Conditions for Connection

[Beau]

But let's not forget the importance of a diverse vocabulary to convey abstract and complex concepts.

Could you explain the "importance of a diverse vocabulary" in clear and concise terms? Unless their is no other way to explain things, my understanding is that if you CAN be simple and swift, you should.

 

[mkrnhr]

:)
Okay,
Just a side note :

Again, not trying to impress. Just being me.

Being you, talking with others --> external condition you have been pointed too. A good point to think of ;)
Now you haven't been to reduce your vocabulary, but using it in purpose and precision, the exact opposite of idiocraty ;)
Avoid word salad and be precise.
Enjoy reading and welcome again to the trip ;)

 

[anart]

Again, not trying to impress. Just being me. I know big words don't necessitate big thought, but the array of words created in the English language were created with reason. There are subtle differences in their implications which are imperative within a complex context. I have no control over their size or commonality of use- they are what they are.

The problem, 'de-tached' is that you do not use these words well. There are a lot of people who use 'big words' and quite complex language on this forum who do so very well, thus, there is no confusion and it takes very little effort on the part of the reader to get the point. You, however, tend to mix your words up as if quantity is more important than quality and the result is convoluted, unclear and meandering. It evidences a convoluted thought process, and scrambled thinking.

If you were as good with 'big words' as you think yourself to be, this would not be the case. In fact, the opposite would be true; others would understand your meaning very clearly upon the first read of your words. Do you see the difference?

Have you ever seen "Idiocracy"?
Hopefully not more than once, but it clearly (and amusingly) illustrates the over-emphasis of complacently convenient overuse of remedial colloquialism and rhetoric for the sake of "cultural courtesy".

It also has some great examples of people who use language very poorly - not clearly and giving meaning to words that are not succinct or clear. Interesting you should bring it up.

I'm not implying that the language used here is remedial, FAR from it, or that anyone would or should adapt to my style.

Of course you are. That's exactly your point - you speak in a way that you think makes you appear intelligent because you do not even realize that how you write is unclear and convoluted. And, since you are more interested in your own needs (to write in a manner that you think sounds intelligent, when it actually sounds the opposite) than you are in the needs of your reader (to be able to get your gist instantly) you expect others to adjust to you. It's very common.

But let's not forget the importance of a diverse vocabulary to convey abstract and complex concepts.

Let's not forget clarity of word, and purpose of thought, reflected in those words. For instance, had you used the word 'evidence' instead of 'necessitate' in your sentence of, "I know big words don't necessitate big thought" - it would have been much more clear and accurate. To use the word 'necessitate' is to introduce some fogginess on whether, during the process of writing, the word comes first or the thought comes first. See the difference? It is subtle, but clarity is easily accomplished with a little effort.

I'll be keeping in mind that there are those who use English as a second, third, etc... language as I get more involved after finishing the suggested reading and contribute to the larger topics. Thanks. :)

Again, I don't think it's the words you use, I think it is how you use them. Your verbiage indicates thinking that is convoluted - not clear and crisp (clear and crisp can also be quite complex). So, perhaps it goes back to those 'five dried grams'.

 

[Laura]

Again, not trying to impress. Just being me. I know big words don't necessitate big thought, but the array of words created in the English language were created with reason. There are subtle differences in their implications which are imperative within a complex context. I have no control over their size or commonality of use- they are what they are.

The problem, 'de-tached' is that you do not use these words well. There are a lot of people who use 'big words' and quite complex language on this forum who do so very well, thus, there is no confusion and it takes very little effort on the part of the reader to get the point. You, however, tend to mix your words up as if quantity is more important than quality and the result is convoluted, unclear and meandering. It evidences a convoluted thought process, and scrambled thinking.

If you were as good with 'big words' as you think yourself to be, this would not be the case. In fact, the opposite would be true; others would understand your meaning very clearly upon the first read of your words. Do you see the difference?

