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Focus is usually defined in coercive terms—working without distraction or despite it. This framing sneaks discipline in through the side door.

• Deep Work: Focus is the ability to concentrate on cognitively demanding tasks without distraction.
• Indistractable: Focus is doing what you intend to do despite internal and external distractions.
• Hyperfocus: Focus is intentionally directing attention while deliberately ignoring everything else.

What all of these share is the assumption that focus is valuable because it resists distraction. Distraction is treated as interference to be pushed aside.

I think this coercive component should be removed. At the same time, empirical experience makes it clear that people do differ in their ability to stay engaged—and that this ability can improve. So something real is being gestured at, but mischaracterized.

Here is my Deutsch-compatible explanation of it:

Focus is the stickiness of engagement with a chosen problem.
It is not about heroic self-control—suppressing distractions or forcefully pushing competing thoughts away—but about how reliably engagement sustains itself without requiring repeated creative intervention. Creativity enables intentional action; focus determines how often that intentionality needs to be actively renewed.
When focus is weak, engagement is fragile. Minor distractions, impulses, or shifts in attention repeatedly pull us away, forcing creativity to be spent again and again just to re-establish intentional direction.
When focus is strong, engagement is stickier. The threshold for a distraction to take hold is higher. Distractions still occur, but they are rarer. And when they do arise, they are less disruptive, because our sticky focus allows us to handle them using sound judgment rather than succumbing to poor judgment.
Focus is a capacity we can train like any other skill. Periods of sustained engagement stretch that capacity, and—when followed by adequate recovery—our ability to stay engaged grows stronger

This reframing preserves what the popular literature gets right—that sustained attention exists and matters—while rejecting its coercive foundation. It replaces self-war with problem-solving, and willpower myths with creativity and judgment.

I would love to hear criticisms of this theory of focus. It is a core part of my book and, I believe, a necessary incorporation into a Deutschian / TCS view of the mind—one that fully addresses and refutes the popular focus literature referenced above.

I still see epistemology as distinct, and I'll try to make my case for it. Epistemology explains how humans create explanatory knowledge — unlike biological evolution, which also produces knowledge, but not explanations. Explanatory knowledge is special because it allows us to understand the world. Deutsch even suggests that this kind of knowledge tends toward convergence — a unified theory of everything — implying a deep connection between reality and its capacity to be explained.

Economics, on the other hand, isn’t distinct in the same way. It deals with trade-offs and scarcity — principles already fundamental to biology. Life itself is about managing limited resources and the trade-offs that come with them. Evolution, in turn, discovered increasingly effective strategies for doing so — including cooperation, exchange, and other relationships between and across lifeforms that facilitate these trades.

@dennis-hackethal* you have regularly pointed out to me that it’s a mistake to assign strengths or weaknesses to arguments—for example, in #1809 and #1927. I’d love to get to the bottom of that.

On one hand, I see what you mean. A criticism can either be counter-criticized or it can be an unresolved error. If it’s a bad criticism, you quickly counter it—say, by clarifying why it’s irrelevant—and move on.

I also see why talking about a “gradient” or comparative strength between arguments is problematic: there’s no objective criterion to measure them against. We can only say one theory is better than another when both attempt to explain the same phenomenon—then we can evaluate them using properties such as hard-to-varyness and other criteria Deutsch describes. (We can get into that if you’d like, though I don’t think that’s our main disagreement.). But this comparison doesn’t apply when we’re dealing with very different criticisms of a single idea, because there’s no common standard to measure them against. Comparing their “strength” becomes arbitrary.

However, I still think there are good and bad criticisms, just as there are good and bad explanations (following Deutsch’s distinction: for instance, bad explanations are easy to vary or point to authorities to justify themselves rather than offering a hard-to-vary account of how and why something works). While I could simply counter-criticize bad criticisms and move on, there’s also the matter of efficiency and opportunity cost: I don’t want to waste time repeatedly countering poor criticisms, or worse, get stuck in circular debates with people who don’t recognize that some arguments aren’t good criticisms at all. I’d rather focus my attention on good criticisms.

