Fish don't know they're in water
sivers.org
sivers.org
Thanks for letting me know. I updated the post to give credit.
"Over the last few years I've regularly been cornered by nervous publishers or broadcasters or journalists or film makers and asked about how I think computers will affect their various industries. For a long time most of them were desperately hoping for an answer that translated roughly into 'not very much'. ('People like the smell of books, they like popcorn, they like to see programmes at exactly the same moment as their neighbours, they like at least to have lots of articles that they've no interest in reading', etc.) But it's a hard question to answer because it's based on a faulty model. It's like trying to explain to the Amazon River, the Mississippi, the Congo and the Nile how the coming of the Atlantic Ocean will affect them. The first thing to understand is that river rules will no longer apply."
Since you're currently holding a magazine, let's think about what might happen when magazine publishing is no longer a river in its own right..
Douglas Adams - The one person we really needed to explain all this stuff to us http://www.douglasadams.com/dna/980707-05-a.html
I later learned (luckily before I published it anywhere) that it was in fact a melody from a (somewhat well-known) friend's song I had heard some years before, perhaps only 2-3 times, but somehow it remained intact in my head.
It really messed with my mind for a while.
It is unimaginably hard to do this, to stay conscious and alive, day in and day out.
Rest in peace David.
I'm surprised that no one here knows it.
Our cabinet ministers are paid millions a year[1]. Obama's allowance is about what a fairly low official would be paid.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabinet_of_Singapore#Remunerati...
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2010-03-04-federal-pay_N...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/8501369/Workers-in-...
I've never considered such jobs personally because I don't feel it is what I want out of life. As I get older, I do wonder whether I am just being a fish missing the larger world of opportunities :)
Even the USPS has more impact than the vast majority of SV startups...combined. Just sayin'.
There are plenty of crappy jobs in government, just like in the private sector. Romanticizing it doesn't do anyone good.
p.s. I do not work for the Gov't.
In other parts of the country/world, the IRS guy or the McKinsey guy is the highest status person in the room.
Fish came from all over the ocean to hear him teach. 'I have nothing to teach,' he said, 'only enjoy the water,' but they came anyway, and some of them began to understand the water, and some of them came to understand it fully, and were called awakened.
One day a fish came and said 'Teach me of the water'. The teacher said 'I have nothing to teach. The water is all around us, above and below, and it fills the spaces where nothing else is.'
The fish frowned thoughtfully. 'You mean this stuff?' he asked, and flicked a fin so that a wave of water lightly struck the teacher's face.
'Yes,' said the teacher, bowing his head and smiling in acknowledgement 'that is the water; I see you have attainment.'
'Oh,' said the fish, surprised, 'that's it?'
'That's it.'
'Oh, okay,' said the fish, 'nice weather we're having, eh?'"
This has cheered me up immensely at the start of the week; I may not have to kill myself now, and may just affix some of these to my wall instead.
Be that as it may, if you're really contemplating suicide, please talk to someone about your feelings -- or lack thereof -- before you do anything else. Even if it's just a stranger at a hotline.
For example "Gutei raised his finger whenever he was asked a question about Zen. A boy attendant began to imitate him in this way. When anyone asked the boy what his master had preached about, the boy would raise his finger. Gutei heard about the boy's mischief. He seized him and cut off his finger. The boy cried and ran away. "
What is the purpose of this type of story? Is it supposed to be funny, shocking, insightful, or just a time killer? I find it to be mostly useless. I read a few of them and they seemed like boring short stories.
to understand the humor in some of these broken koans, you kind of have to understand the purpose/structure of the regular koans.
But what I didn't expect was how much I learned about my own (Danish) culture.
I also learned who where my friends, who did I miss, who I could live without.
I swam across the pond from one culture to another and learned that the water might be different but the fish are more or less the same.
I have to say I liked the new pond better than the old one.
I try to avoid having preference of one pond over another. I now understand how each system is different and see the advantages and flaws in both.
One thing I try to avoid is "immigrant guilt". I don't know if there is a word for it but when you move to another country some try to over compensate for fear of losing their identity, ie. being extra British, or extra American (this is the one people tend to meet it seems), or extra French. These people tend to celebrate the national holidays even if they never did before, wear patriotic or national shirts, or go extra thick on the language.
1) Boy those {what I used to be} are full of it.
2) So, what's all this Unitarian stuff about?
3) {long delay} I see, I will always be {what I used to be}
My experience is the same as both of you except I don't really count where I was born as my identity. It informs and effects my actions but I try to choose where I live based on where I can have the best quality of life.
When I say I prefer one over another it's not based on good vs. bad.
