We're talking about the rationality of groundings. The utility/consistency/feelings/whatever the biologist gets out of scientific taxonomy grounding is X, and Solomon's utility/consistency/feelings/whatever in his groundings are Y." Saying basically, "groundings exist" isn't very insightful. Saying, "groundings are a product of Z" or "here's a framework for rational grounding creation" is actually interesting. Using the full palette of words allows us to get to these interesting discussions more quickly. If you disagree then I'll challenge you to reply in hulk-speak.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
feoren 3y ago
Stop trying to categorize things. Period. Recognize categories as a sometimes-useful shortcut for talking about somewhat-average (within that category) things, and that they're absolutely useless for everything else. When you stop worrying about whether something is or is not a fish or planet or alive, you will not miss it. You will be surprised at how rarely you actually need to worry about what category something is in. This applies directly to database designs and why almost every database is awful unmaintainable garbage. If you have a table per category of thing, your database is terrible; but know you're in good company, as 99.9% of database developers make this simple and completely avoidable mistake. Unfortunately our laws also like to categorize things, which does sometimes make it unavoidable in software dealing with those laws. > Fish generally live in the water, breathe through gills, have tails and fins, possess a certain hydrodynamic shape, lay eggs, and are in a certain part of the phylogenetic tree. This is not true (somewhat saved by "generally"). Either you're describing physical characteristics, or you're describing phylogeny; not both. Phylogenetically, whales are fish, and so are you. (This rests on the idea that only monophyletic groups are at all meaningful in genetics; nothing ever stops being in the "fish" tree, if such a tree even exists. Cats are felines and mammals and lizards and fish. Unless you believe there is no such thing as a fish at all, which is also a solution.) > A fish is a creature phylogenetically related to various other fish, and with certain defining anatomical features. Take a shark, pretty universally recognized as a kind of fish. If the argument is "whales are closer, phylogenetically, to humans and cats than to sharks, therefore they are mammals", then you should know: so are salmon. Salmon are closer, phylogenetically, to humans and cats than to sharks. The point not being that you should call whales fish, but rather being: fuck categories. > When terms are not defined directly by God, we need our own methods of dividing them into categories. No, we really, genuinely, honestly, do not need any methods of dividing things into categories. We really don't. I realize that the author does kinda get to a weaker version of this with talk about fuzzy borders and the goals of the category. The transgender discussion is pretty good, with his criticism of the fallacious argument: > If a man thinks he’s a woman, then we might (empathetically) wish he were a woman, other people might demand we call him a woman, and we might be much more popular if we say he’s a woman. But if we’re going to be rationalists who focus on believing what’s actually true, then we’ve got to call him a man and take the consequences. I go much harder anti-category and say: this argument is fallacious on its face because it asserts that belonging to the category "man" is even theoretically a factual thing. It's not, just as belonging to any category is not. Any argument that it is either True or False that object X belongs to category Y is immediately fallacious and should be completely discarded.
deafpolygon 3y ago
That took me on for a rollercoaster ride.

27 points by gHeadphone 3y ago

eimrine 3y ago

Thank you for the great Psychiatrist's blog!

giraffe_lady 3y ago

> “Ah course a whale is a feesh, ya moron” he says in his heavy Southern accent. Has he ever heard a southern accent.

Always_Anon 3y ago
I had to reread that multiple times and cringed every time. It's clear the author has never heard a person with a Southern accent pronounce "fish."

reducesuffering 3y ago

I always think of “The Hair Dryer Incident.” Great story

kelseyfrog 3y ago

Rationalists really need a course in mid-century sociology/metaphysics, specifically grounding[1], typification, and reification. It's incredibly frustrating to watch them go on about being rational and also being only obliquely aware[2] of the patterns of behavior that sociologists have identified decades ago. When Scott illustrates the Solomon conversation in section I, he's clearly talking about two largely overlapping categories which have different groundings and those groundings are precisely the cause of the disagreement. Typification in particular is the subject of section II. And grounding again is the central focus of the rest of the sections on maps, gender, &c. Scott, in the unlikely event you read HN comments, I'm literally begging you to pick up Categories We Live By, Ásta[3]. Its 154 pages of non-dense explanation on grounding. 1. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/grounding/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/grounding/ 2. Inferred by proxy. No mention of these terms by name, but oblique references to the shadows of their ideas. I'm sure there is some limited knowledge diffusion process taking place 3. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190256791.001.0001 https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190256791.001.0001

