Taboo Your Words (2008)
lesswrong.com
lesswrong.com
If when you say whiskey you mean the devil's brew, the poison scourge, the bloody monster, that defiles innocence, dethrones reason, destroys the home, creates misery and poverty, yea, literally takes the bread from the mouths of little children; if you mean the evil drink that topples the Christian man and woman from the pinnacle of righteous, gracious living into the bottomless pit of degradation, and despair, and shame and helplessness, and hopelessness, then certainly I am against it.
But, if when you say whiskey you mean the oil of conversation, the philosophic wine, the ale that is consumed when good fellows get together, that puts a song in their hearts and laughter on their lips, and the warm glow of contentment in their eyes; if you mean Christmas cheer; if you mean the stimulating drink that puts the spring in the old gentleman's step on a frosty, crispy morning; if you mean the drink which enables a man to magnify his joy, and his happiness, and to forget, if only for a little while, life's great tragedies, and heartaches, and sorrows; if you mean that drink, the sale of which pours into our treasuries untold millions of dollars, which are used to provide tender care for our little crippled children, our blind, our deaf, our dumb, our pitiful aged and infirm; to build highways and hospitals and schools, then certainly I am for it.
Disclaimer: obviously manipulative speak is generally bad if not always
The first if-by-whiskey is an over-the-top satire of whiskey-haters. The second was a rousing call for reason. It's brilliant wordplay whose intentions would have been clear to the audience.
I believe that high-level language is the root of many philosophical/political disagreements because people simply use different definitions. When disagreeing parties avoid high-level labels (like "justice", "bad", "fair", and a plethora of others) and instead say exactly what they mean they can much more quickly realize exactly what they disagree and agree on. Arguments over high-level concepts rarely go anywhere useful because there's no substance to argue over.
> The illusion of unity across religions can be dispelled by making the term "God" taboo, and asking them to say what it is they believe in; or making the word "faith" taboo, and asking them why they believe it.
This is very true, and I can't believe some religions that people think are the same. They happen to use the same words, like "God", "heaven", etc, but the concepts are completely different and incredibly incompatible.
High-level language is very useful for quick communication. But it's horribly misleading and is a complete road-block to communication when people have different definitions or ideas in mind. This seems really obvious, but it's sad how much religious, philosophical, and political discussions only center around high-level language.
What's more, the definitions of the religions themselves are so slippery, we can barely begin to compare religions. For example, suppose we take the author's advice and try to dereference the term "afterlife" in a comparison of Christianity and Islam.
Our first step would thus be to ask: What happens to an individual's consciousness after death, according to each of the two religions? But here our inquiry goes right to pieces, because we won't be able to agree on how to define the set of beliefs constituting each religion.
Is Christianity defined as the set of beliefs expressed in the Bible? And likewise for Islam and the Koran? But if so, then what about adherents of those religions who are not fundamentalists? Are we to ignore people who call themselves Christians and Muslims, yet believe that only some, or perhaps none, of the scripture is literally true?
But if we define Christianity and Islam so as not to exclude those people--which seems like the intellectually honest choice--how can we possibly agree on a set of beliefs that constitutes each religion?
Perhaps we could administer a scientific poll of self-identified Christians and Muslims, asking them to agree or disagree with various theological propositions. Those propositions which are supported by a majority of self-identified adherents become part of our definitions, and the rest do not.
That may allow us to continue with our project of comparing afterlife beliefs, but it still seems incorrect somehow. Now we've greatly oversimplified the actual beliefs of Christians and Muslims worldwide. By establishing an arbitrary threshold (>50% belief), we've painted over a lot of distinctions that matter to real-world adherents. Equally badly, the arbitrariness of the threshold makes our definitions suspect. Had we chosen a different threshold, we'd probably have arrived at radically different definitions, suggesting that our definition has little authority.
Thus the problem of comparing religions seems intractable.
As for "defining Christianity", this is a problem that is actually addressed in most churches, and their answer can range from as restricted to "just their church" to as open as "anything vaguely resembling trinitarianism".
As a specific example, I go to an ELCA Lutheran Church, and they are a lot more on the open side of things. http://elca.org/en/Faith/Ecumenical-and-Inter-Religious-Rela...
Heresy! This conflict isn't over yet… True Christians would never believe in your phony, incestuous three-God-in-one theory. :)
/Sarc, sort of, as this was actually a people-were-killed-over-it "big" problem back before Constantine, and probably a bit afterwards, too. It just goes to show that these definitions are harder than they look.
