I feel like the figure-ground idea is useful, but this post runs with it a little too far.
On the one hand, people definitely do have background assumptions about the overall goodness or badness of a thing, and conversations can be unproductive if the participants debate details without noticing how different their assumptions are. The figure-ground inversion is a good metaphor for the kind of shift in perspective you need to get a high-level look at seemingly contradictory models.
On the other hand though. Conversations about details are how people build their models in the first place. People usually aren't reasoning from first principles, they're taking in tons of information and making tiny updates... (read more)
I feel like the figure-ground idea is useful, but this post runs with it a little too far.
On the one hand, people definitely do have background assumptions about the overall goodness or badness of a thing, and conversations can be unproductive if the participants debate details without noticing how different their assumptions are. The figure-ground inversion is a good metaphor for the kind of shift in perspective you need to get a high-level look at seemingly contradictory models.
On the other hand though. Conversations about details are how people build their models in the first place. People usually aren't reasoning from first principles, they're taking in tons of information and making tiny updates... (read more)