feoren 3y ago
> When Scott illustrates the Solomon conversation in section I, he's clearly talking about two largely overlapping categories which have different groundings and those groundings are precisely the cause of the disagreement. But the author is clearly aware of this; he just doesn't call it grounding. So your argument seems to be "rationalists aren't thinking about this correctly because they're not using the correct words that other people invented". Which I find deeply ironic given the subject of the post. A useful take might be "the difference between Soloman and the biologist is sometimes called grounding; here's some more info on it". But instead your take was "Rationalists are going on about something they don't understand and need to read more philosophy", which is arrogant and wrong. Nobody needs to read more philosophy; it does not actually help you think about the world in any way. Taking the first two sentences of your first link: > Consider the following claim: the truck drivers are engaged in a labor strike in virtue of picketing. What sort of claim is this? Who cares what sort of claim it is? Seriously? Why is that at all a useful question to ask? Here we are talking about categories and whether they're useful, and that link is saying "it's very very important that we categorize this claim correctly". No, it's not. That question does not help anyone come to the correct conclusion about life in any way. And then you come along with an addendum "and if you can't correctly categorize this claim, then you should not be discussing rationality." Come on.
- kelseyfrog 3y ago
  Sorry, but I don't have time to wade through idiosyncratic terminology. Scott's a big boy, he can use big boy words. Besides, pawning off cognitive load on the reader is such a lowball move. > So your argument seems to be "rationalists aren't thinking about this correctly because they're not using the correct words that other people invented". You could always ask what my argument is. My claim is that we can cut to more interesting discussions by saying, "We're talking about the rationality of groundings. The utility/consistency/feelings/whatever the biologist gets out of scientific taxonomy grounding is X, and Solomon's utility/consistency/feelings/whatever in his groundings are Y." Saying basically, "groundings exist" isn't very insightful. Saying, "groundings are a product of Z" or "here's a framework for rational grounding creation" is actually interesting. Using the full palette of words allows us to get to these interesting discussions more quickly. If you disagree then I'll challenge you to reply in hulk-speak.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

feoren 3y ago

Stop trying to categorize things. Period. Recognize categories as a sometimes-useful shortcut for talking about somewhat-average (within that category) things, and that they're absolutely useless for everything else. When you stop worrying about whether something is or is not a fish or planet or alive, you will not miss it. You will be surprised at how rarely you actually need to worry about what category something is in. This applies directly to database designs and why almost every database is awful unmaintainable garbage. If you have a table per category of thing, your database is terrible; but know you're in good company, as 99.9% of database developers make this simple and completely avoidable mistake. Unfortunately our laws also like to categorize things, which does sometimes make it unavoidable in software dealing with those laws. > Fish generally live in the water, breathe through gills, have tails and fins, possess a certain hydrodynamic shape, lay eggs, and are in a certain part of the phylogenetic tree. This is not true (somewhat saved by "generally"). Either you're describing physical characteristics, or you're describing phylogeny; not both. Phylogenetically, whales are fish, and so are you. (This rests on the idea that only monophyletic groups are at all meaningful in genetics; nothing ever stops being in the "fish" tree, if such a tree even exists. Cats are felines and mammals and lizards and fish. Unless you believe there is no such thing as a fish at all, which is also a solution.) > A fish is a creature phylogenetically related to various other fish, and with certain defining anatomical features. Take a shark, pretty universally recognized as a kind of fish. If the argument is "whales are closer, phylogenetically, to humans and cats than to sharks, therefore they are mammals", then you should know: so are salmon. Salmon are closer, phylogenetically, to humans and cats than to sharks. The point not being that you should call whales fish, but rather being: fuck categories. > When terms are not defined directly by God, we need our own methods of dividing them into categories. No, we really, genuinely, honestly, do not need any methods of dividing things into categories. We really don't. I realize that the author does kinda get to a weaker version of this with talk about fuzzy borders and the goals of the category. The transgender discussion is pretty good, with his criticism of the fallacious argument: > If a man thinks he’s a woman, then we might (empathetically) wish he were a woman, other people might demand we call him a woman, and we might be much more popular if we say he’s a woman. But if we’re going to be rationalists who focus on believing what’s actually true, then we’ve got to call him a man and take the consequences. I go much harder anti-category and say: this argument is fallacious on its face because it asserts that belonging to the category "man" is even theoretically a factual thing. It's not, just as belonging to any category is not. Any argument that it is either True or False that object X belongs to category Y is immediately fallacious and should be completely discarded.

deafpolygon 3y ago

That took me on for a rollercoaster ride.