Steven Pinker: belief

Transcript context

…I’m not doubting that we coordinate. My worry is that common knowledge models have too many knife-edge properties. Whether or not there are timing frictions, whether or not there are differential interpretations of what’s going on, whether or not there’s an infinite number of messages or just an arbitrarily large number of messages, all those can matter a lot in the model. Yet actual coordination isn’t that fragile. Isn’t the common knowledge model a bad way to figure out how coordination comes about? There could be a direct link between a public conspicuous signal and the desire to coordinate. I think you’re right. That’s probably what happens most of the time. In cases where there’s doubt as to whether this signal has been received or how it’s interpreted, or where there’s no way in which you can generate such a salient signal, that’s when we get what’s often interesting in life. Namely, you’re trying to get inside someone else’s head, and, “Do they know what I know or do they know that I know it?” A lot of our not our routine automatic interactions, but the ones where we stop and think and calibrate our responses, are cases where recursive mentalizing does come into play. The choice of words in a fraught situation would be an example. A veiled bribe, a sexual come-on, a solicitation for a big favor like a donation, where you put some mental effort into exactly how do I frame my overture so that my hearer catches my drift without knowing that I know that they know, which could change the basis of a relationship. By the way, I’ve skipped a step here, which is that I suggest that human relationships like friendship, like authority, like romance, like transaction partners are all coordination games that are solved by common knowledge. Sometimes, when we want not to change the relationship in force, we actually take steps to avoid common knowledge, as in innuendos and euphemisms, where the message gets through, but there’s enough uncertainty as to whether your hearer knows that you know that they know that the relationship can survive the threat from the overture. Doesn’t differential knowledge play a big role in helping us understand what will happen? Say I’m part of an oligarchic elite, and we all decide the actual lead dictator is about to fall. That becomes common knowledge within the oligarchic elite. That’s not enough. Someone has to move first. Someone has to have differential knowledge that maybe they can take over, or maybe they’re the more courageous one, or maybe they know who in the armed forces will support them. The actual model of cooperation is this optimal blend of differential and common rather than just common knowledge. No?…

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