And this is also why all institutions rot over time. When the original experts and founders are gone, only the codified superficial knowledge remains. The result is bureaucracy coasting on the resources and reputation built by the original founders. Works until it encounters real problems that are not solved by superficial rules.
Why the most valuable things you know are things you cannot say
31–40 of 70 posts
Re: Why the most valuable things you know are things you cannot say
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
What is wrong in that quoted sentence? Do you mean "articulacy" should instead be "articulateness"? "Articulacy" is also a word, and correct in this context.
Articulation. The lens of articulation. Or otherwise, "eloquence;" the lens of eloquence. LLMs ain't gonna do sheeeeeeeit if this is still where we are at...
I have terrible news for you. Linguistics is descriptive, not prescriptive. We will torment you with word game playing until such time as you loosen up.
Re: Why the most valuable things you know are things you cannot say
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
Articulation. The lens of articulation. Or otherwise, "eloquence;" the lens of eloquence. LLMs ain't gonna do sheeeeeeeit if this is still where we are at...
I have terrible news for you. Linguistics is descriptive, not prescriptive. We will torment you with word game playing until such time as you loosen up.
The torment is evidently yours [0]. However, I am ecstatic you reveal your own inner turbulence, which I have deliberately engineered.
By the way, how are those food prices working out for ya bud [1]? I understand that you are struggling, but please try not to get, quote, "violent".
Pause. Empathize. Apologize. Then post.
Re: Why the most valuable things you know are things you cannot say
#34And this is also why all institutions rot over time. When the original experts and founders are gone, only the codified superficial knowledge remains. The result is bureaucracy coasting on the resources and reputation built by the original founders. Works until it encounters real problems that are not solved by superficial rules.
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Re: Why the most valuable things you know are things you cannot say
#35I would call the difference intuitive knowledge versus rational knowledge. I've never seen the word calibration used this way: different modes of learning. The first is instruction: the transfer of explicit models, rules, and relationships from one person to another through language. The second is calibration: the development of internal models through repeated exposure to feedback in a specific environment. Judgemen…
You raise an interesting question. How do we keep the meanings of words from diverging so dramatically and so rapidly? A little bit is natural and expected, but this kind of change in meaning feels like a consequence of a culture that in the last decade has accelerated the practice of re-framing specific words and concepts as something that's "actually a positive" or "actually quite negative if you think about it". P…
It's always been like this, just on a smaller scale. Every time you join a group, some people can read the room, learning and sensing the cultural implications, while others step in all the landmines and don't even hear the explosions. How do you do this? Not sure how to explain it, mostly calibration through experience!
Re: Why the most valuable things you know are things you cannot say
#36isn't that also related to active vs passive knowledge?
active knowledge i can produce on command. passive knowledge only comes up when it is triggered from the outside.
a lot of things we know are only accessible when they are triggered. i could not describe the path through a forest, but i know it when i walk it. same for the process to solve a particular problem. i could not describe the whole way. only if i follow the steps can i remember the next steps. and if there are multiple possible steps at some point, only for the choices that are actually triggered will i remember what comes after.
you can follow me and learn the steps by observing me, but you will only learn the steps that we actually do. and i couldn't possibly give you a list of all other potential steps.
in the latest video by tom scott, he watches people creating bells. the guy observing the molten metal knows when it has the right temperature by just looking at it. he learned that from years of practice, and his future replacement will learn it by observing him.
Re: Why the most valuable things you know are things you cannot say
#37I would call the difference intuitive knowledge versus rational knowledge. I've never seen the word calibration used this way: different modes of learning. The first is instruction: the transfer of explicit models, rules, and relationships from one person to another through language. The second is calibration: the development of internal models through repeated exposure to feedback in a specific environment. Judgemen…
I believe the author was arguing that “calibration” is also rational but it cannot be transmitted. You cannot learn it from reading or following a framework. Books and frameworks are too lossy. The author cited the example of doctors in their residency as an example of this second mode of learning. They are learning from hands on experience what other doctors had also learned before. With residency there are others w…
You're arguing against something I wasn't trying to imply.
Choosing a good abstract dichotomy is hard (mine is also faulty, as you have noted).
They chose "instruction" versus "calibration" which I feel is a terrible splitting plane (muddying whatever they are trying to articulate).
I have been fascinated listening to a smart nursing friend of mine explain some of the intuitions they learnt through observation (not explicitly taught). I believe they had an outlier skill for noticing patterns. They might have been able to teach the patterns they saw, but they probably couldn't teach the skill of discovering patterns ≈intelligence.
Re: Why the most valuable things you know are things you cannot say
#38I would call the difference intuitive knowledge versus rational knowledge. I've never seen the word calibration used this way: different modes of learning. The first is instruction: the transfer of explicit models, rules, and relationships from one person to another through language. The second is calibration: the development of internal models through repeated exposure to feedback in a specific environment. Judgemen…
Language changes though . He's directionally correct about calibration. People have some intuition about how something works, and then calibrate this tgrough feedback.
Re: Why the most valuable things you know are things you cannot say
#39And this is also why all institutions rot over time. When the original experts and founders are gone, only the codified superficial knowledge remains. The result is bureaucracy coasting on the resources and reputation built by the original founders. Works until it encounters real problems that are not solved by superficial rules.
Right.. Countless times I see people struggle with something then complain about the fact that nobody wrote anything down ahead to hand hold them through the problem. As if the old experts would've known to write that. And often times they did write stuff, but it either wasn't read or it ran into this issue of instruction being incapable of transmitting everything you actually need.
Re: Why the most valuable things you know are things you cannot say
#40I believe what is missed here is that the brain assimilate things outside of it (not in the physical sense of course). Use a hammer for some time and the brain start to dedicate some networks to simulate the hammer internally and to integrate the hammer as parte of your body. The brain starts using the hammer in the same way it uses your hand. It becomes part of what the higher level processes use to read from and to…
When I was 17 I was hired by a startup to write a book. The end product was a complete disaster (don't hire a 17 year old to write a book, also don't enter into contracts with 17 year old high school students w/o informing parents.)
The book was on 3d modeling in Rhino 3d. I was really good at Rhino3d at that time, to the extent that using it felt like a natural extension of my hands. IMHO every other 3d modeling program has a trash UI compared to the absolutely amazing UI that Rhinoceros 3d has.
I had to learn how to translate my absolute love of Rhino3D onto a page and explain it to other people. It was hard. It made my brain work in ways it was not used to, but it was an incredibly valuable experience.
The only remaining copy of the book sits behind me on a bit rotted CDR.
I have had 3 types of math teachers in life. American teachers, who generally teach rules from a book according to a curriculum. Russian teachers, who have a passion and a love for the field and who teach how to intuitive the answer to math problems first before going all in on the formulas. And East Asian math teachers who show off the beauty of the equations themselves.
I had one math teacher who couldn't speak English. He didn't need to, he had an incredible ability to communicate math through pure equations. It was lovely, one of the best math classes I've ever had. Math was truly used as a universal language.
I had another teacher (Russian) who got so excited solving equations and explaining DiffEq that he'd break his chalk in half and he'd go diving under desks to pick up the pieces.
But it is artists who are some of the best at transmitting intuitive knowledge. They have centuries of best practices of how to train students to rewrite their brains to literally see the world differently. (And yes a lot of it does involve drawing boring still lives of fruit bowls! But, hey, it works)