Have you ever used a zipper?
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- if you're interested in becoming an expert -- if you're a student, starting a career, or just picking up a hobby or skill, you might try asking yourself "what are the zippers here." Everyone can use a zipper, but few people can fix broken ones and design unimagined new ones. If you want to become one of those people in an area, find the zippers and learn their mechanisms.
- Trying to encourage mechanism thinking can break through extremist belief patterns.
You might have heard "facts don't change minds, feelings do." Well, KIND OF. Facts, feelings and interpretations are actually all deeply intertwined in our processing of the world. It's tempting to think that our minds process and absorb the world like tape recorders. If I list a bunch of reasons why I support a policy, maybe that will convince someone. But dissecting their causal model might work much better.
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- Trying to encourage mechanism thinking can break through extremist belief patterns.
You might have heard "facts don't change minds, feelings do." Well, KIND OF. Facts, feelings and interpretations are actually all deeply intertwined in our processing of the world. It's tempting to think that our minds process and absorb the world like tape recorders. If I list a bunch of reasons why I support a policy, maybe that will convince someone. But dissecting their causal model might work much better.
Metacognition is something I highlight in my book. These are *learnable skills* and they are *very predictive* for real-world outcomes. People who cultivate habits of puncturing cognitive illusions form expertise, and make the people around them better thinkers too.
Amazing how much we can learn just from a little zipper!
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Metacognition is something I highlight in my book. These are *learnable skills* and they are *very predictive* for real-world outcomes. People who cultivate habits of puncturing cognitive illusions form expertise, and make the people around them better thinkers too.
Amazing how much we can learn just from a little zipper!
@grimalkina As a result of this thread I went on a binge learning about the history of zipper design.
I am now using graphite pencils to properly lubricate all of my zippers, thank you very much.
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@grimalkina I guess my question would be why?
@CStamp so first, they ask folks to rate how well they understand these things. *then* they asked them to explain how they worked with a causal structure. It's interesting not because of the random items, but because of the differences between what people thought vs the level of understanding they could actually show! So the "why" is "to understand our own minds and their cognitive illusions a little better"
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@grimalkina As a result of this thread I went on a binge learning about the history of zipper design.
I am now using graphite pencils to properly lubricate all of my zippers, thank you very much.
@sidereal TIL!!
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@grimalkina This is how I ended up with an enduring Special Interest in tall ships. Innocently asking “how does a square rigger sail upwind at all?” turned into years of learning the next level of detail.
@wlonk me with electricity infrastructure
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@grimalkina reading this post makes me feel like rabbithole georg because I have too many "yes"es
(or at least 'yes' enough that I might be fuzzy on the exact details but can explain the fundamental mechanisms)@joepie91 "rabbithole georg" hahahahaha!!! Don't worry I suspect you are among a lot of us
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The vast majority of zipper users -- skilled, successful zipper users! -- can't explain how a zipper works.
This is a charming, famous example that comes from cognitive science/psychology work on The Illusion of Explanatory Depth: "Most people feel they understand the world with far greater detail, coherence, and depth than they really do"
Rozenblit, L., & Keil, F. (2002). The misunderstood limits of folk science: An illusion of explanatory depth. Cognitive science, 26(5), 521-562.
@grimalkina It’s funny, I asked out kids - who had never actually though abiut a zipper. I suggested they have a proper look and with a magnifying glass and both of them came upo with the correct solution. Everyday things people tale fopr granted withiout asking how.
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Metacognition is something I highlight in my book. These are *learnable skills* and they are *very predictive* for real-world outcomes. People who cultivate habits of puncturing cognitive illusions form expertise, and make the people around them better thinkers too.
Amazing how much we can learn just from a little zipper!
Also just as a PS, it's neither possible nor very adaptive to ask yourself to have an overwhelmingly detailed explanation of mechanisms for everything you encounter, so that's not the goal. Groups of people need to fluently work at many different levels of abstraction.
The key is matching the level of understanding to the tasks and problems that we have! And often, coordinating different depths of expertise!
But we can benefit from having metacognitive skills!
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@grimalkina It’s funny, I asked out kids - who had never actually though abiut a zipper. I suggested they have a proper look and with a magnifying glass and both of them came upo with the correct solution. Everyday things people tale fopr granted withiout asking how.
@Wen nice, what a great little active learning moment you created!
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@Wen nice, what a great little active learning moment you created!
@grimalkina No you suggested it. I already knew, your postmade me ask them. Thanks.
