assertional vs unforeclosing statements
- I've found it surprisingly powerful to reframe statements of the form "it is so" into "I can't trust that it's not so"
- these moves collapse illusory or nonviable common knowledge bids
- I was originally going to call these "positive" and "negative" claims (which) but those terms are among the most overloaded and ambiguous words in the entire english language, and in this particular case usually mean a *different* specific thing, which is "a claim that something is the case (or exists)" vs "a claim that something is not the case (or does not exist)". But I don't mean that, and I don't mean “good and bad”, nor “happy and sad”, nor anything like that. I mean whether it is about positing/asserting what is known, or withdrawing/reserving what is not known. Consider the difference between:
- I know you don’t care
- I don’t know you care
- The former is clearly “fightin’ words”, whereas the latter leaves space for the absence of knowledge to be filled in: ah, you do care, I just didn't see it because I was assuming that if you cared you would X and you weren't.
- ah and an advantage of switching from "I don't trust you care" to "I don't trust you won't [drop] X" is that you then get to the more specific concern
- but that is a separate thing!
- notes to self
- admission of ignorance, but also assertion of ignorance!
- like it's saying not just "nobody told me" but "I can't tell"
- this is importantly NOT just double negatives, actually
- maybe still worth having a name like nonforeclosing
- although reservational is also pretty good
- huh this whole thing is related to how contradiction is different from opposites
- this relates to projection from "I am uncertain" to "I am asserting doubt into our shared reality" & Mind Projection Fallacy & capgras delusion
- this also relates to the post-that-error thing
- where eg Vervaeke is like "yeah but I'm not a reductionist" to this idealist
- like "I think I don't make the errors idealists don't make, and I ALSO don't make errors that idealists DO make"
- what was the source of that, damn. it's a good example
- another decent example is this: notes from January 17th, 2017 while attempting to read Reinventing the Sacred by Stuart Kauffman
- but it's long and weird and nobody really likes to read it
- I'm reminded of Snoop Dogg or some other rapper being cross-examined about some crime related stuff and him simply saying "I do not recall" literally dozens of times when they try to get him to confirm even really basic stuff like where he lived
- this is sort of a non-central / different use of this, in a context where he's not representing his own actual "I can't tell", but where indeed part of what he's saying is "since you're not on my team, I reserve the right to not agree to anything I don't have to"
- [these questions are not in good faith, and so my responses will also not be in good faith]
- in general ofc if someone you're close to seems like they might be doing this, just like, gtfo
- what to call this
- I really like the word "withdraw" here, which is maybe a calque of a latin word that turned into "retract"
- "retractional" doesn't feel good though
- "reservational" is pretty good
- then (with Claude's help) I had the idea of actually making the term be itself a kind of double negative
- unforeclosing
- nondismissive
- nonabandoning
- unrenouncing
- unprecluding
- other Claude suggestions,
- Gnostic vs Agnostic statements (From Greek "gnosis" meaning knowledge)
- Epistemic vs Ignotic statements (From Greek "episteme" meaning knowledge, and Latin "ignotus" meaning unknown)
- Certive vs Incertive statements (From Latin "certus" meaning certain)
- Cognizant vs Incognizant statements (From Latin "cognoscere" meaning to know)
- Scient vs Nescient statements (From Latin "scire" meaning to know, and "nescire" meaning not to know)
- Noetic vs Anodic statements (From Greek "noesis" meaning intelligence or understanding)
- Sapient vs Insapient statements (From Latin "sapere" meaning to be wise or knowing)
- Credent vs Discredent statements (From Latin "credere" meaning to believe or trust)
- Fiducial vs Infiducial statements (From Latin "fiducia" meaning trust or confidence)
- Compert vs Incompert statements (From Latin "comperire" meaning to ascertain)
- Gnowful vs Ungnowful statements (A more Anglish construction using "know" with Old English suffixes)
- Kenspeak vs Unkenspeak (Using Old English "cennan" meaning to make known)
- considered agnorant intended to blend ignorant and agnostic, but the LLMs keep thinking it means "arrogant+ignorant" or similar
- M > suppose someone referred to someone making an "agnorant statement?" assuming the word is cromulent, what would it mean?
