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2 HN recommenders · recommended in 6 months, 2010–2014
1:59 · 178K views · Mar 15, 2010
A two-minute clip of Richard Feynman on the difference between knowing the name of something and actually knowing it. He uses the example of knowing a bird's name in every language and still knowing nothing about the bird.
It is the standard reference whenever a thread turns to rote labels versus real understanding.
7 comments from Hacker News
> Is this something I should try to avoid with my son, or should I encourage it Avoid. I would avoid spending time learning the names of things. Learn the thing itself, but the name tells you very little. Watch this: this video
Can't upvote you enough for this. By the way, Feynman also knows the difference "between knowing the name of something and knowing something": this video
My point is that people often confuse understanding the model with understanding the thing. The model becomes a ritual, it becomes a kind of complex dogma, and when people master the model they claim they understand it. But it's not true, they don't understand the thing, they only understand our description of it. Feynman also addresses this, this video The next Monday, when the fathers were all back at work, we kids were playing in a field. One kid says to me, “See that bird? What kind of bird is that?” I said, “I haven’t the slightest idea what kind of a bird it is.” He says, “It’s a brown-throated thrush. Your father doesn’t teach you anything!” But it was the opposite. He had already taught me: “See that bird?” he says. “It’s a Spencer’s warbler.” (I knew he didn’t know the real name.) “Well, in Italian, it’s a Chutto Lapittida. In Portuguese, it’s a Bom da Peida. In Chinese, it’s a Chung-long-tah, and in Japanese, it’s a Katano Tekeda. You can know the name of that bird in all the languages of the world, but when you’re finished, you’ll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird. You’ll only know about humans in different places, and what they call the bird. So let’s look at the bird and see what it’s doing—that’s what counts.” (I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something.) Models are just a complicated way of calling something, not a way of understanding it. Getting experimental results just means you've used the cor
Reminds me of this bit by Feynman on the difference between knowing something, and knowing the name of that thing: this video There does seem to exist a particular breed of "intellectual" who not only confuses the two, but seemingly believes that conceptual understanding is merely an unpleasant side effect one must endure in order to achieve the ultimate goal, which is to grow one's vocabulary (and grow it beyond recognition, and, more importantly, beyond scrutiny from mere-mortals). Jargon creep is inevitable when we go expert-crazy, which, it seems to me, is more about marking territory and protecting one's clique than any legitimate concern for the advancement of knowledge. > "It's simply no longer possible to be an expert in more than one field." This is a lazy straw-man argument (1). Of course, experts are necessary, and we'd only go so far before we start running in circles if not for dedicated individuals... But how does this negate the value of polymaths? This is like saying that wheels on an airplane are completely useless, because wings have been meticulously crafted for the sole purpose of flying. -- The two serve different purposes. The plane can't fly without the one, but it won't get off the ground without the other. A polymath will never acquire the depth of understanding of an expert, but neither can the expert have access to the more varied sources of inspiration / patterns of thought that a polymath acquires through breadth of experience. It seems obvious to me
(sorry if this is going to be rather reactionary and offensive) All day I've been getting emails and IM's from my East Asian friends about this article. As somebody who grew up in and around kids with parents like this I have to call hooey on it. All of my East Asian friends were miserable, tired, sad kids. A couple committed suicide, most had health problems, alcoholism, severe depression, drug additions, and the rest are today broken people on the inside who can't get through a simple phone call with their parents without breaking into sobbing tears after hanging up. All of them have spoken outwardly and quite vocally a wish for a Western upbringing, one that fostered creativity and the genesis of ideas - not conformance to a meaningless system of symbolic but useless achievements that have provided nothing in particular for their lives except the ability to get their parents to back off for a few minutes. Where this woman makes a mistake is in assuming that outward, public success (yes, all of them work good jobs, and have fine educations) is the most important thing in life. The question she has never thought to ask herself is "so what?" So what if little Xiao Yan or Jin Ho or Akiko can perform some dastardly complex piece on the violin on command? Congratulations, you've raised a music box. Can they write music of the same complexity? Can they create? Or was all of that destroyed when their soul was crushed just so they could perform that one more Caprice? So what if the