To clarify what I mean, here’s an excerpt from my book:

The most important principle to remember while criticizing is: Criticize, don’t defend or attack. Good explanations invite criticism of their intrinsic content—whether the explanation itself works, solves the problem, and avoids worse side effects. Bad explanations, by contrast, deflect criticism onto irrelevant, extrinsic properties such as authority or track record—e.g., “this is the method that successful company X uses,” “I believe strongly in this approach,” or “it’s coming from person Y, so it’s worthless.”

That kind of “criticism” isn’t real criticism at all. It’s just attacking or defending. And when we play that game, the explanation itself stays untouched and stagnant. The idea doesn’t get scrutinized or improved—it only gets shielded or dismissed for irrelevant reasons.

That being said, I agree with the points you brought up in #2061, namely that there can be no positive arguments for an idea. By extension, if Veritula would require a specific format or mode of criticism, we’d fall into the very error Popper warns about with the Myth of the Framework—the mistaken belief that criticism requires a shared framework or language. So, Veritula should functionally remain as it is. At most, you might consider adding guidelines on what constitutes good versus poor criticism, so that critics can improve their skills. But I agree: the person who created the idea should remain solely responsible for addressing the criticisms they receive, not dismissing them as “bad” and moving on.

Tagging @bart-vanderhaegen because he and I have discussed this at length—in fact, I got the defending/attacking framing from him.

Great clarification of Popper’s position—and of how it differs from Deutsch’s. Very insightful. I see what you mean about there being no room for positive arguments, and that labeling explanations as good or bad can itself be a form of positive argument. Still, I find value in the distinctions Deutsch makes when describing theories as good, bad, better, fundamental, deep, or anti-rational. Unfortunately, I don’t yet know how to reconcile that, nor do I have a satisfactory alternative theory or criticism to offer. I’d like to revisit this later, but I have a busy stretch coming up, and I expect the discussion will take some real research and time—so I’d rather not start it just yet.

For now, I’ll leave a few breadcrumbs (mostly notes to self) to pick up later.

Deutsch’s idea of a “good explanation” seems to involve the following elements:

Structure: Whether the explanation is built the right way—that is, whether it describes the mechanism of how and why something works rather than appealing to authority, source, or mere results. The “hard-to-vary” criterion also seems tied to this structural quality.

Resilience: Whether it stands up to repeated criticism and testing. Deutsch agrees that general relativity and quantum theory are “wrong” in the Popperian sense—since they have gaps or domains where they fail—yet he still counts them among our best explanations because they’ve been repeatedly tested and shown to work reliably within their applicable domains.

Depth and reach: A hallmark of a good explanation is that understanding it allows you to understand a range of other phenomena as well. Deutsch even suggests there’s a kind of convergence toward a unified theory of everything—hinting at a deep link between reality and its propensity to be explained.

I see where the confusion comes from, but I thought clarifying my viewi in #2073 already addressed the criticism. What else would you suggest I do?

Deutsch says our body of knowledge keeps growing both deeper—better explanations—and wider—new fields, more facts, rules of thumb. He thinks depth is winning. It might be interesting to asses what that balance looks like in 2025.

@dennis-hackethal* you have regularly pointed out to me that it’s a mistake to assign strengths or weaknesses to arguments—for example, in #1809 and #1927. I’d love to get to the bottom of that.

On one hand, I see what you mean. A criticism can either be counter-criticized or it can be an unresolved error. If it’s a bad criticism, you just counter-criticize it or deem it irrelevant and move on.

I also see why talking about a “gradient” or comparative strength between arguments is problematic: there’s no objective criterion to measure them against. We can only say one theory is better than another when both attempt to explain the same phenomenon—then we can evaluate them using properties such as hard-to-varyness and other criteria Deutsch describes. (We can get into that if you’d like, though I don’t think that’s our main disagreement.). But this comparison doesn’t apply when we’re dealing with very different criticisms of a single idea, because there’s no common standard to measure them against. Comparing their “strength” becomes arbitrary.

However, I still think there are good and bad criticisms, just as there are good and bad explanations (following Deutsch’s distinction: for instance, bad explanations are easy to vary or point to authorities to justify themselves rather than offering a hard-to-vary account of how and why something works). While I could simply counter-criticize bad criticisms and move on, there’s also the matter of efficiency and opportunity cost: I don’t want to waste time repeatedly countering poor criticisms, or worse, get stuck in circular debates with people who don’t recognize that some arguments aren’t good criticisms at all. I’d rather focus my attention on good criticisms.