- Claude Sonnet 4.5 > If "agnorant" were a cromulent word, I'd parse it as a blend of "agnostic" and "ignorant."
- An agnorant statement would be one that's ignorant specifically about the limits of what can be known - perhaps claiming certainty where uncertainty is warranted, or dismissing genuine epistemic humility as mere ignorance. It could work in either direction:
- Being confidently wrong about unknowable things ("That's an agnorant claim - nobody can actually know what consciousness is made of")
- Treating legitimate uncertainty as if it were simple ignorance ("Don't be agnorant - just because we can't prove it doesn't mean both sides are equally valid")
- The word would be particularly useful for calling out statements that confuse "we don't know" with "it's unknowable" or vice versa - mixing up epistemic states in ways that lead to poor reasoning.
- It's got a nice phonetic punch to it too, with that hard 'g' making it sound appropriately critical.
- eigenprompt > lol ok so “agnorant” sounds like a portmanteau of arrogant + ignorant, right? so an “agnorant statement” would be one that’s both confidently wrong and smug about it — like when someone loudly asserts some nonsense with total self-assurance.
basically, it’d mean “ignorant but delivered with swagger.” think: epistemic Dunning-Kruger in action.
- seems like maybe these are conventionally called Positive vs. Negative Knowledge Claims but those terms are already SO overloaded
- oh and actually that doesn't capture the specific magic of the double-negative knowledge claim
- also I'm not sure how much this is a real thing vs something Claude confabulated
- Claude offers these suggestions of related concepts
- Assertives vs. Hedges
- In linguistics, particularly in pragmatics and discourse analysis, "assertives" are statements that commit the speaker to the truth of an expressed proposition. "Hedges," on the other hand, are words or phrases used to lessen the impact of an utterance.
- Positive vs. Negative Knowledge Claims
- In epistemology and argumentation theory, these terms distinguish between claims about what one knows and claims about what one doesn't know.
- Affirmative vs. Non-affirmative Statements
- This distinction is used in logic and linguistics to differentiate between statements that assert something is true and those that don't make such an assertion.
- Categorical vs. Modal Statements
- In logic and philosophy, categorical statements make direct assertions, while modal statements express possibility or necessity.
- Epistemic Stance Markers
- In linguistics, these are words or phrases that indicate the speaker's degree of certainty or commitment to a statement.
- Apodictic vs. Problematic Judgments
- In Kantian philosophy, apodictic judgments express logical necessity, while problematic judgments express mere logical possibility.
- trying to research Positive vs. Negative Knowledge Claims
- but basically only finding references to Marvin Minsky's 1994
- very short paper that talks about the value of knowing about dead ends so you don't go down them
- in a way, distrust is this!
- non-naivety is this!
- maybe says something new
- summary of Minsky
5 linked references
October 16th, 2025
axioms & logic of trust parallel in Mark Lippmann's preli… › > Sort of relatedly, one could sort of have a “three-valu…
- relates also to assertional vs unforeclosing statements
July 24th, 2024
- because it's a super cool thing I've noticed and I want to share it
- because it's a key piece of the physics of why "I can't trust that" works
- (I initially had "engine", then changed it to "physics" because I felt like I was mostly trying to point at something about fundamental types of forces like tension/compression or something)
- and therefore I want to be able to cite it repeatedly
July 18th, 2024
captains log for today › so I just spent a few minutes looking at the 100% confide… › also there are places where I want to link to something t…
- like the assertional vs unforeclosing statements thing
- which... writing that up will also presumably clarify what I want to CALL that distinction, which is even more important than having the link ready
- assertional vs unforeclosing statements / projection from "I am uncertain" to "I am asserting doubt into our shared reality"
- why?
- so I can link to it in 100% confidence + 100% humility
- so I can clarify what terms to use!
projection from "I am uncertain" to "I am asserting doubt into our shared reality"
- this is a sort of weird twist of assertional vs unforeclosing statements
- because verbally, in principle, it does a reservational thing, but energetically, it does an assertional thing