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What about shit you don't know you know? There are many things we do and know that we don't understand. Very often it doesn't matter. A child does not need t

What about shit you don't know you know? There are many things we do and know that we don't understand. Very often it doesn't matter. A child does not need to be aware that their finger is narrower than their nostril to use one upon the other. If you wait until all the studies are complete before trying to do something, you will never take action. Life is more about trial and error than knowing how everything is known.

narag 13y ago
I came here to say the same. There are things you know but can't quite put the finger on what it is. It often happens to me that I read some news here, see how opinions are evenly divided but to me it's crystal clear what's going to happen. Then it happens. Still I cannot explain why. Most of the time I think it's a matter of spotting which the heavier factor is.
- georgemcbay 13y ago
  "There are things you know but can't quite put the finger on what it is. It often happens to me that I read some news here, see how opinions are evenly divided but to me it's crystal clear what's going to happen. Then it happens. Still I cannot explain why." Sounds a bit like confirmation bias in action to me; there are almost certainly times you are crystal clear on what's going to happen and then it doesn't happen.
  - narag 13y ago
    Hi George. Well, it sounds like it. But I don't think it is. Anyway, I'm not trying to say that I'm specially smart or clairvoyant. On the contrary, if I cannot articulate why, it seems like an useless "superpower". I was trying to say (in the vein of the article) that common sense brings us often the answer, but there is a lot of distraction or plain disinformation that clouds the debates.
waps 13y ago
In AI this is a little bit known as the rationality paradox. People generally agree that the following formula is the definition of acting rationally : argmax(sum(probability_of_event * utility_of_event) given action) So do you open a door ? There could be a bear behind the door that will eat you if you open the door. The probability of that is not zero (and even if it was, it would not matter). The utility of that is -inf. The utility of not opening the door is also -inf. There could be a bear behind you and the door could be your only way to safety. So a rational actor would never do anything at all, as the rational function would never converge. Ergo, nobody and nothing is rational (as soon as the world has a certain minimal level of complexity). There are various suggestions given out of this conundrum, but none are even mildly satisfying. For example, one could claim that you don't know those odds, so you don't care. But that is the same as saying you can't really be rational, so it's not a solution.
- FigBug 13y ago
  In "The Man Who mistook His Wife for a Hat" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Mistook_His_Wife_for_a_Hat http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Mistook_His_Wife_fo...), a book on mental disorders, there is a case of a man who can only make rational decisions. He is unable to function, he can't get past what to wear or what to eat in the morning. Even this simplest decisions take him hours.
  - taejo 13y ago
    The story you mention may indeed appear in an Oliver Sacks book (I've read several, and the story is familiar to me) but it doesn't seem to be in The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, according to the list in the article you linked.
    - FigBug 13y ago
      The book has 24 essays, they aren't all listed in the Wiki page.
  - mantrax 13y ago
    Calling being unable to decide what to wear as "only being able to make rational decisions" is interesting, but it's not what's really happening. Every decision has a ROI. The line where ROI meets costs is your maximum budget for a decision, after which point it costs you more to remain in the decision phase that it costs you to follow the best of the few "imperfect" decisions you have in mind (one of them includes the decision to stop "deciding", do nothing, and move on - that's still deciding). That idea so far is rational. If you wear nothing you'll remain naked. If you don't eat you'll die. And most of all, being stuck deciding forever just about anything is not rational. So this person is unable to sense his "decision budget" and decides forever, while most people have facilities (impatience, impulsiveness in some degree, boredom etc.) to work around us being stuck forever after our decision budget is spent. Spending to get positive ROI is rational. Spending infinitely beyond that point is not.
JangoSteve 13y ago
Agreed. "Shit you don't know you know" is actually mentioned at the end of the article as a sub-category of the "shit you know you know" which delves into psychology and theories of hidden or repressed memories and/or knowledge, which I know little about from an academic point of view. Also noting that, just because you can't put all of your knowledge into words, doesn't mean you don't have it. Or is that essentially what you were saying?
- joe_the_user 13y ago
  I would mention that not-knowing-you-know something may not be a matter of hiding or repression but a matter of factors inherent to human "computation" - if we make the assumption that the most important kind of human knowledge does not come as static facts but as dynamic algorithms, ways to do things. Assume a person has a bunch of algorithms available to them. They may not be able to tell if algorithm X works with problem Y until they start interacting with problem Y and find out that heck algorithm X does work. With this approach, we can imagine knowledge that actually can only exist hidden within multiple of level not-knowing, at least if knowing is being able to fully characterize one's abilities.

