4 ms·

As an analyst, using the "right term" is down at about the very bottom of my list of things to do, especially in the form of a book. More important is communic

As an analyst, using the "right term" is down at about the very bottom of my list of things to do, especially in the form of a book. More important is communication to your audience, and in that respect "meta-cognition" is pretty awful vocabulary that strongly limits your audience in this case.

chiefalchemist 8y ago
I see it differently. Meta-congition is fairly straightforward. You have meta, we know what that is. And we have cognition. Again, obvious. Put another way, if you're in the IC or getting info from the IC and the use of the word / concept meta-cognition scares you then something is very very wrong. The audience here isn't TMZ viewers. Is it?
- chrissam 8y ago
  You know what's even more straightforward than "metacognition"? "Thinking about thinking".
  - chiefalchemist 8y ago
    Who was the famous thinker who said less words are better? And please see my comment up a level but still below my original comment. Long to story, the IC, by definition, shouldn't be afraid to use the word meta-cognition; it ultimately exposes its analysts to another area of study that could / would broaden then. The irony being, this is what this book is championing. If the IC is too good for dog fooding then we're all in big trouble.
    - jonnybgood 8y ago
      Imagine someone coming up to you with no internet available and asks you, "What is metacognition?". What would be your answer?
      - ss248 8y ago
        Isn't that easy to understand the meaning of the whole word if you just try to understand the parts? If someone is not educated, you just explain the meaning of "meta" and "cognition" and after that they can just infer the meaning by themselves. These are relatively popular words.
        chiefalchemist 8y ago
        Not educated? Wouldn't that then be: Not Thinking About Thinking? IDK. Given the intended audience, as well as the general process / mindset he's championing I don't ssee how meta-cognition is a tough word. I mean, if you don't know it doesn't that literally force you to reconsider your thinking. Meta-cognition - given the source, the target audience, the subject matter and the context is hardly a fancy word.
- pure-awesome 8y ago
  There are a lot of people who do not know the meaning of the word "meta" nor of the word "cognition". Now, "cognition" is an easy enough word to define to an acceptable approximation (namely by giving the synonym "thinking"). However, "meta" is a concept less frequently encountered (or at least, explicitly described) in everyday life, and would probably require a few examples to convey. Part of the issue is that you are defining the general concept of "X relating to X" in order to describe the specific case of "Thinking relating to thinking". If your listener already has the concept "meta", then, yes, this is fine, but if they don't then you are like the mathematician attempting to define the most abstract version of a problem to the physicist who only wants to solve a single, specific case.
  - chiefalchemist 8y ago
    > There are a lot of people who do not know the meaning of the word "meta" nor of the word "cognition"." Yes. Of course there are. But if those people exist within the target market for the material then challenging them to look beyond their own (thinking) bounds is __exactly__ what he's prescribing, yes? And not challenging / the status quo is exact opposite.
killjoywashere 8y ago
> "meta-cognition" is pretty awful vocabulary that strongly limits your audience We actually use this as a strategy in my project. When talking to sponsors, funders, etc, we use very plain language: "We are going to X to Y all Z". In the real version, the average number of syllables is less than 1.5 and the longest word has 3 syllables. But the claim is pretty outrageous so they also want to know the money is going to serious effort. To verify that, they want external validation, so we have to publish peer-reviewed papers. Those papers are loaded with jargon from multiple fields and we intentionally emphasize the lowest possible performance metrics so almost no one is really going to understand how insanely good the results are, and how impactful they are to the domain in question.

chiefalchemist 8y ago

I see it differently. Meta-congition is fairly straightforward. You have meta, we know what that is. And we have cognition. Again, obvious. Put another way, if you're in the IC or getting info from the IC and the use of the word / concept meta-cognition scares you then something is very very wrong. The audience here isn't TMZ viewers. Is it?

chrissam 8y ago
You know what's even more straightforward than "metacognition"? "Thinking about thinking".
- chiefalchemist 8y ago
  Who was the famous thinker who said less words are better? And please see my comment up a level but still below my original comment. Long to story, the IC, by definition, shouldn't be afraid to use the word meta-cognition; it ultimately exposes its analysts to another area of study that could / would broaden then. The irony being, this is what this book is championing. If the IC is too good for dog fooding then we're all in big trouble.
  - jonnybgood 8y ago
    Imagine someone coming up to you with no internet available and asks you, "What is metacognition?". What would be your answer?
    - ss248 8y ago
      Isn't that easy to understand the meaning of the whole word if you just try to understand the parts? If someone is not educated, you just explain the meaning of "meta" and "cognition" and after that they can just infer the meaning by themselves. These are relatively popular words.
      - chiefalchemist 8y ago
        Not educated? Wouldn't that then be: Not Thinking About Thinking? IDK. Given the intended audience, as well as the general process / mindset he's championing I don't ssee how meta-cognition is a tough word. I mean, if you don't know it doesn't that literally force you to reconsider your thinking. Meta-cognition - given the source, the target audience, the subject matter and the context is hardly a fancy word.
pure-awesome 8y ago
There are a lot of people who do not know the meaning of the word "meta" nor of the word "cognition". Now, "cognition" is an easy enough word to define to an acceptable approximation (namely by giving the synonym "thinking"). However, "meta" is a concept less frequently encountered (or at least, explicitly described) in everyday life, and would probably require a few examples to convey. Part of the issue is that you are defining the general concept of "X relating to X" in order to describe the specific case of "Thinking relating to thinking". If your listener already has the concept "meta", then, yes, this is fine, but if they don't then you are like the mathematician attempting to define the most abstract version of a problem to the physicist who only wants to solve a single, specific case.
- chiefalchemist 8y ago
  > There are a lot of people who do not know the meaning of the word "meta" nor of the word "cognition"." Yes. Of course there are. But if those people exist within the target market for the material then challenging them to look beyond their own (thinking) bounds is __exactly__ what he's prescribing, yes? And not challenging / the status quo is exact opposite.

killjoywashere 8y ago

> "meta-cognition" is pretty awful vocabulary that strongly limits your audience We actually use this as a strategy in my project. When talking to sponsors, funders, etc, we use very plain language: "We are going to X to Y all Z". In the real version, the average number of syllables is less than 1.5 and the longest word has 3 syllables. But the claim is pretty outrageous so they also want to know the money is going to serious effort. To verify that, they want external validation, so we have to publish peer-reviewed papers. Those papers are loaded with jargon from multiple fields and we intentionally emphasize the lowest possible performance metrics so almost no one is really going to understand how insanely good the results are, and how impactful they are to the domain in question.