Hmm... Anart, your apt assessment reminds me of the following:

: Incompetent People Really Have No Clue, Studies Find


Erica Goode
San Francisco Chronicle
Tue, 18 Jan 2000 00:26 UTC

There are many incompetent people in the world. Dr. David A. Dunning is haunted by the fear that he might be one of them.

Dunning, a professor of psychology at Cornell, worries about this because, according to his research, most incompetent people do not know that they are incompetent.

On the contrary. People who do things badly, Dunning has found in studies conducted with a graduate student, Justin Kruger, are usually supremely confident of their abilities -- more confident, in fact, than people who do things well.

''I began to think that there were probably lots of things that I was bad at, and I didn't know it,'' Dunning said.

One reason that the ignorant also tend to be the blissfully self-assured, the researchers believe, is that the skills required for competence often are the same skills necessary to recognize competence.

The incompetent, therefore, suffer doubly, they suggested in a paper appearing in the December issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

''Not only do they reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the ability to realize it,'' wrote Kruger, now an assistant professor at the University of Illinois, and Dunning.

This deficiency in ''self-monitoring skills,'' the researchers said, helps explain the tendency of the humor-impaired to persist in telling jokes that are not funny, of day traders to repeatedly jump into the market -- and repeatedly lose out -- and of the politically clueless to continue holding forth at dinner parties on the fine points of campaign strategy.

In a series of studies, Kruger and Dunning tested their theory of incompetence. They found that subjects who scored in the lowest quartile on tests of logic, English grammar and humor were also the most likely to ''grossly overestimate'' how well they had performed.

In all three tests, subjects' ratings of their ability were positively linked to their actual scores. But the lowest-ranked participants showed much greater distortions in their self-estimates.

Asked to evaluate their performance on the test of logical reasoning, for example, subjects who scored only in the 12th percentile guessed that they had scored in the 62nd percentile, and deemed their overall skill at logical reasoning to be at the 68th percentile.

Similarly, subjects who scored at the 10th percentile on the grammar test ranked themselves at the 67th percentile in the ability to ''identify grammatically correct standard English,'' and estimated their test scores to be at the 61st percentile.

On the humor test, in which participants were asked to rate jokes according to their funniness (subjects' ratings were matched against those of an ''expert'' panel of professional comedians), low-scoring subjects were also more apt to have an inflated perception of their skill. But because humor is idiosyncratically defined, the researchers said, the results were less conclusive.

Unlike unskilled counterparts, the most able subjects in the study, Kruger and Dunning found, were likely to underestimate their competence. The researchers attributed this to the fact that, in the absence of information about how others were doing, highly competent subjects assumed that others were performing as well as they were -- a phenomenon psychologists term the ''false consensus effect.''

When high-scoring subjects were asked to ''grade'' the grammar tests of their peers, however, they quickly revised their evaluations of their own performance. In contrast, the self-assessments of those who scored badly themselves were unaffected by the experience of grading others; some subjects even further inflated their estimates of their own abilities.

''Incompetent individuals were less able to recognize competence in others,'' the researchers concluded.

In a final experiment, Dunning and Kruger set out to discover if training would help modify the exaggerated self-perceptions of incapable subjects. In fact, a short training session in logical reasoning did improve the ability of low-scoring subjects to assess their performance realistically, they found.

The findings, the psychologists said, support Thomas Jefferson's assertion that ''he who knows best knows how little he knows.''

And the research meshes neatly with other work indicating that overconfidence is common; studies have found, for example, that the vast majority of people rate themselves as ''above average'' on a wide array of abilities -- though such an abundance of talent would be impossible in statistical terms. This overestimation, studies indicate, is more likely for tasks that are difficult than for those that are easy.

Such studies are not without critics. Dr. David C. Funder, a psychology professor at the University of California at Riverside, for example, said he suspects that most lay people have only a vague idea of the meaning of ''average'' in statistical terms.

''I'm not sure the average person thinks of 'average' or 'percentile' in quite that literal a sense,'' Funder said, ''so 'above average' might mean to them 'pretty good,' or 'OK,' or 'doing all right.' And if, in fact, people mean something subjective when they use the word, then it's really hard to evaluate whether they're right or wrong, using the statistical criterion.''