narag 13y ago

I came here to say the same. There are things you know but can't quite put the finger on what it is. It often happens to me that I read some news here, see how opinions are evenly divided but to me it's crystal clear what's going to happen. Then it happens. Still I cannot explain why. Most of the time I think it's a matter of spotting which the heavier factor is.

georgemcbay 13y ago
"There are things you know but can't quite put the finger on what it is. It often happens to me that I read some news here, see how opinions are evenly divided but to me it's crystal clear what's going to happen. Then it happens. Still I cannot explain why." Sounds a bit like confirmation bias in action to me; there are almost certainly times you are crystal clear on what's going to happen and then it doesn't happen.
- narag 13y ago
  Hi George. Well, it sounds like it. But I don't think it is. Anyway, I'm not trying to say that I'm specially smart or clairvoyant. On the contrary, if I cannot articulate why, it seems like an useless "superpower". I was trying to say (in the vein of the article) that common sense brings us often the answer, but there is a lot of distraction or plain disinformation that clouds the debates.

waps 13y ago

In AI this is a little bit known as the rationality paradox. People generally agree that the following formula is the definition of acting rationally : argmax(sum(probability_of_event * utility_of_event) given action) So do you open a door ? There could be a bear behind the door that will eat you if you open the door. The probability of that is not zero (and even if it was, it would not matter). The utility of that is -inf. The utility of not opening the door is also -inf. There could be a bear behind you and the door could be your only way to safety. So a rational actor would never do anything at all, as the rational function would never converge. Ergo, nobody and nothing is rational (as soon as the world has a certain minimal level of complexity). There are various suggestions given out of this conundrum, but none are even mildly satisfying. For example, one could claim that you don't know those odds, so you don't care. But that is the same as saying you can't really be rational, so it's not a solution.

FigBug 13y ago
In "The Man Who mistook His Wife for a Hat" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Mistook_His_Wife_for_a_Hat http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Mistook_His_Wife_fo...), a book on mental disorders, there is a case of a man who can only make rational decisions. He is unable to function, he can't get past what to wear or what to eat in the morning. Even this simplest decisions take him hours.
- taejo 13y ago
  The story you mention may indeed appear in an Oliver Sacks book (I've read several, and the story is familiar to me) but it doesn't seem to be in The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, according to the list in the article you linked.
  - FigBug 13y ago
    The book has 24 essays, they aren't all listed in the Wiki page.
- mantrax 13y ago
  Calling being unable to decide what to wear as "only being able to make rational decisions" is interesting, but it's not what's really happening. Every decision has a ROI. The line where ROI meets costs is your maximum budget for a decision, after which point it costs you more to remain in the decision phase that it costs you to follow the best of the few "imperfect" decisions you have in mind (one of them includes the decision to stop "deciding", do nothing, and move on - that's still deciding). That idea so far is rational. If you wear nothing you'll remain naked. If you don't eat you'll die. And most of all, being stuck deciding forever just about anything is not rational. So this person is unable to sense his "decision budget" and decides forever, while most people have facilities (impatience, impulsiveness in some degree, boredom etc.) to work around us being stuck forever after our decision budget is spent. Spending to get positive ROI is rational. Spending infinitely beyond that point is not.

JangoSteve 13y ago

Agreed. "Shit you don't know you know" is actually mentioned at the end of the article as a sub-category of the "shit you know you know" which delves into psychology and theories of hidden or repressed memories and/or knowledge, which I know little about from an academic point of view. Also noting that, just because you can't put all of your knowledge into words, doesn't mean you don't have it. Or is that essentially what you were saying?

joe_the_user 13y ago
I would mention that not-knowing-you-know something may not be a matter of hiding or repression but a matter of factors inherent to human "computation" - if we make the assumption that the most important kind of human knowledge does not come as static facts but as dynamic algorithms, ways to do things. Assume a person has a bunch of algorithms available to them. They may not be able to tell if algorithm X works with problem Y until they start interacting with problem Y and find out that heck algorithm X does work. With this approach, we can imagine knowledge that actually can only exist hidden within multiple of level not-knowing, at least if knowing is being able to fully characterize one's abilities.