I had that experience at first. A bit like some chemistry professor just told me “the stages of boiling” as if we can objectively divide things into stages from almost-boiling water to a heavy boil, and I’m like, this level of descriptive accuracy sounds like it belongs in a cooking class rather than chemistry.
I also had the experience of explaining the levels to a friend. I got a “why is this important” type reaction. When I gave examples of mistakes people could make if they interpreted things at the wrong level (EG interpreting “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” as a factual question rather than signalling political allegiance), my friend said something along the lines of “that’s just a dumb mistake, I don’t need the levels to understand that”.
Right...! I think that’s a very good point on the usefulness of the model. Like, I find it interesting and useful as a model, but I don’t think I’ve ever applied it in practice.
I had that experience at first. A bit like some chemistry professor just told me “the stages of boiling” as if we can objectively divide things into stages from almost-boiling water to a heavy boil, and I’m like, this level of descriptive accuracy sounds like it belongs in a cooking class rather than chemistry.
I also had the experience of explaining the levels to a friend. I got a “why is this important” type reaction. When I gave examples of mistakes people could make if they interpreted things at the wrong level (EG interpreting “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” as a factual question rather than signalling political allegiance), my friend said something along the lines of “that’s just a dumb mistake, I don’t need the levels to understand that”.
Right...! I think that’s a very good point on the usefulness of the model. Like, I find it interesting and useful as a model, but I don’t think I’ve ever applied it in practice.