Stop saying "I can't understand"
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- Опубликовано: 5 сен 2024
- Have you ever expressed disagreement with some viewpoint (X) by saying "I can't understand how anyone could think X"?
I explain why I think that phrase is bad form, and complain about the skeptic version of this trope: "I can't understand how people could think science detracts from the beauty of the physical world."
The Megan McArdle post I reference is here:
www.bloombergvi...
From my experience, when someone says "I can't understand how anyone could think X," what they really mean is "It bothers me that you do not agree with me." It's not an inability to understand; it's an unwillingness to understand.
yes that was her point in this video
Sometimes it's a way for the person who says it to acknowledge his own limitations and to admit that he knows he might be wrong.
@@ColonelFredPuntridge What he said.
It's definitely that but it's also a lack of analytic skill to analyze the reasons. Sometimes, the person has sufficient analytical skill but won't bother to do the required work.
Exactly!! It doesn't mean "I can't understand."
fun fact : after their discussion, Feynman and his friend made a deal : Feynman would teach his artist friend the fundamentals of physics while his friend would teach him to draw. I don't know how good a scientist his friend came to be, but Feynman was really into drawing for the rest of his life.
My shoes are laced using a method I found on the web, both genius and suprisingly simple. Just passing by.
Pour vrai, je trouve ça interessant qu'e-penser est fan (ou en tout cas observe les vidéos) de Julia Galef.
Oh and btw, nice fact.
I’ll just quote “surely you’re joking Mr. Feynman” Chapter: “But is it art?” where Feynman writes about his deal with his friend Jerry: “Jerry, on the other hand, didn’t learn much physics. His mind wandered too easily. I tried to teach him something about electricity and magnetism, but as soon as I mentioned ‘electricity’, he’d tell me about some motor he had that didn’t work, and how might he fix it l. When I tried to show him how an electromagnet works by making a little coil of wire and hanging a nail on a piece of string, I put voltage on, the nail swung into the coil, and Jerry said ‘Ooh! It’s just like fucking!’ So that was the end of that.”
@@peterschmidts8245 I think this quote illustrates the point being illustrated here. The artist clearly had passion but Feynman didn't have the patience to get him on track. Not that Feynman was obligated to, but it reflects his attitude when he said "I can't understand."
Just going off his words, but yeah i agree. Good lord.
i could see how one would be more likely to become an artist than an artist becoming a "scientist." especially because art is subjective.
I agree. I can't understand why people say that phrase :)
I can. Tbh I can understand everything. I was so delusional now I am studying: Deconstructing work:
Debatable subject matter:
String Theory, Metaphysics, Reverse Engineering, Virtual Reality, Physics, Quantum Mechanics, Multiverse hypothesis, Simulation Hypothesis, Consciousness, Qualia, Computer Science, Gamification, Future Studies, Logic, Science, Philosophy, Design Theory, Superintelligence. Minimizing Existential Threats.
Fan of:
Terrence Mckenna, Elon Musk, Einstein, Nick Bostrom, Neil Degrasse Tyson, Seth Lloyd.
Hahaha :D
which is exactly what she said so eloquently.
"yo dawg"
@@iamnotafunnyguy1387 dayum whats your IQ powerlevel, mines pretty big, what about yours... anyone? anyone care to flex their IQ? no ? alright then..
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Think more when I learnt you are a part of my rights
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I can't help thinking of a quote from Douglas Adams here: "I'd take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day."
I notice that the more I understand, the more I realize I don't understand. The saying keeps holding true.
Likewise, there's a lot more "awe of ignorance" as you start to learn more.
I get your point, and I am also sympathetic with Julia's argument. Anyway, i'd like to stay aware of the kind of "awe of ignorance" where it leads to views like "it is too great for us to understand, we will never get there, don't even bother trying...", which I find quite problematic. but maybe I was wrong to pick this Adams-quote in the first place, as it obviously is about another kind of understanding than what Julia is complaining about here (which i kind of agree with).
***** Oh, yeah, you should always leave the possibility of understanding open.
I just think that when you start learning about things, particularly hard things like physics, that's when you start to get a deeper appreciation for how ignorant you will always be as a human.
I prefer the quote about people nonstop talking (From HHGTTG)- "if they stop talking their mouth seizes up" - which was amended to "if they stop working their brain starts working"
Well... doesn't sound like ole' Doug had a knack for turning profound thoughts into deep phrases to me. I mean, are there those that wouldn't?