But Dunning said his current research and past studies indicated there are many reasons why people would tend to overestimate their competency and not be aware of it.

In various situations, feedback is absent, or at least ambiguous; even a humorless joke, for example, is likely to be met with polite laughter. And faced with incompetence, social norms prevent most people from blurting out ''You stink!'' -- truthful though this assessment may be.

Here on this forum, however, we have no problem telling people that they "stink" even if we do try to do it gently.

 

[samii]

The ultimate attack. De-tached if you can survive this then you are on the right track

 

[samii]

Sorry, I meant the ultimate mirror.

 

[Cyre2067]

While it may come off as 'offensive' it's really an accurate assessment of de-tached's behavior. There's no spite in the words of the posters above, nor aggression, it's very calmly and very compassionately attempting to show 'de-tached' that he is behaving one way while he thinks he is behaving another.

I hope he isn't dissuaded from future interactions, however up front in the forum guide lines it is stated that all participants read the wave first, in its entirety, as it will answer many questions that may pop up.

Samy - for future reference there's a little pencil on the right side of your posts, if you click that it will allow you to edit the post itself. Helps if you want to reword something, add something or make any other changes.

 

[samii]

I don't see the pencil, maybe it's only for high rating members.

 

[anart]

I don't see the pencil, maybe it's only for high rating members.

Yes, the ability to edit one's own post is now available after having posted 50 times.

 

[samii]

I don't see the pencil, maybe it's only for high rating members.

Yes, the ability to edit one's own post is now available after having posted 50 times.

Just what I dread, whereas most high rating members discourage posting and focus on reading and researching :)

 

[Joe]

You may also want to ponder the idea that, unless a person can explain a complex topic is plain language that is accessible to all, then generally it means that they don't understand the topic very well.

 

[knowledge_of_self]

I don't see the pencil, maybe it's only for high rating members.

Yes, the ability to edit one's own post is now available after having posted 50 times.

Just what I dread, whereas most high rating members discourage posting and focus on reading and researching :)

Hi Samy:
Here's a great way of getting a few more posts, Why don't you write about yourself and how you came across this site in the Newbies section. We encourage all new members to do so.

 

[de-tached]

I'll repeat what I said in my "Introduce Yourself Thread", I could try to clarify and correct for the prejudices, implications, skewed interpretations of myself and others, but I know it'll just lead to more and more discussions begging for more involvement which I don't have the entirety of prerequisite reading done to efficiently do. It's been quite an introduction; I've laughed, I've dropped a few "F-bombs", I've contemplated and will continue to do so. So in short, I get what you're all trying to say and It's been thoroughly amusing, enthralling, and insightful. I promise you'll see more of my contributions when I'm done with the reading.

From "Tips and advice for Newbies: We recommend that new members of the forum read the Wave series in its entirety before wading too far in with posting, as the ideas and concepts presented in that work form the basis for most discussions on the forum.

I never thought just saying introducing myself would be "wading in too far", but it seems either that suggestion should be amended or my desire to seek "deep end" reactions has given me what I was looking for and then some!

Hello again, looking forward to being fully ready, and thank you. <3

 

[Helle]

Hi De-tached.

So in short, I get what you're all trying to say and It's been thoroughly amusing, enthralling, and insightful. I promise you'll see more of my contributions when I'm done with the reading.

Do you really get it ? I'm glad if you found the mirroring amusing, but I doubt that you 'get' it.
You still manage to come across as quite arrogant and full of yourself.

To me it seems quite silly, and a waste, to laugh off Anart's and Laura's great replies to you.

- Also looking forward to hearing more from you, when you feel you're ready.

 

[ana]

The ultimate attack. De-tached if you can survive this then you are on the right track

Sorry, I meant the ultimate mirror

I don't see the pencil, maybe it's only for high rating members.

Just what I dread, whereas most high rating members discourage posting and focus on reading and researching

sami, you made four inputs, in any of those inputs you speak of the initial topic, seems you are indirectly launching an attack against members of this forum