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You can't tell people anything (2004)

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Re: You can't tell people anything (2004)

#151

Post by ivanbakel »

MichaelZuo wrote: post #72
ivanbakel wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That presumes that communication is just about people understanding the thing you are trying to say, rather than the transfer of thoughts, ideas, and opinions. Put another way: the only thing that you can verify when communicating that the sky is on fire is that the other party knows you think the sky is on fire. Whether or not they think the sky is on fire, or whether they think you're blowing hot air, is pretty ins…

Methods such as reviewing their work, observing their actions without them knowing, testing them in some form, literally sitting behind them, etc..., will quickly reveal someone's true disposition towards whether the 'sky is on fire', regardless of what might be said. At least I've never heard anyone that could convincingly fake such a big difference under focused observation, assuming the verifier is competent. For…

I agree - as I said, you can see the results in the actions of the other party. But those are all techniques beyond communication: none of them allow you to verify, in the moment, whether or not the other person has "understood" you in the sense of agreeing with what you have to say.

The idea of verifying after communicating is in line with the original article, and the comment by outworlder. What do you think they failed to consider?

Re: You can't tell people anything (2004)

#152

Post by [deleted] »

andai wrote: post #116
fulltimeloser wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I often struggle with large classroom learning: the pace is either too slow and I get distracted or too fast and I can't keep up. Yes, this is my biggest gripe with learning as well. It's so individual that you almost need one teacher per student.

Finally, we have the "Digital Aristotle". KhanAcademy is testing out a ChatGPT integration. Well, it was astonishing when I read the news. Now, at the end of this crazy week, all I can think is "well of course they are!"

[deleted]

Re: You can't tell people anything (2004)

#153

Post by gboss »

koyote wrote: post #63
zsz wrote: post #51

> I’m totally convinced that a new idea or a new plan or a new technique is never really understood when you just explain it. > People will often think they understand, and they’ll say they understand, but then their actions show that it just ain’t so. Isn't this the very reason that homework assignments exist? When I was in college, it took me two years to realize that I could have easily gotten As and Bs (instead o…

> When I was in college, it took me two years to realize that I could have easily gotten As and Bs (instead of Bs and Cs) in my various math classes, physics, chemistry, etc. had I simply bothered to do my homework properly--or, to put it differently, had I only properly applied the knowledge which I passively acquired by reading the associated textbook sections. I took this realisation to the extreme and decided to…

I did this when I accidentally enrolled in the astronomy 101 class for astronomers when I meant to enroll in the “fun” astronomy class for non-majors. The professor was extremely uninterested in teaching and I decided to just do the assignments and stop going to class. Still got an A.

Re: You can't tell people anything (2004)

#154

Post by jrumbut »

andai wrote: post #117
jrumbut wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have a great way to put it in words, but the intuition is that you are putting enormous mental energy into something that doesn't give anything back. Being able to solve heat equations doesn't make you warm. Other subjects are the same, obviously, but when writing a history essay you can BS and not think too hard and skate by with a C. With a math problem, if it's difficult for you, you need to really put you…

I was studying calculus not too long ago and arrived at the conclusion that drawing is actually way harder than math. In math, you learn how something works, and then you can do it. In drawing, you can literally see the "solution" right in front of you (e.g. your own hand that you are drawing) and still get it wrong for years (and even then, only asymptotically approach perfection). That discrepancy between the goal…

Drawing is similar (and a lifelong source of frustration for me). I can see the same experience playing out in different disciplines.

I would say that in the kind of math you study after calculus it becomes more common to have that "I know what the solution should look like but I can't seem to get there" feeling.

Re: You can't tell people anything (2004)

#156

Post by xyzelement »

mordae wrote: post #131
xyzelement wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I deeply appreciate your point that lack of understanding goes both downward (homeless) and upward (CEOs.) I think that's true. But - unrelated to your point - I think there's more empathy (or understanding, at least) - unexpectedly - downwards. A CEO knows how to become homeless (quit job, give away house and money) if they chose to for some reason. A homeless person has no path to CEO.

Perhaps in theory, but not in practice. In practice those "on top" either lack empathy from the start, or learn to disconnect it early on.

How do you know?

