4 ms·
> succinctly Really? I can think of plain english way to describe (if I understood it correctly) the sentiment in less words and far less cognitive load. Pers
by Aperocky 4y ago
> succinctly
Really? I can think of plain english way to describe (if I understood it correctly) the sentiment in less words and far less cognitive load.
Personally I feel repelled towards this in the same way as code golf, except it's also long, so perhaps worse.
- mcphage 4y ago> I can think of plain english way to describe (if I understood it correctly) the sentiment in less words I don't think the goal of any serious writing is to do it in as few words as possible. Instead, the goal is to write it with the right number of words. Taking a complicated idea and distilling it down to concrete bullet points loses all of the subtleties of the meaning, destroys the pace, and any of the poetry as well. What you're left with is something like https://norvig.com/Gettysburg/sld001.htm https://norvig.com/Gettysburg/sld001.htm
- thfuran 4y ago>I don't think the goal of any serious writing is to do it in as few words as possible. Even if that's true, it's irrelevant. They were responding to the claim that ithis particular piece was written succinctly, which it manifestly was not.
- teddyh 4y agoAs short as possible, but no shorter.
- widjit 4y agoclearly this article is not meant for you
- klodolph 4y agoI like cognitive load when I'm reading. Unless I'm reading an email from a coworker or a manual for some software I'm using, the cognitive load is nice.
- new_stranger 4y agoI do too, but from the weight of the idea - not the complexity of the delivery
- klodolph 4y agoComplex ideas require complex delivery to communicate.
- rnk 4y agoNo they don't. This is just pointless sophistry. It does not explain the idea. It's writing that looks like the point is to show the writer's erudition, not explain the idea.
- klodolph 4y agoIf you try to express a complex idea directly, in practice, your audience often misses the point or misunderstands it. The complex delivery has in it redundancy. It approaches the idea from different angles. It connects the idea to other ideas. (That's also a misuse of the word "sophistry", by the way.)
- rnk 4y agoAha! You are one of them ;-) And I'm apparently not.
- Aperocky 4y agoComplex idea require multiple simple deliveries in a structured way.
- klodolph 4y agoMy experience is that this is often insufficient--or if we suppose that it's possible, I can't figure out how to express the complex idea by sticking a bunch of simple deliveries together. I don't want to abuse analogies, but let's say that you get asked the question, "Why don't you write a computer program that detects when another program hangs, and then restarts the program?" If I'm just going to give an off-hand answer, I'll say that this is connected to a famous problem in computer science, and it's proven to be impossible to solve. If I really want to explain why it's not possible without hand-waving it, I'm going to have to explain concepts like computability, models of computation, and "code as data". But it's natural to encounter people with these questions. Philosophy is the same way. It's easy to come up philosophical questions and hard to come up with answers. If you're writing an article, in either philosophy or computer programming, you're going to have to be careful to ride right line between simplicity and complexity. Too simple, and what you're saying is incorrect. Too complicated, and nobody will understand you.
- AnimalMuppet 4y ago"Word golf" has different rules than code golf. In word golf, highest score wins.