To clarify what I mean, here’s an excerpt from my book:

The most important principle to remember while criticizing is: Criticize, don’t defend or attack. Good explanations invite criticism of their intrinsic content—whether the explanation itself works, solves the problem, and avoids worse side effects. Bad explanations, by contrast, deflect criticism onto irrelevant, extrinsic properties such as authority or track record—e.g., “this is the method that successful company X uses,” “I believe strongly in this approach,” or “it’s coming from person Y, so it’s worthless.”

That kind of “criticism” isn’t real criticism at all. It’s just attacking or defending. And when we play that game, the explanation itself stays untouched and stagnant. The idea doesn’t get scrutinized or improved—it only gets shielded or dismissed for irrelevant reasons.

That being said, I agree with the points you brought up in #2061, namely that there can be no positive arguments for an idea. By extension, if Veritula would require a specific format or mode of criticism, we’d fall into the very error Popper warns about with the Myth of the Framework—the mistaken belief that criticism requires a shared framework or language. So, Veritula should functionally remain as it is. At most, you might consider adding guidelines on what constitutes good versus poor criticism, so that critics can improve their skills. But I agree: the person who created the idea should remain solely responsible for addressing the criticisms they receive, not dismissing them as “bad” and moving on.

Tagging @bart-vanderhaegen because he and I have discussed this at length—in fact, I got the defending/attacking framing from him.

I agree with the premise that small does not mean insignificant. My current view is that the only meaningful dichotomy is good vs. bad. I may have used labels like weaker or stronger, smaller or bigger, minor or major in the past, but I now see that was a mistake—they have no place when judging a criticism. So in this case, I don’t think the criticism applies because we’re not in disagreement.

@dennis-hackethal* you have regularly pointed out to me that it’s a mistake to assign strengths or weaknesses to arguments—for example, in #1809 and #1927. I’d love to get to the bottom of that.

On one hand, I see what you mean. A criticism can either be counter-criticized or it can be an unresolved error. If it’s a bad criticism, you just counter-criticize it or deem it irrelevant and move on.

I also see why talking about a “gradient” or comparative strength between arguments is problematic: there’s no objective criterion to measure them against. We can only say one theory is better than another when both attempt to explain the same phenomenon—then we can evaluate them using properties such as hard-to-varyness and other criteria Deutsch describes. (We can get into that if you’d like, though I don’t think that’s our main disagreement.). But this comparison doesn’t apply when we’re dealing with very different criticisms of a single idea, because there’s no common standard to measure them against. Comparing their “strength” becomes arbitrary.

However, I still think there are good and bad criticisms, just as there are good and bad explanations (following Deutsch’s distinction: for instance, bad explanations are easy to vary or point to authorities to justify themselves rather than offering a hard-to-vary account of how and why something works). While I could simply counter-criticize bad criticisms and move on, there’s also the matter of efficiency and opportunity cost: I don’t want to waste time repeatedly countering poor criticisms, or worse, get stuck in circular debates with people who don’t recognize that some arguments aren’t good criticisms at all. I’d rather focus my attention on good criticisms.

To clarify what I mean, here’s an excerpt from my book:

The most important principle to remember while criticizing is: Criticize, don’t defend or attack. Good explanations invite criticism of their intrinsic content—whether the explanation itself works, solves the problem, and avoids worse side effects. Bad explanations, by contrast, deflect criticism onto irrelevant, extrinsic properties such as authority or track record—e.g., “this is the method that successful company X uses,” “I believe strongly in this approach,” or “it’s coming from person Y, so it’s worthless.”

That kind of “criticism” isn’t real criticism at all. It’s just attacking or defending. And when we play that game, the explanation itself stays untouched and stagnant. The idea doesn’t get scrutinized or improved—it only gets shielded or dismissed for irrelevant reasons.

Tagging @bart-vanderhaegen because he and I have discussed this at length—in fact, I got the defending/attacking framing from him.

@dennis-hackethal* you have regularly pointed out to me that it’s a mistake to assign strengths or weaknesses to arguments—for example, in #1809 and #1927. I’d love to get to the bottom of that.