It's more "when all comes to all"
I've seen plenty of fish from flying fish, to carp, to sharks jump completely out of water time after time after time.
The archer fish can accurately shoot (spit at) flies that are out of water and down them (and eat them) so something within the fish can correct for refraction.
Salmon can be seen jumping out of water, and against a strong current, they can be seen swimming very hard, and making little headway or even giving up ground.
It's not clear to me that fish don't understand they are within water.
citation-needed.jpg
But I'm just speculating, as well. It makes a good illustration for the real point, in any case. ;)
When one is driving a car, one doesn't say to oneself "Wow, I am driving a car." That doesn't mean one can't have that knowledge, it just doesn't come up -- unless something breaks, and one can't drive the car and is trying to figure out why and communicate it.
Knowledge-how is implicit in all of the universe. Knowledge-about might be only possible with language. All speculation...
I think that the fish-water analogy is pretty weak, and the entire culture ignorance concept is irrelevant for most individuals.
Someone is stuck in Reddit water.
This reply may seem clever and proper from the point of view of someone living in a Reddit culture, but it is rude and pointless in a Hacker News culture.
We do not place high stock in pointless pedantry or mundane memes. We focus on intelligent, meaningful discussion that centers around important points in submissions. Picking a tangential (and historical) analogy to attack does not further the discussion in any way. This entire thread is a massive waste of space.
However, you appear to have done that of which you accuse. There is merit in the comment you criticize, even though it is not fully or clearly expressed. Try to draw an intelligent and meaningful discussion from it ...
The point, perhaps, is that a bad analogy at the start of a piece is an example of bad writing. Good hackers need to write well, and the lesson to learn here is that good writing requires moving beyond the mundane cliche and finding analogies that are relevant, accurate, and true.
Yes, this thread got out of hand, and I probably should take much of the blame for that. The down-votes are telling me that people think it doesn't belong. I'll take my lumps. But to dismiss a comment like this as being content-free is to share the blame for not finding value.
The real mistake is the Reddit-like expression of the point, rather than attempting to highlight something positive. With that I agree.
If criticisms such as jerrya's are the plague of Reddit, then surely "this is a bad HN comment" is the plague of HN. And yes, I realize I risk being self-referential here, but I really think this needs proper calling out.
It is not unintelligent or spammy comments that endanger the discourse at Hacker News. It is comments that seem to be saying something worthwhile that get upvoted and take up valuable real estate on the comment threads while being of almost no value that threaten to bring Hacker News too close to the multitude of other sites out there.
It used to be that the HN comment threads were multiple times better than the submissions themselves. I would have a very hard time arguing that today.
F => X is T for all X, so I am not sure what the point of reading the rest of the article is.
I ask for some evidence that P is true.
You tell me of your need that I tell you I am joking.
I do not understand your need.
I get too that the article starts with a metaphor.
The metaphor seems bogus to me. And the post was apparently not science fiction. So I said, the metaphor seems bogus to me. Your response seems to be, "it's imagery." Okay, my position is that this premise/metaphor/imagery is probably bogus and as such, hurts the article.
I can't suspend my disbelief long enough to get to the rest of the article. F=>X is T for all X. Cast article form of tautology.
I appreciate your response to me, as opposed to the downvotes my response received with no explanation.
I read stuff all day long where people say, "your analogy is wrong". That actually is part of an argument.
I assume Derek would like to be a better writer -- we all would. I assume Derek would like his articles to carry weight -- we all would.
His analogy/metaphor/imagery is probably bogus and stopped me in my tracks.
I understand how stating my position that I could not get further than that brings down the hammer at HN.
Ironically, my stating my own opinion that I cannot buy into his analogy/metaphor/imagery and that his metaphor is wrong AND the consequent hammer of downvotes as HN readers hate on me actually makes Derek's point.
I think I get this, thank you.
"And yet, it moves"
A bad analogy spoils the narrative and undermines the point. It seemed perfectly valid for jerrya to raise the question, and raised in my mind the ancient Chinese tale of Zhuangzi and Huizi strolling on Bridge Hao.
Zhuangzi: "Look how happy the fish are just
swimming around in the river."
Huizi: "How do you know they are happy?
You are not a fish."
Zhuangzi: "And you are not me. How do you
know I don't know the fish are
happy?"
Huizi: "Of course I'm not you, and I
don't know what you think; But
I do know that you're not a fish,
and so you couldn't possibly know
the fish are happy."
Zhuangzi: "Look, when you asked me how I knew
the fish were happy, you already
knew that I knew the fish were happy.
I knew it from my feelings standing
on this bridge."
I agree that Derek's analogy was poorly chosen for his audience. Clearly, he should have anticipated that people would be pedantic enough to bikeshed over whether or not fish actually realize they are in water.
