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People with Greater Intellectual Humility Have Superior General Knowledge

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Re: People with Greater Intellectual Humility Have Superior General Knowledge

#171

Post by sl1ck731 »

wltprgm wrote: post #167
haecceity wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 6) If someone doesn't understand my idea, it's probably because they aren't smart enough to get it. (reverse) One of my high school teachers said something like: if someone doesn't understand your explanation, then you don't know it as well as you think you do.

Not entirely correct if someone doesn't understand your explanation, it might be that you don't understand the person well enough or you don't know the correct way to explain to that person in a plain language

I struggle with this when everyone outside of tech asks me what I do.

My answer always changes since I haven't narrowed down a way to describe "cloud engineering" to people.

I've heard this saying before and every time I think, "maybe I don't know what I do".

Re: People with Greater Intellectual Humility Have Superior General Knowledge

#172

Post by l33tbro »

pseudolus wrote: post #12

It's a finding more pithily stated by the poet W.B. Yeats: "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity" - The Second Coming (poem).

Reminds me of a Robert Hughes quip: "The greater the artist, the greater the doubt; perfect confidence is granted to the less talented as a consolation prize".

Re: People with Greater Intellectual Humility Have Superior General Knowledge

#173

Post by AmericanChopper »

burtonator wrote: post #162
te_platt wrote: post #134

A few years ago the guy I was sharing an office with at work was cleaning off his desk and found a stack of resumes. He said they were all from the batch that I was hired from and asked if I wanted to know why I was picked. Very cautiously I said yes. He told me I was the only one who when really pushed during the technical interview said "I don't know". Their initial strategy had been to start easy on some topic and…

"I don't know" is often the best answer. I was listening to some Christian on a video criticizing atheists and saying something related to the god of the gaps fallacy. He commented something along the lines of "you have to have an answer to these things!" No. No you don't. You don't just invent some fairy tale just because you don't understand something. Often the best answer is "I don't know"

To be fair, both christians and atheists who are interested in debating each other tend to have a hard time understanding the limits of their knowledge. The criticism can be directed equally in both directions.

The entire sum of scientific knowledge is based on unprovable axioms, just the same as the entire sum of religious knowledge is based on unprovable axioms. Faith is a belief in something you can’t prove, and people have faith in scientific knowledge in exactly the same way that others have faith in religious knowledge.

A wise person would understand that scientific knowledge and the various forms of religious knowledge are based on completely different foundational axioms, and as a result, any attempt to debate the merits of one over the other is entirely pointless. A wiser person might understand that criticising somebody for what they choose to have faith in is both pointless and hypocritical.

Re: People with Greater Intellectual Humility Have Superior General Knowledge

#174

Post by ubershmekel »

mncharity wrote: post #132
oblib wrote: post #118

A good friend once told, after listening to me bitch about someone who loved to comment on my work, "You can learn something from everyone". I spent some time trying to dismiss that before considering that if he was right I'd already missed out on a lot, and that certainly humbled me because when I started looking for it I found he was right. The flip side to this is sharing what you know when it contradicts what oth…

Years ago I saw someone doing a community outreach lecture tour, for Next Generation Science Standards. On behalf of NSF I think. She was getting hostile questions, many of the too-broken-to-even-be-wrong variety. Ones where normally I'd just shake my head, perhaps think "nutter", and hope the speaker was able to move on without getting bogged down. She addressed the questions with a grace, and insight, and empathy,…

I learned this lesson from the videos of the Harvard course on justice. The lecturer got explanations that I thought at the time were laughable, but somehow in his response he rephrased them to be reasonable and a great platform to deepen the conversation. It requires a great deal of empathy and intelligence to do that and I try my darndest to read as much sense as possible from any question directed my way. Here's an example:

https://youtu.be/kBdfcR-8hEY?t=2446

Re: People with Greater Intellectual Humility Have Superior General Knowledge

#175

Post by AmericanChopper »

te_platt wrote: post #134

A few years ago the guy I was sharing an office with at work was cleaning off his desk and found a stack of resumes. He said they were all from the batch that I was hired from and asked if I wanted to know why I was picked. Very cautiously I said yes. He told me I was the only one who when really pushed during the technical interview said "I don't know". Their initial strategy had been to start easy on some topic and…

That’s been my go-to interview technique for years. I want to see candidates say they don’t know under pressure.