On one hand, I see what you mean. A criticism is a criticism: it can either be refuted or it has outstanding criticism. If it’s a bad criticism, you just refute it or deem it irrelevant and move on.

I also see why talking about a “gradient” or comparative strength between arguments is problematic: there’s no objective criterion to measure them against. We can only say one theory is better than another when both attempt to explain the same phenomenon—then we can evaluate them using properties such as hard-to-varyness and other criteria Deutsch describes. (We can get into that if you’d like, though I don’t think that’s our main disagreement.). But this comparison doesn’t apply when we’re dealing with very different criticisms of a single idea, because there’s no common standard to measure them against. Comparing their “strength” becomes arbitrary.

However, I still think there are good and bad criticisms, just as there are good and bad explanations (following Deutsch’s distinction: for instance, bad explanations are easy to vary or point to authorities to justify themselves rather than offering a hard-to-vary account of how and why something works). While I could simply refute bad criticisms and move on, there’s also the matter of efficiency and opportunity cost: I don’t want to waste time repeatedly refuting poor criticisms, or worse, get stuck in circular debates with people who don’t recognize that some arguments aren’t good criticisms at all. I’d rather focus my attention on good criticisms.

To clarify what I mean, here’s an excerpt from my book:

The most important principle to remember while criticizing is: Criticize, don’t defend or attack. Good explanations invite criticism of their intrinsic content—whether the explanation itself works, solves the problem, and avoids worse side effects. Bad explanations, by contrast, deflect criticism onto irrelevant, extrinsic properties such as authority or track record—e.g., “this is the method that successful company X uses,” “I believe strongly in this approach,” or “it’s coming from person Y, so it’s worthless.”

That kind of “criticism” isn’t real criticism at all. It’s just attacking or defending. And when we play that game, the explanation itself stays untouched and stagnant. The idea doesn’t get scrutinized or improved—it only gets shielded or dismissed for irrelevant reasons.

Tagging @bart-vanderhaegen because he and I have discussed this at length—in fact, I got the defending/attacking framing from him.

@dennis-hackethal* you have regularly pointed out to me that it’s a mistake to assign strengths or weaknesses to arguments—for example, in #1809 and #1927. I’d love to get to the bottom of that.

On one hand, I see what you mean. A criticism is a criticism: it can either be refuted or it has outstanding criticism. If it’s a bad criticism, you just refute it or deem it irrelevant and move on.

I also see why talking about a “gradient” or comparative strength between arguments is problematic: there’s no objective criterion to measure them against. We can only say one theory is better than another when both attempt to explain the same phenomenon—then we can evaluate them using properties such as hard-to-varyness and other criteria Deutsch describes. (We can get into that if you’d like, though I don’t think that’s our main disagreement.). But this comparison doesn’t apply when we’re dealing with very different criticisms of a single idea, because there’s no common standard to measure them against. Comparing their “strength” becomes arbitrary.

However, I still think there are good and bad criticisms, just as there are good and bad explanations (following Deutsch’s distinction here). While I could simply refute bad criticisms and move on, there’s also the matter of efficiency and opportunity cost: I don’t want to waste time repeatedly refuting poor criticisms, or worse, get stuck in circular debates with people who don’t recognize that some arguments aren’t good criticisms at all. I’d rather focus my attention on good criticisms.

To clarify what I mean, here’s an excerpt from my book:

The most important principle to remember while criticizing is: Criticize, don’t defend or attack. Good explanations invite criticism of their intrinsic content—whether the explanation itself works, solves the problem, and avoids worse side effects. Bad explanations, by contrast, deflect criticism onto irrelevant, extrinsic properties such as authority or track record—e.g., “this is the method that successful company X uses,” “I believe strongly in this approach,” or “it’s coming from person Y, so it’s worthless.”

That kind of “criticism” isn’t real criticism at all. It’s just attacking or defending. And when we play that game, the explanation itself stays untouched and stagnant. The idea doesn’t get scrutinized or improved—it only gets shielded or dismissed for irrelevant reasons.

Tagging @bart-vanderhaegen because he and I have discussed this at length—in fact, I got the defending/attacking framing from him.