Fish don't know about water ...
Perhaps someone else's thought processes go like this:
If this is an analogy it's really poor, so I guess it must be a premise. But it's wrong, so now I really don't know what's going on here ...
It reads like a starting point. It reads like a fact that will be built on. To some, that's bad, and possibly jerrya was just trying to point that out. From that point of view it is, perhaps, you who is bikeshedding. Perhaps you should take jerrya's comment slightly less literally, and more as you would have us read the original article.
But that's just how it seems to me. Likely I'm wrong too. But one thing's now for sure, I've expressed my views, and I'm unlikely to spend more time on this question.
I didn't.
Research shows that opinions are formed very, very quickly.
Further, I did read the article, even though my initial reactions were so negative. I did that because I know that sometimes people don't write well, but their ideas might still be worth considering.
My comments were born of trying to help people understand how apparently small issues in their writing can have apparently disproportionate effects on their audiences.
So, let's see. You said:
So you can't be bothered to read more than five words
... before formulating an opinion,
... yet you write several paragraphs expressing
that opinion.
And then you downvote me
... for asking how an analogy equates to a material
conditional?
So clearly I've failed in getting my point across. As Samuel Johnson said (although other sources attribute it to James Boswell):
Sir, I have found you an argument;
but I am not obliged to find you an
understanding.Sadly, I am more than familiar with the general quality of people's reading comprehension. Perhaps it is too much to expect that someone reads something and understands it before formulating an opinion about it.
By the way, statements like this
Your outrage contradicts findings in research.
Incidentally, there's no proof either way whether you downvoted me or not, but I will take you at your word and disregard the circumstantial evidence otherwise.
I conceded your point before you wasted
your time arguing it. Past that point,
you've really nothing interesting to say.
You may choose not to bother reading further.
>> Your outrage contradicts findings in research.
> My "outrage" (disappointment, really) is a
> sentiment, not a proposition.
> ... spouting logical nonsense of your own.
Thank you for taking me at my word when I say I didn't down-vote you. I don't down-vote people for simple disagreements.
But let me finish with this:
Yes, it was an analogy. Yes, he was using it to set the scene to make a valid point. Yes, the article was mildly insightful.
The point I was trying to make - no doubt badly - is that his leading statement just provoked the reaction: Well, that's wrong. As such, as a rhetorical device, it was particularly badly chosen. Some members of his readership were always going to react badly to it because it's possibly wrong.
The points you and I are discussing here are the true bikeshedding. Whether one should interpret such statements logically, literally, or however is not the point. Analogies should be chosen carefully lest they distract from the point, rather than enhance it. This discussion essentially proves that point.
It's not clear to me what you of my writings you think are logical nonsense.
And you may be disappointed, but research says
that people form opinions very quickly. To try
to take a stance that this should not be the
case is a little odd. So I guess I don't
understand your point.
... you can't be bothered to read more than
five words before formulating an opinion ...
(BTW - I've taken the opportunity to remove the grammatical error - hope you don't mind.)
Perhaps I shouldn't've used the word "contradiction," but since you were insisting that treating writings as pure logic is wrong, I thought it not inappropriate. "My bad" seems to be the recent vernacular for that.
With regards agreeing that the analogy is poorly chosen, and whether I have anything to say to add to that, you said this:
I agree that Derek's analogy was poorly chosen for
his audience. Clearly, he should have anticipated
that people would be pedantic enough to bikeshed
over whether or not fish actually realize they are
in water.
Two hours ago I conceded the analogy was
poorly chosen. I'm not sure what else you
have to say.
Let P be the point you want to make. Let A be the situation you want to use as an analogy. Let f be the mapping from A to P. You understand, of course, that I'm using these purely for convenience of expression, and not because I want to be mathematically precise.
Then we have f:A->P. There are several things we want of a good analogy.
The analogy A should be something we are familiar with and agree with, thereby making it easier to see the point that is in it.
The mapping should carry that point into the new situation, thereby forming the necessary association.
Another point is that f should in some sense be "natural" and not excessively tortured.
But to me, above all, A should be true!
So there's more than one aspect of the poor chosenedness of an analogy. One is when it doesn't assist the point. One is when it's too tortured to be effective. And one is when it simply isn't true.
To me, that makes the opening comments more than just bike-shedding.
And that actually brings me to the main reason I wrote this additional comment.
You write:
How is it odd, exactly, to be disappointed that
people form opinions based on knee-jerk reactions
rather than thoughtful consideration?
But in all this my point is that ...
Good writing takes that into account and works with it, not against it.
The analogy was poorly chosen - we agree. That makes using it an example of bad writing. Good communicators need to avoid such mistakes, and understanding the thought and emotional processes inherent in their readers can help.
