korrents · piece

You can't reach the brain through the ears

Adam Mastroianni · 14 Mar 2023

Others here said this too

Opinions move by touching things, not by reading about them: nobody learns to drive a race car from a book.

Their wordsYou cannot dump your bucket into someone else’s bucket.

Also said by David Heinemeier Hansson

Read the piece on experimental-history.com ↗

5 korrents from this piece ↓

Adam Mastroianni did not write this page.

Every claim below was made in this piece, quoted word for word and numbered in the order the piece makes them, so you can read it there rather than take our word for it. The sentence above each quote is our reading of the claim, not their wording. Each quote was checked against a stored copy of the page at build time; where the two differ, the quote is the fact.

Our reading
A thought does not fit inside a sound wave, so most of what a person means is lost before it reaches anybody else.

Their wordsYou simply can’t fit a thought into a sound wave.
Our reading
Even when advice is understood and believed, people discount it by assuming their own case is the exception.

Their wordsEven when we understand the words, and even when we trust them, we still have another eject button: we assume they don’t apply to us.
Our reading
The beliefs worth changing are the defended ones, so changing a mind is a siege rather than a conversation.

Their wordsTo impart wisdom, then, is to lay siege to someone’s mind-castle, because the only things worth being wise about are hidden behind the walls.
Our reading
Telling people that something is good or fun accomplishes nothing; the posters and campaigns that do it only vibrate the air.

Their wordsWe do this all the time: we attempt to reach the brain through the ears, but all we end up doing is vibrating the air.
Our reading
Opinions move by touching things, not by reading about them: nobody learns to drive a race car from a book.
Mental modelMake it real

Their wordsYou cannot dump your bucket into someone else’s bucket.

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The other pieces are the ones whose claims are worded most like this one's. That measures language, not agreement: they may argue the opposite.