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0 pointsKednicma6y ago0 comments

This knowledge that you are discussing is quite interesting, but not tacit: You had no problem explaining it to me in words alone. Moreover, it can all be operationalized; physics in particular is well-operationalized and usually evaluated numerically.

I gather that part of the tacit-knowledge movement is to talk about knowledge that cannot be put into words. The example of how to move a muscle is extremely instructive: There is no sequence of words that will allow a person to examine and select the correct bundles of nerves for moving a muscle, and instead a person simply must learn to do it somehow. Even then, if somebody does something like isolating grouped muscle movements, they might be able to explain in words how to fine-tune control over some muscles.

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mattkrause6y ago

The adjective case might be debatable, since it's usually learned implicitly but could be taught.

Intuitive physics may be a stronger example: the point is that it's not "real" physics where you numerically evaluate the statics and centers of mass. It's a set of heuristics that let you rapidly (and not always successfully) determine if a pile of books is stable, using some internal model of the world.

Ditto for sensory input. You have all these built-in principles (or priors or biases) that have evolved over millions of years to help you make sense of ambiguous or impoverished sensory input. These are also mostly implicit.

We can certainly name these effects talk /about/ them, and even probe them with careful experiments....but we can do that to bike-riding too.

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