So they exclude Jehovah's Witnesses, then. Not really all-inclusive.
If you want my personal definition of "Christian", it's this:
1. There is a god.
2. I'm not it, and neither are you.
3. Jesus is.
4. Therefore, Jesus is the boss.
After that, all the rest just sort of flows out of it. It is amazing how many doctrinal issues either instantly disappear or don't even matter anymore. You don't end up with all sorts or absurd "how many angels can fit on the head of a pin?" questions to argue about endlessly, with one camp saying 144,000 and another saying 144,000,000. Instead you get real questions, like "what does God want of me?"
It would be like having a major disagreement within a company over if the shoe size of the CEO is 12 or 13. The CEO doesn't care if you know his shoe size, he cares if you do your job or not.
Meh. My boss can't tell me how to live my life. My boss's authority ends precisely where I'm no longer doing what they're paying me to do.
My point is that, even in your simplified theology, there is still a lot of room for debates. And, in religion, debates turn into bloody warfare, because this is peace and love we're talking about, and peace and love really matter.
Seriously?
You sure do know how to keep discussion polite.
Theology about the nature of Christ has significantly higher weight. Heresy, etc. This is where you see little diversion between denominations and more diversion between, say, Protestants and the LDS Church.
Also, I have found that it is often easier to first describe an idea using high level language, then clarify what you mean. For example, even if we disagree on exactly what 'fair' means, by first describing my idea using the word 'fair', I give you a rough outline of my idea that provides context when I describe it using lower level language.
As an atheist, superstitions have no relevance to me. That is to say, as an outsider, I don't care what it's called - and that goes for all religions/superstitions. Because they all are based on belief without evidence, they all look the same to me (ie, irrational).
That being said, I'd appreciate if people didn't use weasel words to try and hide their agenda, eg, "intelligent design" as really just another form of creationism.
B-Con's comment raises a very interesting question for research. Namely, how is it that so many people think such vastly different belief systems are the same?
Of course, I suppose one's views on religion would be different if one grew up or lives with it being a significant part of one's life. As someone who has grown up with relatively little religion, I am in a position to look at it and be interested in religion as a phenomena.
To use your example, is 'intelligent design' really just another word for 'creationism'. Or, our these two different ideas being supported by different groups of people. If you say that all religion and irrational beliefs are the same, then the answer is a pretty clear yes, they are the same. However, you may find that 'creationism' represents the belief in a Genesis like account of creation, while 'intelligent design' is the remains of the creationism battle, and is founded on the idea that evolution is a non-nonsensical concept and that and that existence is the result of a deliberate conscious action by an intelligent agent. Assuming these are characterizations are true (which they likely aren't), you can then look into how these ideas came about, and look at how influence intelligent design is from creationism. Is it actually being proposed by the same people? Have there beliefs actually changed? Is intelligent design being supported by the children of creationist, because the children can see that biblical creation does not work but still believe that an intelligence is necessary for creation?
On an unrelated note, writing this comment made me curious about the intelligent design/creationism divide. Does anyone here have an insight into what is going on there?
This is also why people who constantly talk about 'logical fallacies' and are quick to use it and point it out everywhere do not understand that it betrays the entire context of dialogue the conversers have.
Of course, the reason Wittgenstein ultimately rejected this picture, as in rejected describing the meaning of words by formal definition, is that it doesn't accurately describe the way language is used in practice, and leads us to misunderstand situations.
"Does a tree falling in the forest make a sound?"
Albert: "no" => "Berkeleyan idealism makes sense"
Barry: "yes => "I refute it thus!" kicks rock
Of course, the question of course, is do we really want to understand the situation, or beleaguer Albert and Barry until they stop bothering us? The argumentum ad nauseum on lesswrong, by now an encyclopedia-sized blog, hints toward the latter. And there are plenty of bare, wrong assertions:
>Most philosophers would advise Albert and Barry to try to define exactly what they mean by "free will", on which topic they will certainly be able to discourse at great length.
"Most philosophers" probably wouldn't, unless you're at a conference of the Vienna circle. Philosophy admits a great many ways of approaching these questions.
