Show Don't Tell: And It's Links To Philosophy

A few articles ago, I focused on one of writing's golden rules: Show don't tell. This article I'd like to focus a bit deeper on one particular point, point no. 3:

3. Sometimes there may be multiple causes for one set of symptoms.  And who are you to tell the reader that they should interpret something in a specific way, if there are many ways to interpret it? Moreover, you might be missing a chance to fully show the rich, colourful diversity of something's origins by attempting to explain it. In attempting to explain it, you would make it bland through black-and-white over-simplification.

This points has roots deep in philosophy. To give it a bit more context, we need to go back to Ancient Greek times: where there were different camps of thought developing as to how to interpret the world. There were the rationalists/empiricists: people who need for find the root cause for things. Then there were the skeptics: people who are able to find the root cause of things but don't close off their options for other causes - the skeptics say that there is no way we can prove what we know.

If the rationalists/empiricists were the guys that were always saying, "okay we've done that one, next!", then the skeptics were the annoying ones in the back of the room who said, "wait, but have you thought of this?" And the most annoying part: they were completely valid in saying that.

Sometimes we can't close things off. Sometimes there are many variables that can affect an outcome and there's no way of isolating which variable it is (if there is only one we can narrow it down to). On an even deeper level, how can we be completely sure that we're aware of every variable that could affect a symptom? There is no way we can prove that we're aware of everything we don't know (more on this in a later article).

If Show Don't Tell was coming from a philosopher, he'd be a Skeptic.

One Of The Biggest Limiting Factors For Ascertaining Knowledge?

"Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers" - Voltaire

Yet in the internet age, this is now only half the story. Not only do you need to be able to ask a question with very clear definitions and boundaries, you now need to know the path to direct that question. If you don't know the multitude of available routes to finding the answer to your question, and you don't know the correct one to use for each situation, you'll only ever be as smart as the guy next to you. Because all you'll end up doing is asking the guy next to you. You won't know any other process.

The process that you use to find answers, I think, is one of the biggest limiting factors for our knowledge today. There are so many tools out there that have to power to answer questions - most of them fuelled by the internet age - that our ability to create these processes has, arguably, never been more important than now. Especially with the internet: our ability to clearly articulate, define, and use key search terms is paramount. After that, filtering out the sources of information is vital. There are so many sources of information - a lot of them are just plain wrong - that we need to be especially careful. It's the curse accompanies the gift of the internet: an unregulated, free flow of huge-volume information... but sadly most of it is porn or thoughtless, fallacious utterings. We have to find a process for filtering through the rubbish.

Maybe Voltaire needs an update.

"Judge a woman not by her answers, but by her questions, and consequently the application of her questions."

Yeh, I know what you're thinking. Definitely not as catchy.

I'm So Cool

I was at a friend's birthday meal yesterday and the topic of what it means to "be cool" came up, regarding what we want to be seen doing. One companion said, about his birthday a few months ago,

"the day after my birthday, I told my co-workers that I had gone on a birthday meal. They asked, "where did you go?", and I think they expected me to say somewhere fancy. When I told them that I went to Wagamama's they just looked at me and I don't think they thought I was very cool."

I found this pretty odd. Is being cool: going to a posh restaurant just so that you can say, the next day, that you had been to a posh restaurant in the past? Regardless of the actual enjoyment you got out of the posh restaurant: just so you can be judged on what you chose to spend your time doing? Judged by an equally superficial set of people who also do things - regardless of whether they actually enjoy the things the choose to do or not - so that they can tell other people that they had done them the next day?

If this is what being cool is these days, I want no part of it. You can find me reading a book on a Friday night, or going for a quiet drink, at a venue that's not completely ram packed (just because it happens to be the flavour of the month) with one or two close friends.