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You can't tell people anything (2004)

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

#61

Post by krisoft »

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…

> OK, so when people have some talent, skill or knowledge that needs to be conveyed to the world and they can't get their point across effectively then what are they to do?

Try, and try again.

Put yourself in the shoes of your audience. What do they know already? What will they think when you say this or that? Is that what you want them to think?

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

#62

Post by Nevermark »

This suggests to me the difference between understanding and fluency.

--

Understanding is relatively easy, with good communication. "Oh, that makes sense!"

It happens in our working memory, which operates somewhat symbolically, but can't hold much, iterate, generalize, or interpolate well. And forgets quickly.

You can "give" understanding, but it requires spelling out everything to be understood, very clearly. And it won't stick.

People will "feel" they understand for a moment. The big "win" is if they later recall you said something or other that seemed to make sense.

--

Fluency begins when we have experienced something ourselves.

It is all about training our subconscious, the more intuitive part of our brain, which is very sensory and intuition driven. A lot like deep learning.

It compresses sample experiences into a general, spontaneously available form, usable in combinations with other fluencies, and give you "light bulb" epiphany moments when new combinations are surprising.

It is very hard to "give" fluency.

But you can smooth the path, by making experiences clear, fun, interesting, useful, surprising, low barrier, and low latency.

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

#63

Post by koyote »

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 completely deprioritise classes in favour of homework and doing the reading in my own time. I figured the cost-benefit, at least for me, was much higher if I spent an hour doing as opposed to an hour listening.

This actually worked really well for me but that might also be because 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. But even when the learning is 'one-to-one' I feel like there's always the tendency for people to zone out and not raise an issue when they are either bored or did not keep up/understand.

I think you're right in that some of that might be the brain pretending that it understood when in fact it did not. Could it also be a social thing? Maybe because the other person expects you to understand and this causes your brain to try its best to believe that it understood when it did not.

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

#64

Post by crdrost »

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…

Yes. Well, examples. Good homework assignments give you some examples to sit in your head, not all homework assignments are good though.

The way I like to tell people this is, you know that thing where you want to take your kids or your students and make sure that they don't have to go through the same pain that you did to learn what you had learned? That feeling?

If you have ever had that feeling you must understand that it was horribly mistaken. The problem is precisely that learning and pain go hand-in-hand. We learn abstractions precisely because they relieve a sort of confusion, a sort of difficulty, they organize the pain that we have experienced and make it tidy and less painful. Even as kids abstractions like “this is what it means for the stove to be on” work this way, not that you have to get burned, maybe you just need to be yelled at, but it organizes that pain of being yelled at and tells you when are you getting yelled at and why.

Not all learning is this way, for example memorization and repetition... but to a first approximation you have to get lost in the forest before the landmarks on the map are recognizable.

Corollary: you CAN tell people things, but it might be more involved than just a casual conversation. Either you have to establish a shared context, tap into the pain/confusion that they already have... Or you have to get them interested enough that they will follow you down a rabbit hole of confusion and difficulty so that you can finally explain the thing.

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

#65

Post by anyfoo »

rq1 wrote: post #49

> “Why didn’t you tell me that?” I got this impression on my own self while studying math in college. I noticed it when I made the connection about the studied subject, wondering why didn’t the professor say it that way to begin with. Because everything made sense now… After few likely moments I asked myself the question: was the last explanation really better or did I just happen to understand the thing at that part…

It's important to note that sometimes in university or elsewhere, you are just getting rigorous definitions, and while those are unquestionable useful or important, they might be entirely insufficient to build the necessary intuition.

I've thought about this a few times, and written comments about it like this one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28122728

That being said, I do actually also literally rote memorize actual definitions and equations (using a flashcard program), because conversely, intuition is not enough. Rigorous definitions and "intuitive" ways to grasp math go hand in hand: One informs the other. It's immensely useful to be able to just recall complex definitions and equations while intuiting.

I think you hint at that, but often for me the definitions start out as "abstract nonsense" while learning them, and I just memorize them, but the further my intuition goes, the more the definitions themselves become crystal clear.

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

#66

Post by krisoft »

wolfram74 wrote: post #15
outworlder wrote: post #9

> When people ask me about my life’s ambitions, I often joke that my goal is to become independently wealthy so that I can afford to get some work done. Mainly that’s about being able to do things without having to explain them first, so that the finished product can be the explanation. I think this will be a major labor saving improvement. Agreed. The worst part is when they nod and pretend they got it and then that…

When I first started pair programming, I found the most important part was even if I had a solution that would work, if I couldn't explain it to my partner, it was not a very good solution. Being able to convey an idea often forces it to be closer to the simplest and most comprehensible version of that idea.

> if I couldn't explain it to my partner, it was not a very good solution

Absolutely. I used to work in an aviation company writing software. When we were discusing architectural decisions (big or small) we often played around with the following thought experiment: Imagine that there was an accident with an airplane which was using our software. Maybe it was our fault, maybe not. Nobody knows. You are sitting in a cramped room with an irate NTSB investigator who points at this part of the code and asks “why on earth did you think this was a good idea?” If you don’t have a good and easy to understand answer to this question maybe we shouldn’t do it that way.

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

#68

Post by ilaksh »

_yb2s wrote: post #36

This puts to clear words a nagging sensation I've had my whole life, that I (also) tried to tell other people but couldn't. Talking just doesn't work as well as people think it does. It seems so obvious once you start noticing, but almost nobody notices this. People are either just repeating memes each other basically already know, or else are talking past each other. When I overhear people having a conversation, alm…

I don't know if it's just stupidity, ignorance, or a lack of effort. Maybe a combination. But this type of deficiency is so prevalent, it makes me want to see fully autonomous AI. Even though I know it's an incredibly bad idea and would never actively work towards it until it becomes an irreversible trend. People are stupid. They will do it soon enough. Hopefully it doesn't immediately turn into a disaster.

But GPT 4 definitely listens and understands. Usually.

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

#69

Post by qez »

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 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?"

> “who’s going to pay to make all those links?” or “why would anyone want to put documents online?”

These are good questions and you better have a well-worded answer! In fact, it is easy to answer these if you have prepared for them. Did you just assume that the potential customer would already have familiar with the technicals of your product? If that was the case, they would have bought it from someone else already. Your target demo is the uninformed.

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

#70

Post by h0h0h0h0111 »

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…

>The article is frustrating because it puts the blame onto the listener

That wasn't the impression I got from the article - I think the title was a tongue in cheek way of saying quite the opposite: telling people isn't enough, it's your job as the explainer to guide people through the full path to understanding.

That's more or less what you described in the rest of your post, so I sense you're in concordance with the author

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