Why the most valuable things you know are things you cannot say

https://deadneurons.substack.com/p/why-the-most-valuable-things-you

Why the Most Valuable Things You Know Are Things You Cannot Say

The Dimensionality Problem

Dead Neurons

I would call the difference intuitive knowledge versus rational knowledge.

I've never seen the word calibration used this way:

different modes of learning. The first is instruction: the transfer of explicit models, rules, and relationships from one person to another through language. The second is calibration: the development of internal models through repeated exposure to feedback in a specific environment.

Judgement is learnable through calibration. It is not transmissible through instruction.


Unfortunately the word "intuition" has been debased.

You raise an interesting question. How do we keep the meanings of words from diverging so dramatically and so rapidly?

A little bit is natural and expected, but this kind of change in meaning feels like a consequence of a culture that in the last decade has accelerated the practice of re-framing specific words and concepts as something that's "actually a positive" or "actually quite negative if you think about it".

Part of this is a result of our (in the US) culture wars and hijacking of popular terms, but it's also a symptom of social media culture that's always seeking a hot take and creators who are looking to distinguish themselves with (what seems to me) clever re-framing.

The result is a culture that is increasingly fragmented and in which a word can have dramatically different meaning and insinuations depending on it's use in certain social groups or intellectual cliques.

It increasingly feels like I need to download a massive amount of linguistic context before I step into the world of a niche online community because their tight-knit dialogues and shared experiences have now re-framed a word or concept that was largely understood to mean something else.

It's always been like this, just on a smaller scale. Every time you join a group, some people can read the room, learning and sensing the cultural implications, while others step in all the landmines and don't even hear the explosions. How do you do this? Not sure how to explain it, mostly calibration through experience!
Not being self-centered is helpful.