Applying Theories #

**NOTE: This is a very rough draft, and in some ways doesn’t really make sense

)**

One way to look at learning is as a cyclical process:

1. Have some experiences in the world.
2. Mentally find commonalities between those experiences and create an abstract model in your head to help predict what might happen in a similar, future experience.
3. Test your model by having that future experience and seeing what happens.
4. Refine or discard the model as more experiences inform it.

A key trap to avoid falling in to here is exiting the loop and believing that your model is “the truth”. This assumes that all possible experiences have been explored, which is impossible.

The presence of this trap does not mean abstract theories are useless or not worth developing (because you will never find their solution). Abstract models are in fact very useful as tools in your toolbox when approaching a new experience. They just must be applied as hypotheses, and held lightly.

This kind of thinking can be hard sometimes, because it sort-of involves holding two conflicting ideas in your head (which is painful)¹. These are:

1. The theory explains how something abstract works.
2. The theory is only applicable in some concrete scenerios (and even then, may not be correct).

This is a bit of a paradox because to describe an abstract theory you necessarily must state that it works in an abstract context. They key is realizing that this explanation is incomplete. So you kinda have to “believe a lie” in part to apply the theory.

Example: Personality Typing #

One very abstract theory is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) for personality typing. It attempts to condense the complexity of an individual person into a 4 letter code (4 binary dimensions) that describes their behavior. This is extremely abstract and incomplete.

Despite the oversimplicity of MBTI, it can still be useful. For example, if two people are clashing because they are approaching a problem in two different ways (and each thinks their way is best), MBTI can give them a language with which to see the validity of the other person’s approach. Here the theory acts as a neutral third party to help settle the dispute.

It could also not work in this situation at all depending on the people. The danger is believing too much that the theory is correct and trying to force its application. This is where general theories become dangerous. The best approach if the theory’s application isn’t leading to practically useful results (here helping the two people see eye-to-eye) is to move on to the next theory in the toolbox that could help.

Giving Advice #

Often advice takes the form of an abstract adage or theory that the advice giver thinks will help the advice seeker. Just like with applying theories in other ways, IMO advice is best given as a hypotheses; a “this might help you” kind of statement.

A lot of interpersonal tension and harm can come when the advice giver assumes that the theory 100% applies to the seekers situation. In this case, if the seeker doesn’t follow the theory, the giver would conclude that the seeker “just doesn’t get it” or is otherwise misinterpreting them. Then they might push the theory and start to feel unheard or ignored. The issue here is that it is really really hard to know what is going on in the seeker’s mind (only they might know, but even that is not guaranteed). For the giver to presume they do is already a massive error.

This can happen a lot (with bad consequences) in power-asymmetrical relationships like child-parent or teacher-student or wife-husband in some cultures. As far as I’ve experienced, it’s best as a giver to just listen to the seeker as much as possible to help them work through their problem, providing lightly-held hypotheses as they think of them.

This can be true even in a very technical field (e.g. engineering) where the giver might be confident that eventually the seeker will realize that truth of what they are saying. Even here, in order to properly incorporate the advice, the seeker’s mind must be prepared (e.g. have taken the prerequisite courses). Just because the advice is good in this case does not mean it’s good in general!

Some good thinking on advice giving: https://guzey.com/advice/

Categories: Understanding The World