Thanks for the reminder! Yes, I agree it’s good to strive for some form of resolution. My current take is that I’m still satisfied with Intuitions and Drives as more accessible labels. But the shortcomings you’ve raised in Statement are severe, and I hope to find a better alternative. Unfortunately, I haven’t had much success on my own. I’ll share my current thoughts here — perhaps we can continue exploring alternatives for Statement if you think that’s worthwhile. If, however, you believe all three labels are a mistake and that it’s irrational for me to pursue them, I of course understand if you’d prefer not to continue the discussion.

Problems with Statement

1) By definition a statement is a verbalized expression, whereas explicit knowledge doesn’t need to be verbalized. It just needs to be verbalizable. Calling it a Statement is confusing, as people might think it must be verbalized, while my point is simply that it can be verbalized.

2) It also carries the figurative meaning of “making a statement” through non-verbal actions (e.g., wearing a certain outfit, defying a social norm), which causes confusion, as you pointed out in #1700.

3) You say that statements don’t necessarily need to contain knowledge (see #1806), but can also be trivial or tautological. While I agree, I don’t see this as a relevant criticism of my labels, since in my book and video I define them as types of knowledge — not as trivial utterances or noise.

Given these problems, I’ve tried to find a more suitable word. The only candidate I’ve found so far is Formulations. It conveys explicitness, but it doesn’t fully address problem 1), since it still carries the connotation of being expressed rather than merely expressible.

Curious to hear your thoughts, as always.

Yeah, it doesn’t feel like a real criticism. I’m just trying to figure out the right way to resolve this thread. You’ve raised other criticisms focused on the content of my explanations—those make sense to keep open. But this thread, about my English possibly being a problem, doesn’t seem like a relevant or substantive criticism. I've claimed that my inaccuracies come more from carelessness than from a lack of comprehension of the language, and that doesn’t feel like a criticism of the ideas we’re discussing. So what should we do with this thread?

I think it does imply a conflict. I think every emotional sensation — including urges — arises from problems in the Popperian sense: two or more incompatible theories in conflict.

For example, consider hunger. One theory (Drive A) is that we don’t want to be hungry, while another signals that we are hungry (from ephemeral sense data (which could itself be viewed as a Drive, though that’s not important here)). The conflict between these theories produces the urge — in this case, the sensation of hunger.

I explain these conflicts in more detail, with further examples of Drives, Intuitions, and Statements, in this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEcR_0GbzRE

Addition 01-09-2025:
In the case of hunger, the sensation was signaling an unaddressed problem, but as you correctly pointed out, not all emotions signal unaddressed problems. Emotions are a feedback mechanism that can reflect different stages of problem solving. For instance, joy may signal a resolved problem, and impatience might signal frustration with an ongoing one. Likewise, anxiety can serve as an early warning of potential obstacles ahead, while relief marks the successful removal of a previously pressing issue.

I don’t take this personally, and I understand your intention isn’t to attack or belittle. To keep our exchange enjoyable and productive, I’ll make an effort to be more attentive to spelling, terminology, and precision. That said, I’m generally less concerned with exact spelling or perfect terminology, since my focus is usually on parsing the meaning or reasoning behind a theory or criticism. I try to be as charitable as possible in interpreting what someone is trying to say, focusing on the intended idea rather than the precise wording. Still, I recognize that clarity of wording may matter more to others—especially in discussions—so I’ll do my best to be more precise.

It's a fair point. I agree it's not a perfect word. I tried many labels and variations, but I ended up with Drives because in my view it contrasted well with Intuition:

Unlike Intuitions, Drives carry the sense of a deep urge whose underlying theory is largely unconscious. You’re aware of the feelings they produce as you say, but not of the reasoning behind them. For example, you might know you’re sexually attracted to someone or suddenly feel sad, yet have no idea why — then that’s a Drive.

If you do have some sense of why you’re feeling a certain way and can roughly express it in words, it’s an Intuition. If you can fully articulate it in words, it’s a Statement. Statements can also produce feelings. For example, if one of your core value is non‑coercion, you might feel angry when someone disciplines their child in an immoral way — here, the Statement (often paired with Intuitions or Drives) is producing the feeling of anger.

