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I think this happens in many domains. The way an expert thinks about a topic is very different from the way a novice thinks about a topic. It's not that the exp
by Twisol 5y ago
I think this happens in many domains. The way an expert thinks about a topic is very different from the way a novice thinks about a topic. It's not that the expert thinks in more complex ways than the novice; I'd actually argue that the expert thinks in simpler ways. But these ways of thinking are entirely different from each other, and when you're in one camp, the behaviors of the other camp appear unexplainable and complex.
When folks on the outside of category peer across the gap, they see a huge array of ways of speaking about both familiar and unfamiliar concepts. When an analogy is made across the gap, folks think "is that all it is?" or "how is that useful?" or "why are you making something so simple into something so complicated?". The categorical ways of thinking form such a vastly different basis of thinking that it's the translation into and out of that basis that's deeply complicated. When you're actually across the bridge, it's as simple as anything else -- but good luck explaining that to non-experts!
I've had managers who have the same attitude to software engineering. To them, if we understand the problem to be solved and the needs of the users, it's as good as solved! Why are you software engineers complicating things!? But I think many of us on this forum would side with the engineer, rather than the manager, because many of us are across the bridge. And how often do you have to try to translate what you do into something they can understand? (How often do they actually get it?)
- deltasixeight 5y agoIt's more than just a different way of thinking. There's an intuition gap caused by human bias. We bias towards one way of thinking and moving out of that bias is extremely hard.
- infogulch 5y agos/bias/loss of context/ and I agree. Once a human fully grasps a context they can enter it and manipulate things within it very quickly -- so quickly that the presence of the context itself becomes invisible to the point of being inexplicable to others.
- SkyMarshal 5y agoIndeed. Perhaps a simpler formulation is that once we've achieved the enlightenment of understood something in depth, we forget why someone new to it does not yet understand it. We have difficulty understanding why they don't understand it, and explaining it in such a way as to fill in their gaps.
- pizza 5y agoIt's interesting - some part of my intuition tells me, only something an uninitiate could not understand is what stops everybody from understanding a hard topic- but then how do uninitiates transcend from pre-understanding to understanding? Perhaps the process of understanding is a stable and reliably predictable one.. which bodes as good news for, well, everything!
- dqpb 5y agoExactly. Communication isn’t about the idea. It’s about the state transitions that have to occur in the listener for them to become a carrier of the idea.
- aaaaaaaaaaab 5y agoIn other words, you can’t tell people anything: http://habitatchronicles.com/2004/04/you-cant-tell-people-anything/ http://habitatchronicles.com/2004/04/you-cant-tell-people-an...