One of the smartest people I've ever seen talking freely on the internet. Wow
RUclips is recommending this like crazy but damn she's like instantly likeable and cool!
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Think more the quickest intuitively way as O is for *Outgroup bias* again
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I find "I can't relate, but I see where you're coming from" to be a stronger phrase to express this feeling myself.
Right on, Julia! Years ago I deliberately switched to "That's weird" as my go-to phrase, spoken or silent, for a state of confusion, perplexity, or puzzlement. I immediately follow "That's weird" with "but I like weird." "I like weird" inspires my curiosity and creativity. "I don't understand" is too definitive, to rigid, IMHO. When I encounter people using the phrase as an intended slight or moral judgement, I always ask if they want to understand...and offer to explain, if I can, or brainstorm ways to find more information. That allows for instantly making the distinction between intentional and literal and sometimes helps facilitate better communication - or end it (lol), in my experience.
I strongly agree with the points made, but I think it's worth pointing out that the curse of knowledge could also explain some of these scenarios where people claim that they can't understand why or how someone thinks differently or less. It is genuinely cognitively difficult to imagine not knowing something, or to imagine the knowledge we have having been acquired through different lenses. Intelligence, as far as I've seen, doesn't necessarily impact how empathetic people can be in terms of knowledge or perspective acquisition.
Evhan the Infidel precisely. not to mention, in the artist example, one could easily argue that from an emotive/ intuitive standpoint, that the artist has a more intimate knowledge of the flower than the mathematician, who has perhaps a more emotive /analytical understanding...
Think more the Quickest Intuitively way as K is for *Kindness* again
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"Notion of the Ocean" would be a great name for a boat.
Sometimes it can be better to say "I can't understand why you think that" than to say "I don't agree" or "you're wrong". It is an invitation for your conversational partner to provide an explanation that perhaps you hadn't considered, and seems less aggressive than a direct confrontation.
in those cases, say; "i don't currently understand why you think that, please explain."
The algorithm has chosen you for you are constantly in my recommended now haha. Great video.
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Think more the Hardest way as how the use of paraphrase is to explain or clarify the text that is being paraphrased.
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Think more the hardest way as how it is not necessary for a paraphrase to accompany a direct quotation, but when this is so, the paraphrase typically serves to put the source's statement into perspective or to clarify the context in which it appeared
I really dislike that language is used and interpreted like this, when the goal is clear communication. It's such a guessing game to try to decide what is surface level and what is the actual meaning of words. I've had people interpret me as the baddie when I'm just trying to be literal to be clear with my messaging.
However, I'm still responsible for recognising the multiple possible interpretations of my wording, especially since I like talking as abstractly as I am enable to. With online discussions there is often zero interest in interpreting words in good faith, because there is no trust. This sucks, but sometimes trust has to be earned.
Or you're talking to someone typing in initialisms/abbreviations/acronyms.
I need a script to give a blanket thumbs up to all your videos.
Interestingly it could be that the artist views Feynmann's aesthetic argument as TOO abstract. Feynmann not only sees the flower but he also sees the biological makeup, evolutionary history, and questions that the flower's nature creates. In the artist eyes Feynmann doesn't actually see the flower but the flower's constituent parts. Is it an abstraction to appreciate a thing just for existing?
The terminology of "abstract" gets confusing here because we say abstraction is about ideas more than facts, but its also about breaking something down to its constituent parts (attempting to reach its essence). Abstraction seems paradoxical in that it can be seen as a widening of scope, but also a simplification or reduction. Perhaps you could help me with my understanding of abstract?
Abstraction is always tied to some form of generality. "Breaking down" a flower into its biological components *could* be a process of abstraction if the end goal is to derive a general framework of plant organisms that reflect colors. However, it would not be an abstraction if the break-down is tied to a particular flower or kind of flowers -- it would become a specification.
