“Morning, boys. How’s the water?”
“What the hell is water?”
Outsider perspective is important. They detect something insiders can’t precisely because the latter are so get used to them. I always think of how Japanese people are good at not just imitating but also tweaking and modifying other cultures as they see fit. Internally, we complain how such modifications are “not true to American culture” or “not true to European values.” But foreigners often love such Japanized version of their own culture, if not explicitly. You go to Japanized Italian restaurant in Tokyo. For usual Japanese customers, it’s just another Italian restaurant. But often foreigners love such Japanese Italian restaurants, because they are good and different. You can’t see the difference unless you become the outsider yourself. 2-1a Information is in the difference. No difference, no information. 情報とは差異. 区別のないところに情報は生まれない.
4-1a4b6b1 Ideas and its contexts applied are arbitrary, but insiders can’t really see it that way as evident in how 3-1c3c4a Person who finds profound new theories often holds onto beliefs that contradict them. This is similar to how 7-1b3d New stars rise along with the new platform in tech. This is because 10-2g1 Culture is an implicit theory for its members. It dictates what to look at and how they reason about the world.
It’s similar to how often 9-4b2a1d1.1 Inexperienced people can have great ideas too, sometimes far better ones than more experienced people, and why sometimes we should strive to be the outsider and keep your perspective afresh because 7-2b The more of a noob you are locally, the less of a noob you are globally.
1-1a2e7c You can’t help being cultural, but you don’t have to commit to any specific culture
To see the peculiarity of one, you have to know the peculiarities of others. 3-1a4a1 The whole must be evoked in explaining the parts.categories
Example:
- In history, distinctions such as world history and Japanese history do not objectively exist (3-1a4a 歴史において、世界史・日本史といった区別は客観的に存在しない).
- To understand Japan, we must study other cultures and their history thoroughly (日本を語るうえでも、さまざまな情報文化の事情をつねに考慮しなければならない).
Have multiple 2-1 Mental models (着せ替え・持ち替え・言い換え) at your deposal and use them for reality checks. Interaction with others is another easy way to get that outsider perspective, because 9-4b2a1f Two-way debate benefits from criticism.
Related mental models:
- 2-1a0b2 ‘Relativity’ - Look at the problem in as many ways as possible. You might as well find new problems.
- 2-1a6c5 ‘Randomness’ is the opportunity to reason abductively
- 2-1a6c3 ‘Global and local maxima’ - Don’t prematurely overoptimize. Occasionally throw in some ‘randomness’.
10-2f3 Learning human languages is about learning its cultures. For our first languages, we do this almost inexplicitly. But for languages which we acquire later in life, we do this more deliberately. Maybe why foreigners who speak your language know more about your culture and history than you do.
10-2f3a0 The best thing to learn (and the best way to learn anything) is to learn another language
例えば、ソロスを理解するには松岡正剛による説明が一番分かりやすかった。これは、松岡正剛がパースを理解しているからである。そして、それを理解するための予備知識としてのポッパー理解・エベレット理解・ドイチェ理解が備わっていたからである。