Re: You can't tell people anything (2004)

#157

Post by cxr »

hilbert42 wrote: post #54
joefigura wrote: post #39

This article really frustrated me the last time it was posted, but now I think I have a clear enough idea why to put it into words. You absolutely can tell people things! But to tell someone something, you need to do three things: - Establish enough shared context that they can understand you - Speak about something they actually care about (or convince them to care) - Use a format that works for what you're trying t…

"...you have to put in the work to be understood and to show people it's worth their time to pay attention. Communicating well is part of the job." That's fine and I don't disagree but the problem is that there are very few truly good communicators out there (there is just not enough to go around). Communication is difficult and really effective communication is very difficult. I'll use myself as an example, When I p…

> few bother to read them

How do you know?

Re: You can't tell people anything (2004)

#158

Post by TRiG_Ireland »

smaudet wrote: post #109
koyote wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When I was in college, it took me two years to realize that I could have easily gotten As and Bs (instead of Bs and Cs) in my various math classes, physics, chemistry, etc. had I simply bothered to do my homework properly--or, to put it differently, had I only properly applied the knowledge which I passively acquired by reading the associated textbook sections. I took this realisation to the extreme and decided to…

Classroom experience is so rarely useful, the ONLY time you benefit is when either a) you already studied the subject and the professor is good and mentions something tangential/extra credit, or b) the classroom size is small, so when you don't understand something you can say so without fear of class disruption and the teacher can spend more time tailoring their curriculum to their class. Otherwise yes, you are ofte…

It does depend what you're learning, too. Anything practical (chemistry lab skills, for example) will need a classroom. And languages probably do too.

(If you do Deaf Studies in Trinity College, University of Dublin, one of the lectures is on Deaf Culture, Perspectives on Deafness, Working with the Deaf Community. The lecturer is himself Deaf, and will lecture in ISL. There's an interpreter present to voice the lecture for the hearing students (and to interpret any questions, of course). In third year, you lose the interpreter. By that stage, you should be fluent enough in ISL from your ISL classes to no longer need one.)

Re: You can't tell people anything (2004)

#159

Post by kaashif »

tormeh wrote: post #127
weinzierl wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Isn't this the very reason that homework assignments exist? Absolutely. It is also why I will never understand why it is considered a virtue (especially in the maths and physics community) to set assignments without exemplary solution. I'm not asking to give this exemplary solution to students right away, but it should definitely exist and be given when students have shown honest effort and especially to weaker stu…

IMO mathy homework should always come with the correct end result to the questions. It allows the student to get instant feedback on whether they’re right or wrong. They’ll still have to work out the derivation of the answer.

That works fine for some kinds of questions, but not for questions like "prove this group is cyclic" or "prove this function is holomorphic" - in those cases there is no answer separate from the derivation.

And those questions tend to be the hardest and most prone to bullshittery by students. Many times in exams I made up proofs that made no sense and hoped no-one would notice.

Often when given the end result of a computation students just make up some nonsense integral or something and pretend they evaluated it, even if they didn't. Not having the answer immediately at least forces an honest attempt.

Let's not kid ourselves, we were all students at one time and we know students are lazy.

Re: You can't tell people anything (2004)

#160

Post by relaxing »

qez wrote: post #69
joefigura wrote: post #39

This article really frustrated me the last time it was posted, but now I think I have a clear enough idea why to put it into words. You absolutely can tell people things! But to tell someone something, you need to do three things: - Establish enough shared context that they can understand you - Speak about something they actually care about (or convince them to care) - Use a format that works for what you're trying t…

Whoever wrote this piece is a bad communicator who thinks he's a good communicator, and then goes through life getting confused about why no one understands him. For example, in the story about the Japanese, he assumes some context from the reader: "What are they building? What is Fujitsu and what is Habitat and why does Japan need their own special version of it?" It's not even clear they're building anything techni…

> For example, in the story about the Japanese, he assumes some context from the reader: "What are they building? What is Fujitsu and what is Habitat and why does Japan need their own special version of it?" It's not even clear they're building anything technical, so I wondered, "Why do they need a client and server? And also, didn't you ever think to check their internal technical details before? What did you think would be the result?"

None of those details are important to the story. Leaving out extraneous detail is good communication.

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