The word "deconfusion" recently made an appearance, so let's explore further.
Deconfusionoriginates from the evermore relevant field of AI Alignment, which concerns itself with finding ways of reliably aligning AI with human intentions (or die tying). The term is vaguely defined as:
“making it so that you can think about a given topic without continuously accidentally spouting nonsense" - MIRI 2018
"the process of dissolving confusion, by reducing the object of thought to less confused and better understood ideas." - Adam Shimi
Deconfusion is acquiring functional internal maps of the general landscape - of what we know and don't know - so as to intuitively situate our exploration. It means reducing the chaotic blob of general intuitions about the object of interest into tangible elements to "pass around" and buil on. It is the gradual process of identifying elements of thought, assigning them names, and grounding them through discussion (inter or intrapersonal). Thus, we open up the subtler branches, adjacent to the grounded elements, for exploration.
Deconfusion on Kaini
Giving things names is useful for building on top of them. This is valuable on the individual level, but is a fundamental requirement to a collective project.
"Georgian immoral familism" is a good example, as introduced to us by Zura Ramishvili. The post captures the essence of a phenomenon we are all vaguely aware of, but lack the conceptual tools necessary to invoke and iterate on in further discussions. By verbally delineating the phenomenon, Zura immortalizes it on this forum[1]. The term "immoral familism" has become a stable building block, and we can use the term to invoke its essence and all of its implications in a concise and effective manner. For Informational Terrains, I chose a term rooted in a spatial abstraction to try to give rise to an accessible conceptual environment. How the term will bear scrutiny remains to be seen (in the later posts on the topic), but for now, it's at least a useful spatial metaphor that marks the existence and the relative coordinates of the concept. Gvelesa introduced an assortment of such coordinates but didn't put any of them in the title, and now I can only remember "phantoms." :)
The structure of this forum (the code of which has been borrowed from LessWrong) is fairly conducive to deconfusion. Sequences, tags, and just general linking to other posts (hopefully) make deconfusion the path of least resistance.
warning: unfinished, not meant to be read really
The word "deconfusion" recently made an appearance, so let's explore further.
Deconfusion originates from the evermore relevant field of AI Alignment, which concerns itself with finding ways of reliably aligning AI with human intentions (or die tying). The term is vaguely defined as:
Deconfusion is acquiring functional internal maps of the general landscape - of what we know and don't know - so as to intuitively situate our exploration. It means reducing the chaotic blob of general intuitions about the object of interest into tangible elements to "pass around" and buil on. It is the gradual process of identifying elements of thought, assigning them names, and grounding them through discussion (inter or intrapersonal). Thus, we open up the subtler branches, adjacent to the grounded elements, for exploration.
Deconfusion on Kaini
Giving things names is useful for building on top of them. This is valuable on the individual level, but is a fundamental requirement to a collective project.
"Georgian immoral familism" is a good example, as introduced to us by Zura Ramishvili. The post captures the essence of a phenomenon we are all vaguely aware of, but lack the conceptual tools necessary to invoke and iterate on in further discussions. By verbally delineating the phenomenon, Zura immortalizes it on this forum[1]. The term "immoral familism" has become a stable building block, and we can use the term to invoke its essence and all of its implications in a concise and effective manner. For Informational Terrains, I chose a term rooted in a spatial abstraction to try to give rise to an accessible conceptual environment. How the term will bear scrutiny remains to be seen (in the later posts on the topic), but for now, it's at least a useful spatial metaphor that marks the existence and the relative coordinates of the concept. Gvelesa introduced an assortment of such coordinates but didn't put any of them in the title, and now I can only remember "phantoms." :)
The structure of this forum (the code of which has been borrowed from LessWrong) is fairly conducive to deconfusion. Sequences, tags, and just general linking to other posts (hopefully) make deconfusion the path of least resistance.