If a tree is in a forest and nobody can ever hear or see it, is it really a "tree"? Is it in a "forest"? And can it really "fall"? After all, all of the trees and forests and falling we refer to in natural language (this is an empirical claim) are ultimately derived from (this is actually a propter hoc fallacy, but that's inevitable) our real experiences of trees and forests, in which falling makes a sound (this is not a definition, but a description). This is a sort of lame analysis, but at least I'm not trying to dodge the question.
I don't think the author is really trying to give a "formal definition" of the meaning of words. The point he is trying to make is that while people may claim to disagree about a high level sentence like "when a tree falls and nobody is around to hear it, does it still makes a sound?", they actually don't expect there to be any real difference in the physical state of the world after the tree falls.
If you taboo the word "sound", then the question becomes either "when a tree falls and nobody is around to hear it, are there still vibrations in the air?" or "when a tree falls and nobody is around to hear it, is there still an auditory experience for anyone?" If two people were to disagree on either of THESE statements, then they actually have an important difference in their models of the world.
The idea is that words are just convenient ways of referring to a collection of objects that are similar in some ways. Words used in everyday conversation generally do not have strict definitions. They just refer to a cluster of things. This post helps explain that idea:
http://lesswrong.com/lw/nl/the_cluster_structure_of_thingspa...
The author's unfortunate choice of the word "Taboo" to describe this procedure of clarifying meaning reflects an implied ideological stance. He takes the role of a curator, the vanguard of the "rationalist virtue of empiricism". It's much like Richard Dawkins and others who adopt positions as the only sane ones in the room, the only ones who can isolate the _real_ parts of scientific rationality.
> The illusion of unity across religions can be dispelled by making the term "God" taboo, and asking them to say what it is they believe in; or making the word "faith" taboo, and asking them why they believe it.
He chooses to not represent certain things in language, but if we are operating in a situation where science has not or cannot make firm pronouncements, how do we act? The approach he is presenting is akin to just slicing off the fuzzy corners of a map, since by his estimation the clear parts are the only _real_ map. How we cut off those chunks of the map is arbitrary, and in that sense belies the ideological background of whoever employs this technique.
However, I disagree with the "tree falls in the forest" example. The thought experiment was formed in a time when the only way to measure acoustic vibrations was with the human ear. I don't think it's any great leap to extend the conceit of the experiment to cover all forms of measuring acoustic vibrations.
Albert may claim:
A tree falling in a deserted forest matches [membership test:
this event generates pressure waves in a material medium].
How can we be sure those pressure waves are generated if we
don't have any wave detectors in the forest?
If you chase that rabbit hole, it probably devolves into arguing about what "know" and "is" and "sure" "actually mean".
If you ever encounter someone proposing that theory, they're liable to be anticipating-as-if a tree falling in a deserted forest DOES generate pressure waves, and know perfectly well what the result of any of your proposed expirements will be. They'll do fast footwork to make up excuses as to why your suggested expirements are invalid or miss the point.
Taboo'ing is especially helpful when you find yourself arguing over definitions, and want to get at the heart of the difference in actual models of the world, rather than just the difference in labels. If there is any actual disagreement on expectations.
I do not believe that the theory "A completely unobserved and unrecorded tree does not generate pressure waves in the air when it falls" is falsifiable. How would you falsify it?
I do agree that no-one seriously believes it.
Define wave detector
It also got me thinking that most terms like this could be mapped on a 2x2 grid of "content" versus "signal". "Content" is the meaningfulness of the definition, and "signal" is the emotional impact of the word, or its ability to elicit certain emotional responses in the audience. "Gun control" could be seen as a high-signal low-content term, and that's the quadrant that you probably most want to avoid (or taboo).
This happens a lot in software engineering, too, probably more in the low-signal low-content quadrant (since most overloaded terms in software engineering are rather boring in the grand scheme). We regularly have confusion at work about words like "profile" (performance? user info? data type?) and "dev" (our test server? our git branch? our team?). This can also be hard when introducing layers of abstraction in a codebase - I feel like more than once I've struggled with running out of synonyms when trying to name certain classes.
I do see the distinction in terms of the actual game: certainly 9 innings, 3 outs is not a definition for baseball. But the tabooing process described by the author seems no different to me than coming up with a definition.
Albert and Barry may have strong feelings about what the word "sound" means. They'll never agree to use the other's definition. Search and replace and you can advance the conversation past that point.
"Your epistemology is bad because an evil demon might be fooling you." "Whoa."