Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: The challenge of articulating tacit knowledge, published by NinaR on May 31, 2023 on LessWrong.

I enjoy eating high-quality baked goods. When visiting a new place, I often spend many hours walking around town, scouting out the best bakeries. In London, where I live, I have explored the whole city, trying to find the best pain au chocolat (Jolene), seeded sourdough loaf (E5), babka (Margot), banana bread (Violet), cheese pretzel (Sourdough Sophia), and many other specific things. By now, I can take one glance at a bakery or cafe, in person or online, and be confident whether or not their baked goods will be to my taste before trying them. However, I'm not good at explaining my flash judgments on bakeries or helping others improve at bakery quality prediction - why?

This is an example of the more general problem of communicating tacit knowledge and intuitions. Whether explaining what makes good writing, teaching someone to cook well, or describing how to look for mathematical proofs, it is challenging to articulate the many heuristics and automatic thought processes that build up after sufficient experience and deliberate practice.

However, it's not worth abandoning attempts to communicate such things altogether - succeeding can significantly accelerate another's skill development, reducing the need for time-consuming trial-and-error approaches. To this end, the first stage is acknowledging why you're having trouble articulating some knowledge. Then, once you have identified why you cannot easily verbalize your tacit knowledge, there are various strategies you can use to overcome the barrier, that is, if you decide you want to do so.

I broadly break down why sharing tacit knowledge is hard into six categories: Complexity, Linguistic Constraints, The Curse of Knowledge, Personal Context-Dependence, Fear of Criticism, and Automaticity.

Complexity

Tacit knowledge often involves a complex combination of heuristics, variables, and computations that may be challenging to convey succinctly. For instance, a seasoned paramedic responding to a critical situation will rely on many cues, such as the patient's breathing patterns, skin color, heart rate, and subjective symptoms, to quickly diagnose the problem and provide immediate care. This paramedic's ability to rapidly assess and react to the situation comes from years of hands-on experience and intuition developed over countless emergencies. Conveying this intricate skill set to a novice paramedic is challenging due to the many variables involved.

To overcome the challenge of complexity, it can be effective to break down the knowledge into smaller sub-components. This approach could involve narrating specific instances where you used your intuition or skill to decide, providing concrete examples of how the process works. For example, the experienced paramedic could start by sharing basic cues they look for in common emergencies such as heart attacks or strokes. They could describe the specific indicators they observe, like facial drooping, arm weakness, and speech difficulties in stroke victims, or chest pain, shortness of breath, and nausea in heart attack victims. They could also detail how they gather these observations quickly and systematically when arriving on the scene of an emergency.

Linguistic Constraints

Some forms of tacit knowledge are nearly impossible to articulate in language. For example, describing how to ride a bicycle to someone else in words is problematic because this knowledge is deeply ingrained in our motor skills rather than simply expressed in words.

To overcome linguistic constraints, one must often "show, not tell" via demonstrations, visuals, and hands-on experience. For instance, teaching someone to ride a bicycle requires less talk and more physical demonstration and guided practice.

The Curse of...