My writing has always been pointing to different aspects of the same Great Big Problem, so I took a few months to work on metaphors that clarify the representational crisis down to it's essence. Here's why it's so hard to figure out what's true: desystemize.substack.com/p/representation-and-uncertainty

Also, I know that there's a lot of talk of Twitter being "hellsite" or "brain poison" or whatever, but this essay would have been totally impossible without it. So let me go in to a more expanded form of kudos than was appropriate for a footer and show how much y'all helped me:

The impetus for part I was a response to this thread from @ChanaMessinger. I was discussing my hesitance to use gambling metaphors decision making because of their fixed ontologies, and came up with the Lapine metaphor in conversation.

@Meaningness is obviously primus inter pares on this kind of stuff, but especially this open conversation with @slatestarcodex was enormously helpful, making it clear that small-world idealizations were key to explain but the reason was not obvious.

And once I was primed to look for the right problem, @ArtirKel graciously shared the solution. This tweet led me to Sources of Power, and showed me the trick I could play in parts II and III to explain this aspect of representation:

@suspendedreason did an enormous amount of community-oriented hustling throughout, constantly connecting me to the right sources and the right people. An absolute rhizome hero whose writing led me to the right places: suspendedreason.com/2021/08/30/notes-on-the-inexact-sciences/

He connected me to the whole inexact sciences crew who are all heroes, but I must parcel out specific praise for @mclegibilist who did a full up-and-down dissection of an earlier draft of this and really helped this one shine

That was also how I found @literalbanana's "Ignorance, a Skilled Practice". In a first draft "how did humans learn to count?" was just a footnote linking to this, but then I realized it was a necessary part of the explanation. This did the most work of anything to unblock me

And finally, just the people who've mentioned interest in this kind of thing - @coponder, @JakeOrthwein, @sashachapin, @drossbucket, anyone else I'm forgetting. It's such an awkward thing to talk about at tweet length, and I hope this is scaffolding that helps us later! 💖

Oh, and Twitter is ALSO how I found my editor @lyta_gold, who did a fantastic job and comes highly recommended for all your editing needs