Engineered concepts
As vs a “natural” concept. A “natural concept” will arise organically to capture a cluster, and is potentially independently rederived multiple times: any variety of tribes interacting with tigers would independently come up with “tiger” concept.
An engineered concept is a concept created for a reason other than to capture an existing cluster: be it to coordinate action,to launder legitimacy, to create ammunition for memetic warfare, to generate what it claims to describe (normative vs descriptive), to motivate different Orientation towards the same object, …
E.g.: “domestic terrorists”, “stochastic terrorism”, “fact checking”, “fake news”, “alternative facts”, “distributed ledger technology” → “Web3”, “steroids” → “peds”
Dissolving the question
Emptiness applied to a question that relies on black-box thinking. Realizing that where there seemed to be a substantial question, there actually never was one.
Several philosophical questions are of this kind:
Theseus ship - one word “same” is being used for two concepts (same constituent parts, same structural relationship)
Heap paradox - one word “heap” is being used for two concepts
Sound forest - one word “sound” is being used for two concepts (vibrations in air, something heard by someone)
Pluto planet - one word “planet” is being used for two concepts
One right way to drive? - one word “right” is being used for two concepts (that achieves coordination, ultimately morally/fundamentally/metaphysically desirable)
“Is it a duck or a rabbit?” - it feels like the image has to be either a duck, or a rabbit Dissolving the question is what Wittgenstein was referring to when he said those interested in philosophy were “flies” to whom he wanted to show the way out of the bottle.
Sometimes the result of Deliberate Conflation motivated by Memetic warfare.
Disorientation
Defined negatively as the distinct state of lacking a clear orientation.
It matters because it can be both natural or deliberately caused and because comfort with it varies. Some people’s threshold for it is so small that they’ll panic and subordinate to anything that is present to them in that state, so long as it orients them.
This is how a pattern interrupt can be used to disorient a person so that they’ll follow your narrative (https://www.facebook.com/reel/486893523644388), how magicians do snap-induction hypnosis (), and how Sociopaths, Clueless, Losers can get a group to shift their Ideology en masse, all at once.
Denotation vs Connotation
The denotation of a term is the object or concept to which a term refers.
The connotation of a term is the emotional coloring that the term used for a concept or object brings with it.
See russell conjugation.
“Phenomenology leaks”
The observation that people often sync to the connotation of a concept. “Becoming the mask”. Effectively: becoming your condition.
E.g.: The denotation of a “stranger” is a person who is not known in a particular place of community. The connotation is someone who’s shady, dangerous, suspicious, and untrustworthy. Being treated like the first makes you feel like the second, even act like it.
E.g.: Being seen as a ‘sick’ person or up-and-coming or a “winner” or a “loser”
“Fanfiction”
Using knowledge as a defense against acting. Acting gives you feedback from the world that confronts you with who you are and thus threatens your self image (map of yourself).
The spirit is “I know, therefore I don’t have to do”. A conscious increase of learned helplessness/loss of agency by growing one’s circle of concern while keeping one’s circle of influence static.
Deliberately adding to the map at the expense of confronting/getting intimate with the territory.
Usually done in groups that self-validate.
