The transfer of knowledge is dependent upon at least ten “supply demand” curves. Such that the contract (exchange) of knowledge is a function of the costs involved in an exchange. In other words, some communication is low cost and some is worthwhile, and some is very costly, and some is prohibitively costly, and some is simply impossible no matter what is done. So transfer of knowledge is one of the most complex human endeavors in no small part because of high causal density with diverse means of increasing costs.
|METHOD| Suggest > Communicate(illustrate) > Explain > Teach > Train(Repetition) > Saturate(Immersion)
ie: Cost—>+
|LEARNING| Learns through inference (145+) < Learns through Suggestion(135+) < Learns through Illustration (125+) < Learns through Explanation (115+) < Learns through Teaching (105+) < Learns through Training (95+) < Learns through Immersion (85+) < Learning challenged (85-)
ie: Cost—>+
|ABILITY| Same Sigma > .5 Sigma > 1 Sigma(helpful) > 1.5 Sigma > 2 Sigma (Difficult)> 2.5 Sigma > 3 Sigma(~Impossible) > 3.5 Sigma > 4 Sigma(~Inconceivable)
ie: Cost—>+
|CONTEXT| Enemies(resisting cooperation) > Negotiation (exploring cooperation) > Discovery (cooperation) > Pedagogy (education) > Court/Jury(dispute resolution)
ie: Cost (Consequence) —>+
|MODEL| Impulsive(emotive) > Intuitionistic(sympathetic) > Reasonable(verbal)* > Logical-Rational(internally consistent)* > Scientific(Externally consistent) > Ratio-Scientific (Internal and external) > Testimonial (Complete)
ie: Cost—>+
|PRIORS| Prior Technical Knowledge < Prior Specific Knowledge* < Prior General Knowledge < Limited General Knowledge
ie: Cost—>+
|CONTENT| Identical < Near Identical < Analogistic < Novel < Counter Intuitive < Counter Investment < Counter Status(signal) Investment
ie: Cost—>+
|TRUST| Suggestibility(False Positive) > Honest-Reasonable(Exchange Positive) > “Dunning Kruger(False Negative)”
ie: Cost—>+
|STRATEGY| Seeking to Understand > Seeking to Disagree > Seeking to Falsify > Seeking to Deny* > Denial.
ie: Cost—>+
|HONESTY| Intellectual honesty > Intellectual skepticism > Intellectual Dishonesty*.
ie: Cost—>+
This (large) set of causal relations, illustrates the difficulty in the range of communication problems Suggesting > Communicating(illustrate) > Explaining > Teaching > Training(Repetition). And illustrates why it’s simply false to say that if one cannot understand it, one cannot explain it. Instead, it is, that all other causal axis being equal, one should be able to explain a phenomenon to a peer. But as the difference in peerage increases the problem of communication even if all participants are intellectually honest.
Please notice the technique used, involves extensive use of deflation (reduction to first causes), use of operational (not ideal) definitions, in series(further deflating), with cost attributions. So that while we may not compute cardinality, we can calculate ordinality by triangulation. This is one of the many methods we use to limit the ability to engage in ignorance, error, bias, suggestion, and deceit.
While I am one of the most accessible people working today, I find that the vast majority of the time, the inability to communicate ideas is almost always a function of cost of doing so. And limited knowledge, signal-anchoring, intellectual dishonesty, and dunning kruger effects, are most obvious. Why? Because either you can comprehend and refute an argument, or you can say “I do not comprehend it, and can levy no opinion.”
There is a very great difference between the sophism of rationalism and the requirements for empirical science(external correspondence), and the requirements for ratio empirical science (add internal coherence), and the requirement for complete science (add operational, reasonable-choice, moral-reciprocal, scope completeness and limits).
There is a reason why Rationalism is used in hermeneutic interpretation LEGISLATION and SCRIPTURE and why Ratio-empiricism is used in physical science, and why Testimony (although often poorly unarticulated in the study of law) requires operational testimony, test of the rational man, test of reciprocity, and test of full accounting and limits. Not the least of which is that words carry little decidability but property carries with it conflict and decidability.
Why? Because the courts determine the facts (testimony and truthfulness), and then apply tests of reasonableness, reciprocity, externality, and then test them against the legislation – which is not meant to be, or practiced, as true or just, but simply the ‘rules’ of decidability in matters of conflict.
And from this we can learn a great deal about the difference between argument in court where our frauds and deceptions will provide us with punishment, and the jury decides whether we err or deceive, and debate, where the jury decides whether we err or deceive, and petty argument where we seek to learn(test), or fraud(win), or educate(help).
There are very few intellectually honest people in the world. There are fewer that can learn and make use of multi-dimensional (causally dense) methods of thought. And fewer who are willing to pay the high cost of attempting to articulate and teach those causally dense methods of thought that are counter to signal, norm, intuition and discipline.
But the influence of reason(falsification), of natural law(reciprocity), of mathematics (the science of measurement), of science(empiricism-correspondence), and (hopefully, in the near future, Testimonialism) has been profound – and responsible for the great leaps in human mastery of the self, of nature, and of the universe.
|TRUTH| {Generation 1: Heroism > Oath ‘Reporting’ > Property} > {Generation 2: Falsification > Natural Law > Mathematics} > {Generation 3: The Abrahamic Dark Age of Conflation} > {Generation 4: Empiricism > Economics > Testimonialism}
Curt Doolittle
The Propertarian Institute
Kiev, Ukraine