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No One Knows What the F*** They're Doing (or "The 3 Types of Knowledge")

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Re: No One Knows What the F*** They're Doing (or "The 3 Types of Knowledge")

#31

Post by 10ren »

I find it helpful to think of these three categories as answers, questions, and neither. Being able to articulate your lack of knowledge as a question turns out to be a very powerful way to convert the last category into the first. Questions are important, according to Douglas Adams ("42") and Picasso ("computers are useless, they can only give you answers").

I also think of it as a doorway. Some doors are open to you; some are closed. And some doorways you haven't noticed are there. It's fun to notice a doorway - behind a wardrobe; plastered over - for the first time when you return to a place you've visited many times.

But, for me, it's also humbling each time I realize there's more to it. It feels unpleasant at first (I guess that's my ego imagining I know everything), but then it's freeing and reassuring. Nature's imagination is greater than my imagination.

edit Unfortunately, I feel as though I know all the principles, and it's just uninteresting details - data, information - that I lack. I hope this is wrong, but I can't imagine how...

Re: No One Knows What the F*** They're Doing (or "The 3 Types of Knowledge")

#32

Post by [deleted] »

fnid2 wrote: post #30
helwr wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the pressure is not to ignore but to reduce that complexity. People who ask you questions expect that from you, the provider of information. They expect you to reduce that complexity, and if you are not doing your job, meaning you give them too much information, they will be unhappy. Its not that they don't want to know, but why do they need you if you cannot reduce the complexity for them, i guess this is what most…

I've had clients ask me a question and say, "I don't want to know how, just if it is possible?" and I suppose because I think they think it is really hard, I just tell them how to do it, it's like 2 clicks. But then half an hour later they ask me the same question the same way and so I just say, 'Yes.' and start answering like that, yes, no, yes, no, yes, yes... and they tend to like that better.

[deleted]

Re: No One Knows What the F*** They're Doing (or "The 3 Types of Knowledge")

#33

Post by btilly »

pyre wrote: post #29
lqdshadow wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right or wrong, NOT acting is often a far worse sin. Do you live your life in hesitation, questioning your every move? The silver lining is that everyone is as equally wrong as you. The world rewards those who cause motion, who act. Energy excites. It is also interesting to consider that you might be wrong about how wrong somebody is. What if you are both right, that you have not considered their issue in a context t…

> The world rewards those who cause motion, who act. I hate to bring Godwin into this, but Hitler acted/caused motion, so did Stalin, so do a lot of bad people. Did the world really reward them?

Have you had a noticeable fraction of their fame, wealth or power?

Re: No One Knows What the F*** They're Doing (or "The 3 Types of Knowledge")

#34

Post by lqdshadow »

pyre wrote: post #29
lqdshadow wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right or wrong, NOT acting is often a far worse sin. Do you live your life in hesitation, questioning your every move? The silver lining is that everyone is as equally wrong as you. The world rewards those who cause motion, who act. Energy excites. It is also interesting to consider that you might be wrong about how wrong somebody is. What if you are both right, that you have not considered their issue in a context t…

> The world rewards those who cause motion, who act. I hate to bring Godwin into this, but Hitler acted/caused motion, so did Stalin, so do a lot of bad people. Did the world really reward them?

They left enough of a mark with their motion that you readily brought up names and thought of actions. Fame is enough reward for some people, as is power and money. I did not exclude the possibility of punishments.

The point is that, right or wrong, they made decisions. They lived. How many of us can say that we took a chance and really felt alive with that big decision? Maybe it is about starting a war with your neighboring country; maybe it is as thrilling as asking your sweetheart to marry you. The act of making the decision breathes life into you. And sure, maybe it is the wrong thing to do, but how do you measure that in good time before making your decision?

The act of making the decision is what separates leaders and followers.

Re: No One Knows What the F*** They're Doing (or "The 3 Types of Knowledge")

#35

Post by tom_rath »

kqr2 wrote: post #28

Reminds me of the quote from Rumsfeld. Reformatted by http://www.slate.com/id/2081042/ The Unknown As we know, There are known knowns. There are things we know we know. We also know There are known unknowns. That is to say We know there are some things We do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns, The ones we don't know We don't know.

It always bugged me how Rumsfeld was slagged for that statement. I found it a very clear explanation of the difficulty in assessing a chaotic environment.

Re: No One Knows What the F*** They're Doing (or "The 3 Types of Knowledge")

#36

Post by houseabsolute »

flatline wrote: post #24

There is a meta-problem here: we can't really know how big that red slice of the pie - the "don't know what you don't know" slice - really is. I think he captured the essence of the learning process correctly though, the "know what you don't know" slice just keeps getting bigger as you get older, thus the oft-cited expression, "the older you get, the less you know".

You can make some good back of the envelope attempts at answering it. For example, you can look at how often the big red slice forcibly intrudes on your life to your detriment, and compare that to how often it happens to other humans with similar risk-taking habits to you. The more often, the bigger your personal red slice is.

Re: No One Knows What the F*** They're Doing (or "The 3 Types of Knowledge")

#37

Post by pyre »

btilly wrote: post #33
pyre wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The world rewards those who cause motion, who act. I hate to bring Godwin into this, but Hitler acted/caused motion, so did Stalin, so do a lot of bad people. Did the world really reward them?

Have you had a noticeable fraction of their fame, wealth or power?

Does the world reward suicide? That's an act. :P

Re: No One Knows What the F*** They're Doing (or "The 3 Types of Knowledge")

#38

Post by nazgulnarsil »

the experience of his girlfriend struck a chord with me. I used to be confused why no one else was asking questions in class. it took getting to the higher levels of hard science education before I realized: everyone else had just been learning by rote. it's easy to just show up, memorize, and pass the test. it came back to bite them in the ass later when they reached the washout phase of math, physics, and chemistry. classes suddenly switched "know XYZ" to thinking critically about why XYZ was happening and what that implied about the physical system we were working on.

Re: No One Knows What the F*** They're Doing (or "The 3 Types of Knowledge")

#40

Post by frederickcook »

kilian wrote: post #15

I'll come right out and say it: Most of the pleasure in my work comes from agreeing to do something I know I don't know, and then figuring it out. Now, what disconcerts me is that, given the same situation, if I say "sure, I can do that" people believe me, but if I say "I don't know how to do it, but I can figure out" others hesitate. I think this has to do with most people wanting you to know a lot, instead of wanti…

"Fake it 'til you make it."

If you say you can do it, people believe you. Once you have done a bunch of stuff and people know you can do it, you can tell them you'll figure it out, and they'll believe you.

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