I am a bit late, but maybe you will read this: I found this example that greatly helped me to understand abstraction in it's essence: Imagine you have 9 objects. 3 squares, 3 circles and 3 triangles. Each geometric shape comes in 3 different colours: red, green and blue. You can now group these 9 objects in two different ways: You can group them according to their shape thereby abstracting the colour, or you can group them according to colour thereby abstracting from the shape. Abstraction is the act of putting an aspect of something in the background while making another aspect the aspect the focus or the figure of your attention. You can also put several aspects into the background focussing on only a single aspect. In that instance, you are being very abstract.
ekard evolutionary speaking, it would make far more sense to look at a flower from an emotive /intuition standpoint , since the color /smell/ size all had to do with the perceived safety of the plant....along with learned avoidance as well
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Think more the quickest Intuitively way as E is for *Empathy*
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This is the exact kind of thinking that I try to take on when looking at historical events. For example someone might say they can't understand why two countries went to war or why people accused of being witches were burned. When you look at the kinds of "near mode" details that affected the people living in those times who were actually in those situations and making those decisions you lose the "can't understand why" excuse. By doing this I really gained a deeper appreciation of history and the reasons why people did and still do certain actions. Disagreement or agreement is fine, but empathy is critical. From there we can understand that we are constantly making all kinds of choices and assumptions that are perfectly reasonable to the view-holder. Just as you would empathize with the people making historical decisions under their own set of beliefs and assumptions our contemporaries are the very same people.
We literally can't understand why most of the historical events happened -- unless we go back in a time machine and relive the period of time!
bighugejake history is a tough one also, because we are limited by perspective of the chronicler, for obvious reasons...not to mention that, even today, with the amazing level of information we have access to, nobody can have all the variables needed to make a completely informed decision.
Never use that phrase, but often the "I don't know" one.
I can't understand how we cannot accept that it's just a figure of speech.
Figures of speech, being figurative and not literal, lead to ambiguity and so to misunderstanding.
@@marksampson48 one of the myths of linguistics is that language is literal. Even the term figures of speech is a figure of speech.
A figure of speech to discard.
Can't you?
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Think more the Hardest way when I'm strong enough to believe in my argument...
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Think more when I have faith enough in my honesty
I adore the combination of stream of consciousness and purposefulness in these videos.
"Be more rational" is about you. "I can't understand how anyone could think X." is about me.
Good point.
I've actually used this phrase today, but in a sense not covered in this video. I told someone that I can't understand how someone can view Donald Trump as the strong Christian candidate, but used the phrase in an attempt to be charitable about the clear motivations of many people expressing this belief.
Think more as K is for Kindness
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Think more the hardest way not because everything is fully planned...
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Think more but everything comes out as in a flow of conversation naturally
This can be translated into respect and empathy. If you start with the premise of respect, and get close enough to an individual to actually understand their history and why they think the way they do, your perspective can change. It’s easy to judge and disdain general concepts.
“If you happen to read fairy tales, you will observe that one idea runs from one end of them to the other--the idea that peace and happiness can only exist on some condition. This idea, which is the core of ethics, is the core of the nursery-tales.”
― G.K. Chesterton
If you break your mental enslavement of education, then you can achieve peace , hidden in plain sight
You lost me at "smart people arguing on facebook". Still like your videos though.
So you're saying that you can't understand how someone can be smart and argue on Facebook? 🤔
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Think more to not be fool by same old process of considering things seriously...
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Think more but to always raise a standard of reasonable way of living each moment
I can't understand why nobody replies to my email request to the Center for Applied Rationality (CfAR) for important applied research work collaboration.
Did they ever respond?
Expressing any form of doubt can be difficult when your opponent in a discussion is ready to express absolute certainty. I think that creates a kind of 'arms race' which this is part of. I have noticed that whenever I am tempted to say "they are stupid" it is usually a sign that I have not understood "them." You can know that people aren't stupid but still think that their choice or belief is going to lead to trouble and that it would help for them to have some different inputs and then rethink their outputs. It's very very difficult to put yourself in another persons "shoes" really. I cannot explain to my friends why country music has an appeal because they live in cold, crowded, Northern European cities and are never going to have the emotional need for that kind of music. What I cannot understand, really, is how to convey that idea to them unless it occurs to them naturally form some other experience.
RUclips mostly recommends random garbage to me, but I must admit this time it did its job beautifully
lol i have the opposite issue.
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It seems like most intended meanings of "I can't understand" are contained in garden-variety argument from ignorance. Is there a distinction? Edit: argument from incredulity is more precisely what I mean.
As a linguist, I'm with you with the distinction between literal and intended meaning (also called _sentence meaning_ and _speaker's meaning_) but not with what you're calling the "true" meaning. The intended meaning IS the true meaning as far as the speaker is concerned even if there is a failure of communication.