Your very first comment in this thread was:
It's an analogy, not a logical conditional.
Let's see if we agree on these:
* Good writing is hard.
* Working at it is worth-while.
* Having people point out your mistakes is of value.
* Bad analogies can detract from the effectiveness of a piece.
* Internet debates often get side-tracked down pointless side-issues.
* People form opinions (disappointingly) quickly
* Good writing takes that into account and tries to use it positively.
* Logic and language don't always play nice.
* We agree about more than we disagree on.
I.e. I meant ion to a random friend in Chicago that I'm bummed there's no way for me to take transit to work and I get sympathetic agreement. I mention the same to someone in Milwaukee and they look at me like I have two heads (why would you want to do that?)
Because I also grew up in Chicago, and just assumed that every bar in the world, everywhere that alcohol is served, has a blues band.
It wasn't until I moved to Boston that I started noticing the lack of blues bands in all the bars.
I mentioned it to someone, and he said, "Uh... dude... you grew up in Chicago. Chicago Blues. That's a Chicago thing."
Ah.... wild. Still wondering how many things in life are like this.
Sorry, slightly OCDish about this.
Most people don't care about these things, and that's cool, but clear and effective writing is important in all fields (and Edsger W. Dijkstra said "Besides a mathematical inclination, an exceptionally good mastery of one's native tongue is the most vital asset of a competent programmer." - I don't agree with everything Dijkstra wrote, but this one is relevant and true enough.)
Mistakes like this can really detract from getting the message across.
ADDED IN EDIT: I see I'm not the first: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2673074
Of course that means that their meaning is (in principle) decoupled from what they used to mean in Latin, and maybe one day it will be obviously correct to say that one meaning of "i.e." in English is "for example". But that day is not yet.
It always amazes and humbles me how well non-native English speakers communicate in English. I was trying to help, not to criticize or condemn.
He's also very kind and approachable. A great example of a real "rich" person in this world.
I am from mainland China, a country boy actually.
but I love a bit of uncertainty out of my life. anyway, we are mortal, no one going to secure you out of death. So what can you lose?
Personally the lecture I learned for myself, when I made this experience in a foreign country, is that I am a lot less like "So stupid how this foreigner behaves." when I see something strange to me. I try now, not to feel too much like I am something better, because I would never do so.
I live in Singapore, and I wonder which school that is. I can't imagine 98% of students in that room not wanting to start their own company some day, at all when they are in business school.
I remember 4 of us planning to start a business when I was in school in Singapore more than 10 years ago and all 4 of us were in electrical engineering.
I always assumed that it was the same in Singapore.
The part about people living with their parents is completely true though...
Singapore has a much more stable environment and state-managed vibe. Over decades, this tends to encourage less entrepreneurial spirit in people here. This is changing recently, especially with the younger generation here though.
But I'd still be surprise of that kind of response in a business school here.
I didn't mean to say (& didn't say) that no Singaporeans are entrepreneurial. I could have just as likely been in an accountancy class in Zurich.
It was just an example of a moment of realizing that not everyone thinks the same as the people I'm usually around.
It tries to captures the idea that it is very difficult to accept something that is very radically different from what you are used to.
For eg: In the narrative by Sivers, entrepreneurship is probably not so important to a different culture!
...
..Two generations behind.
The generational analogy seems perfectly apt, but that doesn't make out outlook worse or less sophisticated than the other.
Because the future is perceived as more advanced than the past, having built on the notions/achievements/etc., of the past. Arrow of time points in one direction. (At least for humans)
This is a very recent development, and it's still not universal. For the longest time, people believed that things were better in the past, that we are slowly moving away from a golden age, and that things are getting worse.
Some concrete examples are the biblical Garden of Eden/Armageddon; beliefs in Atlantis and other mystical places; the admiration for the Greek and Roman times, especially during the dark ages.
Even for us they are relative, but generally speaking on earth they are defined either by gravity or by feet and head on a human body standing up. Either way, whatever way a fish swims, it's not upside down by our definitions. And however you chose to define it, we still class it by our definition, not by "what might we think if we were a fish capable of human levels of thought?".
And as to front/back... well that's theoretially described by the direction of the animal's normal movement. But regardless of that, again if you are defining a fish, it can only be defined by our grammar, not by their world.
No, you english speaking guys are the only ones able to define "up" or "down".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posterior_%28anatomy%29#Anterio...
that is, "back" would usually mean the location of the spine. Regarding how the fish perceives or thinks about its orientation I think this is impossible to say!
In the second case, gravity acts on you even when you are going up, in fact it is what slows you down and then makes you start to fall.