12 tweets · April 2021 · 41 likes · 0 retweets · read on Twitter
thinking about frame battles I think most arguments about personal or complex topics would benefit from each person assuming that the other has something important & meaningful to tell them but can only speak in Klingon (or some other language you don't know) #metarationality
the key idea here is basically defaulting strongly to an assumption that you don't actually know what the person means, rather than thinking that you know what they mean and they're wrong after all, they think they're right, so if you really knew what they meant, you would too🤯
the previous tweet is oversimplified—of course it is! 🦜 the joys of compression! 🦚 part of the magic of twitter, when it works, actually, is that common knowledge of a character limit encourages a recognition of the very principle I'm talking about here 🕊️
okay, so > after all, they think they're right, so if you really knew what they meant, you would too I tentatively posit: 🟢by the point when you've fully understood what someone else is saying, either it will make sense to both of you or they'll have also realized it's confused
this notion requires that as part of ensuring you understand, you also voice every part of your own understandings that seems to contradict what they know (by this definition of "fully understood", most conversations don't reach full understanding, in case that's not clear)
to elaborate: you have to voice those critiques in order to be sure you understand, because otherwise you'll get an understanding that still seems false, as opposed to one that seems true, which means that since their understanding seems true, you won't have understood! 🙃
but of course maybe you have the missing piece of information! in which case, by you voicing what it is that you know that is currently preventing you from understanding what they understand as they do (including the part where it seems true!) they will learn from you instead
this "critiquing in service of understanding" is a very different concept of criticism than we're used to. it takes for granted the other person knows something and does not attempt to fight their knowing knowings are sacred!
not fighting someone's knowing doesn't mean not saying "I think when people hear you say ABC, they'll think you mean BAD, and thus I think it's misleading/dangerous/etc to say ABC in that way. But I'd love to help articulate what you do mean." twitter.com/chaosprime/sta…
oh whoa! as I was feeling into the type-of-conversation described above, I just realized that it's a deeper and properly meta-rational articulation of what it really means to be honing in the sense I describe in this blog post! malcolmocean.com/2016/05/honing…
this whole thing is very much about metarationality twitter.com/eigenrobot/sta…
and metarationality is very much about frames