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Have you ever used a zipper? Odds are you have. Are you pretty good at it? Odds are! You've probably successfully used a zipper many, many times. You probably can't even remember when and where you learned how to operate a zipper. If you're a good zipper user and we sat you down in a room and gave you ten zippered garments, you'd probably fluently and flawlessly be able to zip them up and down.
Now......can you explain how a zipper works?
If I had to explain it to some one without knowing the correct terminology of the components involved.... Probably along the lines of...
Two lines of interlocking prongs that are fed through a small linking device that squeezes the prongs together to lock two sides of an item together. Moving the linking device in the opposite direction, forces the two lines of prongs part once more. At each end of the lines of prongs is a stop to prevent the linking device from falling off.
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@grimalkina It's like, I knew graphite was a dry lubricant. But I don't think I would have ever thought to just use a pencil on a zipper. And now I know that I can apply dry lubricant to all kinds of assemblies by just jamming a pencil up in there. Thanks, metacognition!
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@grimalkina It's like, I knew graphite was a dry lubricant. But I don't think I would have ever thought to just use a pencil on a zipper. And now I know that I can apply dry lubricant to all kinds of assemblies by just jamming a pencil up in there. Thanks, metacognition!
@sidereal just casually doing learning transfer all over the place
you're killing it -
Have you ever used a zipper? Odds are you have. Are you pretty good at it? Odds are! You've probably successfully used a zipper many, many times. You probably can't even remember when and where you learned how to operate a zipper. If you're a good zipper user and we sat you down in a room and gave you ten zippered garments, you'd probably fluently and flawlessly be able to zip them up and down.
Now......can you explain how a zipper works?
Easy
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Have you ever used a zipper? Odds are you have. Are you pretty good at it? Odds are! You've probably successfully used a zipper many, many times. You probably can't even remember when and where you learned how to operate a zipper. If you're a good zipper user and we sat you down in a room and gave you ten zippered garments, you'd probably fluently and flawlessly be able to zip them up and down.
Now......can you explain how a zipper works?
@grimalkina metal (brass?) squared hooks along two sides of a garment are aligned together through a metal shuttle so that they stay affixed to eachother… is not helpful at all
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Also just as a PS, it's neither possible nor very adaptive to ask yourself to have an overwhelmingly detailed explanation of mechanisms for everything you encounter, so that's not the goal. Groups of people need to fluently work at many different levels of abstraction.
The key is matching the level of understanding to the tasks and problems that we have! And often, coordinating different depths of expertise!
But we can benefit from having metacognitive skills!
@grimalkina "I think if I do this then this will happen, but I'm not sure why" is a thought that has kept me out of so much trouble."
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The vast majority of zipper users -- skilled, successful zipper users! -- can't explain how a zipper works.
This is a charming, famous example that comes from cognitive science/psychology work on The Illusion of Explanatory Depth: "Most people feel they understand the world with far greater detail, coherence, and depth than they really do"
Rozenblit, L., & Keil, F. (2002). The misunderstood limits of folk science: An illusion of explanatory depth. Cognitive science, 26(5), 521-562.
@grimalkina the more broken zippers you have fixed the better the chances you understand how they work - maybe I'm odd because when they break I really look at what's wrong.
Lot's of different ways they can break or wear out.
and yes - most people are not paying attention
I think this innatention is an example of a neurotypical disability.
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@grimalkina the more broken zippers you have fixed the better the chances you understand how they work - maybe I'm odd because when they break I really look at what's wrong.
Lot's of different ways they can break or wear out.
and yes - most people are not paying attention
I think this innatention is an example of a neurotypical disability.
@sean I think it's important to not frame this as an ultimatum on ability that you either have or don't have. This is also something that many types of minds experience, for instance, some people might not articulate deep mechanistic explanations for social patterns, it's not just about physical objects!
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Also just as a PS, it's neither possible nor very adaptive to ask yourself to have an overwhelmingly detailed explanation of mechanisms for everything you encounter, so that's not the goal. Groups of people need to fluently work at many different levels of abstraction.
The key is matching the level of understanding to the tasks and problems that we have! And often, coordinating different depths of expertise!
But we can benefit from having metacognitive skills!
@grimalkina I have heard it said a few places that the key to truly understanding a complex thing is being able to explain its properties in a way that someone else can understand with no previous familiarity with it. Would you agree or disagree with this? I kind of feel like being able to break things down in that way is in and of itself a skill, so I'm not convinced the relationship is causal in that way (although I do think it is a good idea and a riggorous method to apply to yourself!)
