Open Thread, July 1-15, 2013

Vaniver

If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.

I've been thinking about tacit knowledge recently.

A very concrete example of tacit knowledge that I rub up against on a regular basis is a basic understanding of file types. In the past I have needed to explain to educated and ostensibly computer-literate professionals under the age of 40 that a jpeg is an image, and a PDF is a document, and they're different kinds of entities that aren't freely interchangeable. It's difficult for me to imagine how someone could not know this. I don't recall ever having to learn it. It seems intuitively obvious. (Uh-oh!)

So I wonder if there aren't some massive gains to be had from understanding tacit knowledge more than I do. Some applications:

Being aware of the things I know which are tacit knowledge, but not common knowledge
Building environments that impart tacit knowledge, (eg. through well-designed interfaces and clear conceptual models)
Structuring my own environment so I can more readily take on knowledge without apparent effort
Imparting useful memes implicitly to the people around me without them noticing

What do you think or know about tacit knowledge, LessWrong? Tell me. It might not be obvious.

Uh-oh indeed. Like most statements involving the word "is", this is probably one of those questions that should be dissolved. Thus I will ask:

What do you mean when you say document? I.e. what are the characteristics that a document has which a JPEG file does not, and which a PDF does have? Why is it wrong for something that is an image to also be a document?

14kpreid13y

Sir, you are wrong on the internet. A JPEG is a bitmap (formally, pixmap) image. A PDF is a vector image. The PDF has additional structure which can support such functionality as copying text, hyperlinks, etc, but the primary function of a PDF is to represent a specific image (particularly, the same image whether displayed on screen or on paper). Certainly a PDF is more "document"-ish than a JPEG, but there are also "document" qualities a PDF is notably lacking, such as being able to edit it and have the text reflow appropriately (which comes from having a structure of higher-level objects like "this text is in two columns with margins like so" and "this is a figure with caption" and an algorithm to do the layout). To say that there is a sharp line and that PDF belongs on the "document" side is, in my opinion, a poor use of words. (Yes, this isn't the question you asked.)

10Douglas_Knight13y

That isn't the standard use of "tacit knowledge." At least it doesn't match the definition. Tacit knowledge is supposed to be about things that are hard to communicate. The standard examples are physical activities. Maybe knowing when to pay attention to file extensions is tacit knowledge, but the list of what they mean is easy to write down, even if it is a very long list. Knowing that it valuable to know about them is probably the key that these people were missing, or perhaps they failed to accurate assess the detail and correctness of their beliefs about file types.

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