Have you ever used a zipper?
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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!)
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I take away a few implications from this evidence, which falls under the broad area of "metacognition" and belief formation.
- our minds are tremendously adaptive at learning to manipulate things around us, but perfect manipulation and even perfect outcome production isn't always a direct test of understanding. You can have a flawed mental model that still produces a reliable outcome. To study understanding, we need to go deeper.
@grimalkina and to some extent you can *only* have a flawed mental model
Holding that model flexibly is sometimes key to breakthroughs
See this wonderful talk from Richard Feynman on how magnets work and realise that while we have a good understanding - there are always levels at which we just dont know
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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
I just bought your book and I'm excited to read it! -
@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!)
@prism I think that's probably a very strong signal of understanding when you see it but not perfect in that it probably is conditional on some other things, like verbal and social skills! So not every case where you don't see it means understanding is lacking. So kind of a specificity vs sensitivity question there
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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 Magic?
