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hrishimittal comments on Bad reasons for a rationalist to lose - Less Wrong
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Even so, as a student, I do want the master to understand a complete theory of combat, complete with statistical validation against a control group.
What is your theory o Master?
Understanding something doesn't necessarily mean you can explain it. And explaining something doesn't necessarily mean anyone can understand it.
Can you explain how to ride a bicycle? Can you learn to ride a bicycle using only an explanation?
The theory of bicycle riding is not the practice of how to ride a bicycle.
Someone else's understanding is not a substitute for your experience. That's my only "theory", and I find it works pretty well in "practice". ;-)
By only an explanation, I mean without practice, and without ever having seen someone ride one.
And by "explain how to ride a bicycle", I mean, "provide an explanation that would allow someone to learn to ride, without any other information or practice."
Oh, and by the way, you only get to communicate one way in your explanation or being the explainee. No questions, no feedback, no correcting mistakes.
I thought these things would've been clear in context, since we were contrasting the teaching of martial arts (live feedback and practice) with the teaching of self-help (in one-way textual form).
People expect to be able to learn to do a self-help technique in a single trial from a one-way explanation, perhaps because our brains are biased to assume they can already do anything a brain "ought to" be able to do "naturally".