Have you ever used a zipper?
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In this study, the researchers asked about a range of stimuli, which in my humble opinion* are really fun to quiz yourself on. Can you explain:
- how a sewing machine works
- how a can opener works
- how a flush toilet operates
- how the heart pumps blood
- how piano keys make soundSome of these are far more elaborate, haha:
- how the aqualung regulates air-pressure
- how a transistor works*granted...I became a psychologist so maybe my sense of fun is warped
@grimalkina we had a fun discussion at work about this years ago (which I turned into an article when the editor told us to stop fucking about (not unreasonably)). At what point does technology become magic?
I felt like on some level, even going back centuries or thousands of years, there are some machines or items that people could intuit some understanding of if allowed to examine them for a while. You might not know the processes or tools used to make a table, or a pottery wheel, but I think you can understand the concept and have a rough idea of what it needs to work. But many, many things, definitely not
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@sidereal @grimalkina Yep, and you put graphite on a violin’s nut when changing strings, so they don’t catch.
@culturednyc @sidereal @grimalkina
Same for guitar nuts and bridges. -
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 I am famously terrible with zippers. To the extent my children actively seek out other people to help them if they get stuck, and say things like "oh god, no, not dad.. zippers"
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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.
@grimalkina this works for processses, too! Bureaucracy is an invention, and as mad as it is, it had a function, or intended function, at some point, and that became frustrated because of observable things!
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In this study, the researchers asked about a range of stimuli, which in my humble opinion* are really fun to quiz yourself on. Can you explain:
- how a sewing machine works
- how a can opener works
- how a flush toilet operates
- how the heart pumps blood
- how piano keys make soundSome of these are far more elaborate, haha:
- how the aqualung regulates air-pressure
- how a transistor works*granted...I became a psychologist so maybe my sense of fun is warped
@grimalkina
This wants to be a poll - I'm betting that since this is Mastodon, there will be a significant number of "Yes to all" answers. Maybe:Yes to all
More than half
A few
One
WutThat said, this is all an excellent point, thank you!
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@grimalkina we had a fun discussion at work about this years ago (which I turned into an article when the editor told us to stop fucking about (not unreasonably)). At what point does technology become magic?
I felt like on some level, even going back centuries or thousands of years, there are some machines or items that people could intuit some understanding of if allowed to examine them for a while. You might not know the processes or tools used to make a table, or a pottery wheel, but I think you can understand the concept and have a rough idea of what it needs to work. But many, many things, definitely not
@sinvega there is a fun example Tom Griffiths (a computational cognitive scientist) talks about using in his classes/and in his book: imagine that you are far removed from our civilization a thousand years into the future and you've dug up a cash register. How would you go about trying to learn how it worked? What it was for? What could you infer from it (for instance, could you understand the rules of arithmetic given a cash register)?
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Hm. Sewing machines. I've _seen_ the diagrams, I've stepped through the process on my great-grandmother's pedal sewing machine.
It's still cursed magic.
I've dived into a lot of those, and some, nope, I dunno. I'm not 100% sure what an aqualung even is, for Pete's sake.
I'm about to start on that PDF. I have minor in Political Philosophy, so I'm gonna put that hat on to read it. I'll come back later.
@NuclearOatmeal @grimalkina Gearing pulls the sewed fabric forward in step with the needle movement, with the use of the curved metal bit that locks the fabric in place just enough that fabric does not bunch up but still moves freely. Usually helped by guiding the fabric with your hand, for manual sewing machines.
Used to be I didn't think about these things, as I learned more about how to model something in my head I've gotten much better just looking at a thing and seeing how it works.
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@grimalkina I know how a transistor works because of a middle school science fair project!
@culturednyc so fun how these things can stick with you!!
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@grimalkina Cat, I can't even explain where I am
@jawnsy you just trying to get through the day and me throwing existential questions at you
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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 yes, 'cos I loved these books as a kid in the 70s
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@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
I'll add that a great way to learn something deeply is to explain it to a newcomer, or prepare to do so, or rehearse doing so. When preparing to teach you often hit those "how does that work again" or "hmm, I know that part but never even considered that other part..."
Plus the whole "what has somebody else found out since I learned this" rathole to research down. -
@StompyRobot I would think absolutely!!
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In this study, the researchers asked about a range of stimuli, which in my humble opinion* are really fun to quiz yourself on. Can you explain:
- how a sewing machine works
- how a can opener works
- how a flush toilet operates
- how the heart pumps blood
- how piano keys make soundSome of these are far more elaborate, haha:
- how the aqualung regulates air-pressure
- how a transistor works*granted...I became a psychologist so maybe my sense of fun is warped
@grimalkina we keep this around in case anyone ever asks
it's, you know, wrong in a lot of important ways, but it still does a pretty solid job on the first-layer knowledge
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I wouldnt think “what are the zippers” first but “which zippers keep breaking”
Then you have zipper things to learn
How fix?
What kinds?
Expected failures?
Zipper alternatives?Am trying to phrase the metacognition of “notice where you keep patching your beliefs”
Probably it’s in your book!
@clew I think we might call that interventionist thinking! A classically important way that we build causal models in our thinking!
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@grimalkina we keep this around in case anyone ever asks
it's, you know, wrong in a lot of important ways, but it still does a pretty solid job on the first-layer knowledge
@grimalkina we realize that sharing this misses the point of your thread
it's just that hardly anybody ever does ask and we wanted to share the image....... -
@grimalkina we realize that sharing this misses the point of your thread
it's just that hardly anybody ever does ask and we wanted to share the image.......@grimalkina (but seriously, excellent thread)
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@scy niiice, I love the physicality of this
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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!
in re zippers: been studying interwar sewing books, especially 1920s, exactly because they DO NOT deal with zippers. they weren't cheap until after WW2.
the zippered bomber jackets of WW1 were expensive to make at home. it’s why they became a status symbol among the moneyed classes.
on the other hand, after WW2 they were cheap army surplus. hence the 1950s poverty coda of the leather jacket, tshirt & jeans ―which, as cheap surplus clothes, didn't have zippers yet.
so zippers…
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@NuclearOatmeal @grimalkina Gearing pulls the sewed fabric forward in step with the needle movement, with the use of the curved metal bit that locks the fabric in place just enough that fabric does not bunch up but still moves freely. Usually helped by guiding the fabric with your hand, for manual sewing machines.
Used to be I didn't think about these things, as I learned more about how to model something in my head I've gotten much better just looking at a thing and seeing how it works.
Right, and there's some slip knot magic that happens. I'm not too concerned about not knowing how a sewing machine works in depth, it was just on the list.
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@sinvega there is a fun example Tom Griffiths (a computational cognitive scientist) talks about using in his classes/and in his book: imagine that you are far removed from our civilization a thousand years into the future and you've dug up a cash register. How would you go about trying to learn how it worked? What it was for? What could you infer from it (for instance, could you understand the rules of arithmetic given a cash register)?
@grimalkina that IS fun! An old school one I think, sure, assuming it's opened up so you can see it (bit of a cheat but), sure, you can probably see that the springs spring back when you push them, and the wheels roll so it doesn't scrape or get stuck... and maybe that pressing that button pushes down a thing that's holding the spring back...
but that's like 20 concepts away from what it's for and how it actually functions, let alone how you'd make one. And even that depends on "wheel" and "spring", which you might only understand that "this spins / this pushes", not how or why, certainly not on a theoretical physics level