I agree the main shortcoming of Drive is that it’s often taken to mean innate or hardwired knowledge. I haven’t found a better alternative, so I make it clear when explaining the concept that Drives can also arise from habitualized knowledge. Deutsch (in this podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5e2LWxaqQUQ) seems to also support this way of defining new terminology

If you want to say something new the terminology you use is going to be unsuited for it because the terminology is going to be adapted to previous ways of thinking um what you can do is just invent your own terminology that's a terrible idea because no one will understand what you're saying and secondly it is subject to the same problem that it will only represent accurately fairly accurately your thoughts at a particular time when you're addressing a new criticism it will no longer be suitable so I think what people usually do and what is done in physics and what's done in philosophy what Popper did is to use the nearest existing term and be very careful to explain that one means something new by it.

If you have alternate suggestions, I'm of course eager to hear them!

It's a fair point. I agree it's not a perfect word. I tried many labels and variations, but I ended up with Drives because in my view it contrasted well with Intuition:

Unlike Intuitions, Drives carry the sense of a deep urge whose underlying theory is largely unconscious. You’re aware of the feelings they produce as you say, but not of the reasoning behind them. For example, you might know you’re sexually attracted to someone or suddenly feel sad, yet have no idea why — then that’s a Drive.

If you do have some sense of why you’re feeling a certain way and can roughly express it in words, it’s an Intuition. If you can fully articulate it in words, it’s a Statement. Statements can also produce feelings. For example, if one of your core value is non‑coercion, you might feel angry when someone disciplines their child in an immoral way — here, the Statement (often paired with Intuitions or Drives) is producing the feeling of anger.

I agree the main shortcoming of Drive is that it’s often taken to mean innate or hardwired knowledge. I haven’t found a better alternative, so I make it clear when explaining the concept that Drives can also arise from habitualized knowledge. Deutsch (in this podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5e2LWxaqQUQ) seems to also support this way of defining new terminology

If you want to say something new the terminology you use is going to be unsuited for it because the terminology is going to be adapted to previous ways of thinking um what you can do is just invent your own terminology that's a terrible idea because no one will understand what you're saying and secondly it is subject to the same problem that it will only represent accurately fairly accurately your thoughts at a particular time when you're addressing a new criticism it will no longer be suitable so I think what people usually do and what is done in physics and what's done in philosophy what Popper did is to use the nearest existing term and be very careful to explain that one means something new by it.

If you have alternate suggestions, I'm of course eager to hear them!

It's a fair point. I agree it's not a perfect word. I tried many labels and variations, but I ended up with Drives because in my view it contrasted well with Intuition:

Unlike Intuitions, Drives carry the sense of a deep urge whose underlying theory is largely unconscious. You’re aware of the feelings they produce as you say, but not of the reasoning behind them. For example, you might know you’re sexually attracted to someone or suddenly feel sad, yet have no idea why — then that’s a Drive.

If you do have some sense of why you’re feeling a certain way and can roughly express it in words, it’s an Intuition. If you can fully articulate it in words, it’s a Statement. Statements can also produce feelings. For example, if one of your core value is non‑coercion, you might feel angry when someone disciplines their child in an immoral way — here, the Statement (often paired with Intuitions or Drives) is producing the feeling of anger.

I agree the main shortcoming of Drive is that it’s often taken to mean innate or hardwired knowledge. I haven’t found a better alternative, so I make it clear when explaining the concept that Drives can also arise from habitualized knowledge. Deutch (in this podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5e2LWxaqQUQ) seems to also support this way of defining new terminology

If you want to say something new the terminology you use is going to be unsuited for it because the terminology is going to be adapted to previous ways of thinking um what you can do is just invent your own terminology that's a terrible idea because no one will understand what you're saying and secondly it is subject to the same problem that it will only represent accurately fairly accurately your thoughts at a particular time when you're addressing a new criticism it will no longer be suitable so I think what people usually do and what is done in physics and what's done in philosophy what Popper did is to use the nearest existing term and be very careful to explain that one means something new by it.

If you have alternate suggestions, I'm of course eager to hear them!

I think it does imply a conflict. I think every emotional sensation — including urges — arises from problems in the Popperian sense: two or more incompatible theories in conflict.

For example, consider hunger. One theory (Drive A) is that we don’t want to be hungry, while another signals that we are hungry (from ephemeral sense data (which could itself be viewed as a Drive, though that’s not important here)). The conflict between these theories produces the urge — in this case, the sensation of hunger.

