Silas comments on Double Illusion of Transparency - Less Wrong

51 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 24 October 2007 11:06PM

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Comment author: Silas 25 October 2007 01:34:04PM 4 points [-]

There are indeed cases where it does take someone who understands the subject, months of iteration to explain it. But when someone says, "I can't explain it to you," that can either mean:

a) the time to do so is genuinely cost-prohibitive or the listener very stupid

OR

b) the would-be explainer doesn't really understand it and has been operating in a sort of "Chinese room", manipulating symbols without understanding their connection to everything else.

In my experience, a) is the exception, not the rule.