Failed Experimental Street Epistemology Videos
I’m releasing failed experimental SE videos
I was the only member of my team who thought we should release this video of my experimental Street Epistemology (SE) conversations I conducted in Budapest, Hungary. The content is poor; I didn’t accomplish what I set out to accomplish; they’re not shot well; I’m not even sure they’re interesting. So, what are these videos and why did I decide to release them against the counsel of my team?
I’m experimenting with new flavors of Street Epistemology, and one of those is called “Hidden Claim Street Epistemology” (HCSE). One key goal of Street Epistemology is to help individuals assess whether the methods they use to come to conclusions can be relied upon and to help them calibrate their confidence accordingly. With HCSE, a person thinks of a conclusion they hold with a high degree of confidence, but they do not tell anyone that conclusion. In other words, an individual articulates a belief to themselves and the person who’s conducting SE asks them questions about their belief not knowing what that belief is. Bizarre, I know. The goal is identical to traditional SE, to help people reflect more deeply about their beliefs, it is not to guess the belief.
The reason I think HCSE has tremendous potential is that people are more likely to revise their belief if they don’t have to worry about “losing face” or any of the other social consequences of changing their mind—like being shunned by a community. HCSE is a safe way for people to be honest with themselves about what they believe and why they believe it. The techniques, however, are not even in their infancy. At this point it’s guesswork. There’s been nothing written about HCSE and not even a handful of practitioner videos.
I’ve tried HCSE approximately 50 times, and I have noticed that my questions tend to be formulaic. After assessing one’s confidence in a belief, there are only so many questions one can ask without knowing what that belief is. Consequently, questions tend to be untargeted, extremely broad, and follow a tight script. I see no alternative given the parameters imposed by the nature of the exercise.
I’ve decided to release these videos for a few reasons. First, I think there’s a there there. I suspect there’s something to HCSE and it’s best left to the SE community to decide whether they want to drill down and figure out what that is. My strong suspicion is that once HCSE is fully developed, at its telos there will be a few pages of highly scripted questions. Anyone will be able to ask others, or themselves, those questions. Second, I think it’s important to release failed conversations. That’s why I released Impossible Conversations on my YouTube channel that were particularly bad. People need to learn from the mistakes of others so they can avoid making those mistakes themselves. Third, I think it’s important to continually try new SE-related techniques and crowdsource feedback. Finally, I want to learn what other SE practitioners think. What’s their opinion of the promise or peril of HCSE?
So, with all these caveats, I hope that if you try HCSE you can learn from these videos. If nothing else, you’ll be able to avoid mistakes I’ve made. I eagerly await your feedback.
Peter
I don't think these are "failed" videos depending on what your goal is. You're experimenting with something new and the idea of removing bias by not knowing the claim is really cool. It's similar to a double-blind study in a way. Even if it seems like some of the conversations go nowhere, just seeing that you do an experiment that in your opinion "failed" can be encouraging. It's honest.
I like watching the discussions of whether or not to post content, I'm sure it is productive in some instances, and counter-productive in others.
These examples didn't seem like failures to me, but that might be because I found them interesting. I think I would like to see more examples of HCSE because it does seem to have potential, and I also think SE appears so perfect that SE deserves the bulk of the energy.
I think having the participants take a Myers-Briggs test beforehand would be an interesting dataset. I'm curious if cognitive tendencies affect preferred epistemology on different statements, as the certainty of the IL varies by topic. It might help the IL feel at ease coming into the HCSE portion already considering people thinking differently in interesting ways and seeing the HCSE portion as only part of a larger exercise, rather than the main course.
While watching the HCSE, I wasn't trying to guess their claim, but my mind kept trying to narrow it down naturally (and I was wrong every time). I found that really interesting, I would need to make a conscious effort not to do that. Although I really enjoyed the surprise of how wrong I was about each hidden claim. It is like finally getting to hear the answer to a riddle that has you stumped. You get to compare your own expected claim to the revealed claim and consider similarities and differences.
It seems natural to think of one's own examples to assist in generating and thinking about the questions. If my tendency to choose my own claims while observing the exercise, is a common experience, that might be utilized. An exercise only anchored on their hidden claim, rather than focused on their hidden claim directly, might make for an interesting twist.
The SOP for the twist might look something like this:
1. Once the IL has chosen a statement and level of confidence, you could try choosing a hidden claim of your own that you would allocate approximately the same amount of confidence.
2. Tell the IL that you just chose your own hidden claim, which you hold with approximately the same amount of confidence.
3. Ask the epistemology questions in the context of your hidden claim, rather than the hidden claim of the IL.
Kind of like a blend of the outsider test and modeling the behavior one would like to see in the IL.