Unless it’s for a very senior role, I think attitude and personality are greater predictors of success than technical competency, so long as their technical competency is ‘good enough’ to begin with.

Re: People with Greater Intellectual Humility Have Superior General Knowledge

#176

Post by bryanrasmussen »

So as the levels of intellectual humility increase there comes a point where a person's superior general knowledge on a subject can actually be greater than a domain expert's specific knowledge.

At this point maintaining the intellectual humility so as not to descend into idiocy becomes a real challenge.

Re: People with Greater Intellectual Humility Have Superior General Knowledge

#177

Post by ogn3rd »

te_platt wrote: post #134

A few years ago the guy I was sharing an office with at work was cleaning off his desk and found a stack of resumes. He said they were all from the batch that I was hired from and asked if I wanted to know why I was picked. Very cautiously I said yes. He told me I was the only one who when really pushed during the technical interview said "I don't know". Their initial strategy had been to start easy on some topic and…

As an interviewer at one of the FAANG companies I can confirm this is one tactic we use as well. A lot of people are very confident spewing trash for as long as you'll let them.

Re: People with Greater Intellectual Humility Have Superior General Knowledge

#178

Post by karmelapple »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #173
burtonator wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I don't know" is often the best answer. I was listening to some Christian on a video criticizing atheists and saying something related to the god of the gaps fallacy. He commented something along the lines of "you have to have an answer to these things!" No. No you don't. You don't just invent some fairy tale just because you don't understand something. Often the best answer is "I don't know"

To be fair, both christians and atheists who are interested in debating each other tend to have a hard time understanding the limits of their knowledge. The criticism can be directed equally in both directions. The entire sum of scientific knowledge is based on unprovable axioms, just the same as the entire sum of religious knowledge is based on unprovable axioms. Faith is a belief in something you can’t prove, and p…

Faith is a belief in something without evidence, correct?

Science is rooted in empirical evidence. It may be with imperfect models and imperfect measurement, but there is indeed fairly reasonably-measured evidence.

Re: People with Greater Intellectual Humility Have Superior General Knowledge

#179

Post by Consultant32452 »

sl1ck731 wrote: post #171
wltprgm wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not entirely correct if someone doesn't understand your explanation, it might be that you don't understand the person well enough or you don't know the correct way to explain to that person in a plain language

I struggle with this when everyone outside of tech asks me what I do. My answer always changes since I haven't narrowed down a way to describe "cloud engineering" to people. I've heard this saying before and every time I think, "maybe I don't know what I do".

I always respond in layers. The first layer is to say I work in computers. If they want to know more, they'll ask. If there is a follow up question that doesn't make it clear they're tech savvy, I'll explain one level deeper. I work on the website for x company, or I help secure your credit card info at such and such back. It doesn't matter if you're front end, back end, dba, network, sysadmin, help desk, etc. Just something that a regular human might recognize as being a thing. Most people don't know what those job titles mean, but they know people must do something to make websites work and secure credit cards. And so on and so forth until it's satisfied their curiosity.

Re: People with Greater Intellectual Humility Have Superior General Knowledge

#180

Post by zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #173
burtonator wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I don't know" is often the best answer. I was listening to some Christian on a video criticizing atheists and saying something related to the god of the gaps fallacy. He commented something along the lines of "you have to have an answer to these things!" No. No you don't. You don't just invent some fairy tale just because you don't understand something. Often the best answer is "I don't know"

To be fair, both christians and atheists who are interested in debating each other tend to have a hard time understanding the limits of their knowledge. The criticism can be directed equally in both directions. The entire sum of scientific knowledge is based on unprovable axioms, just the same as the entire sum of religious knowledge is based on unprovable axioms. Faith is a belief in something you can’t prove, and p…

A wise person might also be aware that words can have multiple meanings, that "faith" is one of those words, and that equivocation fallacies don't make for good reasoning.
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