This exercise is not for being specific, but just a general rationality-skill exercise that I think is useful.
Trivial Deduction
In every conversation, we hear hundreds of statements. Each of these implies many others—some directly, through definitions and linguistic rules that border on the tautological, some in combination with background knowledge, and some indirectly through multi-step inferences. Because the implications of each statement are too numerous to handle, we apply a strong filter to what reaches our attention: a statement reached by inference must be interesting, surprising, or connected to another interesting statement that was previously isolated.
The goal of this game is to turn off that filter, temporarily, and to pay attention to available deductive steps that would normally be too trivial to mention. You will be given a simple statement of five words or less, such as “the door is open”. For two minutes, write down single-step deductions, also five words or less. For example
There is a door. The door is passable. The door was opened. People can enter. People can exit. The door isn’t closed. There is a doorway. There is a wall. Air can circulate. Temperature will equalize. The door can open.
In addition to being five words or less, and must either be 95% probable, or be 10 times as likely as given the statement’s reverse. Next, cross off duplicates. Each person reads their answers; if anyone got the same answer, they say “got it” and everyone who had that answer crosses it off. People may also say “challenge”, if they think the answer isn’t likely enough, the answer is a duplicate, or the answer is longer than 5 words. Challenges are resolved by the moderator. Answers that use synonyms of (as opposed to expanding definitions) or trivially different word choice for the same meaning, will count as duplicates at the moderator’s discretion. If someone finds a template that produces unlimited answers, award two points for the template but don’t count the individual answers. After all duplicates have been crossed off, score one point for each remaining answer.
Some other prompts: Jill is a banker. Paul drove there. There is a rock.
I like this idea. I would say, though, that it teaches “how to make a specific statement”, rather than “noticing WHEN you need to be more specific.” If you’re running in to groups that have trouble understanding what a specific statement is, or coming up with their own, this would be a very useful precursor exercise, though.
It’s funny to realize that telling the entrepreneur to “be more specific” doesn’t work, because you weren’t specific about what “specific” means! :)
This exercise is not for being specific, but just a general rationality-skill exercise that I think is useful.
Trivial Deduction
In every conversation, we hear hundreds of statements. Each of these implies many others—some directly, through definitions and linguistic rules that border on the tautological, some in combination with background knowledge, and some indirectly through multi-step inferences. Because the implications of each statement are too numerous to handle, we apply a strong filter to what reaches our attention: a statement reached by inference must be interesting, surprising, or connected to another interesting statement that was previously isolated.
The goal of this game is to turn off that filter, temporarily, and to pay attention to available deductive steps that would normally be too trivial to mention. You will be given a simple statement of five words or less, such as “the door is open”. For two minutes, write down single-step deductions, also five words or less. For example
There is a door. The door is passable. The door was opened. People can enter. People can exit. The door isn’t closed. There is a doorway. There is a wall. Air can circulate. Temperature will equalize. The door can open.
In addition to being five words or less, and must either be 95% probable, or be 10 times as likely as given the statement’s reverse. Next, cross off duplicates. Each person reads their answers; if anyone got the same answer, they say “got it” and everyone who had that answer crosses it off. People may also say “challenge”, if they think the answer isn’t likely enough, the answer is a duplicate, or the answer is longer than 5 words. Challenges are resolved by the moderator. Answers that use synonyms of (as opposed to expanding definitions) or trivially different word choice for the same meaning, will count as duplicates at the moderator’s discretion. If someone finds a template that produces unlimited answers, award two points for the template but don’t count the individual answers. After all duplicates have been crossed off, score one point for each remaining answer.
Some other prompts: Jill is a banker. Paul drove there. There is a rock.
I like this idea. I would say, though, that it teaches “how to make a specific statement”, rather than “noticing WHEN you need to be more specific.” If you’re running in to groups that have trouble understanding what a specific statement is, or coming up with their own, this would be a very useful precursor exercise, though.
It’s funny to realize that telling the entrepreneur to “be more specific” doesn’t work, because you weren’t specific about what “specific” means! :)