I probably also differ with you over exactly what the intended meaning generally is in these contexts. When people say "I don't understand why X" in a dismissive way, it's often just another way of declaring that X doesn't make sense. Of course, if the speaker literally can't make sense of X, it is quite possible that it is a failing of their own rather than of X. Unfortunately, the literal meaning of this phrase isn't salient enough for that possibility to dawn on everyone.
+cavalrycome I was a bit puzzled by 'true meaning', but I took it to be something like what the utterance of a sentence says about the speaker. It seems like this is going to be a lot more controversial than the first two forms of meaning in any case.
It think it kind of mirrors Austin's locutionary/illocutionary/perlocutionary act trichotomy, with "true meaning" being the latter.
I'm not a native english speaker so I was a bit confused about this. You touched on it, don't vs can't. Did I understand you correct that "don't" should be the phrase used, in this context? It threw me off when she simply said "lack the knowledge of". Wouldn't "can't" mean that even if you tried you would be unable to understand? Where as "don't" would mean that you lack the knowledge, but if you tried or someone explained it well enough, you might well understand?
You are correct. If I say "I don't understand you," it implies that I COULD understand you in the future through explanation or thought. If I said "I can't understand you," it means (literally) there is no possible way I could understand, even in the future.
it's never good to take a figure of speech literally. isn't that the sign of a condition, to be overly literal about things?
+char jl also, what I would mean when I say that is closest to level 3. I simply don't care to try and understand them. I'm usually right in the long-run anyways....
Think more the hardest way as G is for Graduation
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Think more the hardest way as how *the direction of a single line can change the perspective of the whole composition*
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Think more the hardest way as how *it is important to observe Perspective in a Composition very carefully*
I thought this Video was about a recommendation on how to say I can't understand properly in English... but it is actually about the fact that saying it implies negative meaninings about who says it xD TIL
Ay ayyyy😎
nice, good TED talk
Think more the hardest way as how an Operator is a symbol that tells the compiler to perform specific operations required for processing..
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Think more the hardest way as how it indicates an operation to be performed on data or an expression, to yield a new value.
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Think more when I'm more than being tougher to everyone
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Thin more as M is for mandate
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This just makes me how to waste another more day for a specific argument...
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This just make me how more not to trust anyone, and how I see everyone are liars
Never be sure of what another is thinking.
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Think more the hardest way *if an exponent is present, it's effects to shift the location of the decimal point to the right, if the exponent is positive, or to the left, if the exponent is negative*
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Think more the hardest way as how *The Interpretation of a floating point constant with an exponent is essentially the same as scientific notation, except that the base 10 is replaced by the letter E(or e)*
Think more the Quickest Intuitively way as K is for *Kindle* again
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Think less as E is for Enemy
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Think more until that habits of little moments that I automatically spared with deception goes away..
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Think more until you realise what I secretly convince to you is my most sacred duty
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Think more to sleep like there's nothing to worry about tomorrow...
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Think more to wake up like there's something to worry about today..
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Think more the hardest way of why I can't just let it go, and move on...
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Think more the hardest way but what's that hold me as if someone hold me tight that makes me unable to move, even if how much have I managed to be honestly open and hide nothing
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Think more as tired as I am
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Think more as wise as I know how to trusted wholeheartedly with one you
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Think more by knowing my rights
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Think more it doesn't they should be graceful for others all the time
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Think more the quickest intuitively way as E is for *Equality* again
Think more as A is for Associated Press
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Think more the Quickest Intuitively way as G is for *Genuinely* again
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Think more the Quickest Intuitively way as H is for *Honesty* again
Think more the quickest intuitively way as O is for *Officer* again
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Think more as wise as possible when I learnt how to self question this way...
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Think more it doesn't mean all of my every actions can fit to everybody else's answers
Think more when I do my job like what I was assigned with my self efforting skill
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Think more as wise as how I managed to take my chance throughout these voids
Think more the quickest intuitively way as V is for *Vacuum* again
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Think more the quickest intuitively way as V is for *Variables* again
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Think more the Quickest Intuitively way as C is for *Cap* again
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Think more the Quickest Intuitively way as D is for *Door* again
Think more the hardest way as K is for Knowledge required
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Think more the quickest Intuitively way as E is for *Enormously* again
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Think more the quickest Intuitively way as F is for *Forbidden* again
Think more the quickest intuitively way as E is for *EFFect* again
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