I explain these conflicts in more detail, with further examples of Drives, Intuitions, and Statements, in this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEcR_0GbzRE

It's a fair point. I agree it's not a perfect word. I tried many labels and variations, but I ended up with Drives because in my view it contrasted well with Intuition:

Unlike Intuitions, Drives carry the sense of a deep urge whose underlying theory is largely unconscious. You’re aware of the feelings they produce as you say, but not of the reasoning behind them. For example, you might know you’re sexually attracted to someone or suddenly feel sad, yet have no idea why — then that’s a Drive.

If you do have some sense of why you’re feeling a certain way and can roughly express it in words, it’s an Intuition. If you can fully articulate it in words, it’s a Statement. Statements can also produce feelings. For example, if your core value is that non‑coercion, you might feel angry when someone disciplines their child in an immoral way — here, the Statement (often paired with Intuitions or Drives) is producing the feeling of anger.

I agree the main shortcoming of Drive is that it’s often taken to mean innate or hardwired knowledge. I haven’t found a better alternative, so I make it clear when explaining the concept that Drives can also arise from habitualized knowledge. Deutch (in this podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5e2LWxaqQUQ) seems to also support this way of defining new terminology

If you want to say something new the terminology you use is going to be unsuited for it because the terminology is going to be adapted to previous ways of thinking um what you can do is just invent your own terminology that's a terrible idea because no one will understand what you're saying and secondly it is subject to the same problem that it will only represent accurately fairly accurately your thoughts at a particular time when you're addressing a new criticism it will no longer be suitable so I think what people usually do and what is done in physics and what's done in philosophy what Popper did is to use the nearest existing term and be very careful to explain that one means something new by it.

If you have alternate suggestions, I'm of course eager to hear them!

If I were having a technical discussion with DD, Lulie, or you, I’d stick with those terms, since they’re the most technically accurate and you already understand them. However, when explaining the different types of knowledge to people who don’t quite grasp it yet or struggle to picture what it is, I’ve found that these labels help. These labels already have a meaning that is more commonly associated to sensations in the mind.

I agree with what you said, but don't understand why it's a criticism or refutation of "Statements can also produce feelings". Values are largely explicit knowledge (what I call Statements), and they can produce feelings, as you say.

If I were having a technical discussion with DD, Lulie, or you, I’d stick with those terms, since they’re the most technically accurate and you already understand them. However, when explaining the different types of knowledge to people who don’t quite grasp it yet or struggle to picture what it is, I’ve found that these labels help. These labels already have a meaning that is more commonly associated to sensations in the mind.

I agree, I think urge fits better than compulsion here

It's a fair point. I agree it's not a perfect word. I tried many labels and variations, but I ended up with Drives because in my view it contrasted well with Intuition:

Unlike Intuitions, Drives carry the sense of a deep compulsion whose underlying theory is largely unconscious. You’re aware of the feelings they produce as you say, but not of the reasoning behind them. For example, you might know you’re sexually attracted to someone or suddenly feel sad, yet have no idea why — then that’s a Drive.

If you do have some sense of why you’re feeling a certain way and can roughly express it in words, it’s an Intuition. If you can fully articulate it in words, it’s a Statement. Statements can also produce feelings. For example, if your core value is that non‑coercion, you might feel angry when someone disciplines their child in an immoral way — here, the Statement (often paired with Intuitions or Drives) is producing the feeling of anger.

I agree the main shortcoming of Drive is that it’s often taken to mean innate or hardwired knowledge. I haven’t found a better alternative, so I make it clear when explaining the concept that Drives can also arise from habitualized knowledge. Deutch (in this podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5e2LWxaqQUQ) seems to also support this way of defining new terminology

If you want to say something new the terminology you use is going to be unsuited for it because the terminology is going to be adapted to previous ways of thinking um what you can do is just invent your own terminology that's a terrible idea because no one will understand what you're saying and secondly it is subject to the same problem that it will only represent accurately fairly accurately your thoughts at a particular time when you're addressing a new criticism it will no longer be suitable so I think what people usually do and what is done in physics and what's done in philosophy what Popper did is to use the nearest existing term and be very careful to explain that one means something new by it.

If you have alternate suggestions, I'm of course eager to hear them!