If you know what the purpose is, you can tell if something is doing it badly, or well.
If you think something is doing (its purpose) badly, you might be missing the purpose (or the instruction manual).
(Though if something is good for multiple things, seeing one thing it does well and stopping there might prevent you from seeing its other purposes.)
One day, I was trying to refill my pepper grinder and I dropped it. When it hit the ground, the top of the pepper grinder came off, revealing a very large opening obviously intended to allow for easy peppercorn refilling. In this case, I failed to realize that usually, products are well designed (although sometimes they are). I (wrongly) assumed that I knew how to use the pepper grinder properly, which prevented me from even trying to find other ways to use it.
Weird advice: If something is badly made, consider what would happen if you dropped it. Is it easily/conveniently replaceable?
I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying. I’m not advising people to drop their items in an attempt to discover new uses for them, I’m just describing a time when I accidentally dropped something and discovered that I was using it wrong.
I think part of what I’m saying is that your priors for things working properly should be higher and I should have been more surprised at the difficulty of refilling the pepper grinder. This should have prompted me to search harder for a way to use it more effectively.
I’m not advising people to drop their items in an attempt to discover new uses for them
Yes, you are not.
This should have prompted me to search harder for a way to use it more effectively.
I think ‘dropping things’ is one, perhaps inefficient, way of doing that.
And it makes a good metaphor. If you try things differently, or try new things, they might not work the first time. (Or ever—we remember the Apollo missions, and the Wright Brothers because they succeeded.)
Dropping items in an attempt to discover new uses for them, drawn out over 27 lines:
If you take something apart, you might learn.
But it might break.
So if you dropped it and it broke would that be really inconvenient, or easily replaced?
If something falls it might break.
There might be an opportunity to learn.
To put the pieces back together well.
But there is risk in things falling.
And breaking.
Sometimes they break forever.[1]
There is less risk in taking things apart.
But we don’t do it very often.
And sometimes we stop before finishing, because we’re afraid of breaking things.[2]
But if something is easily replaced
And we’re not afraid of breaking it
Then we might learn something by taking it apart.
If it breaks it breaks.
If we learned something, we learned something.
If we learn a better way of doing or making things, we learn a better way of doing or making things.
Is a broken thing too high a price to pay?
For knowledge?
For a chance to learn a better way?[3]
[1] You might have to learn, how to make glue (red link).
The paradox of sense is:
If you know what the purpose is, you can tell if something is doing it badly, or well.
If you think something is doing (its purpose) badly, you might be missing the purpose (or the instruction manual).
(Though if something is good for multiple things, seeing one thing it does well and stopping there might prevent you from seeing its other purposes.)
Weird advice: If something is badly made, consider what would happen if you dropped it. Is it easily/conveniently replaceable?
I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying. I’m not advising people to drop their items in an attempt to discover new uses for them, I’m just describing a time when I accidentally dropped something and discovered that I was using it wrong.
I think part of what I’m saying is that your priors for things working properly should be higher and I should have been more surprised at the difficulty of refilling the pepper grinder. This should have prompted me to search harder for a way to use it more effectively.
Yes, you are not.
I think ‘dropping things’ is one, perhaps inefficient, way of doing that.
And it makes a good metaphor. If you try things differently, or try new things, they might not work the first time. (Or ever—we remember the Apollo missions, and the Wright Brothers because they succeeded.)
Dropping items in an attempt to discover new uses for them, drawn out over 27 lines:
If you take something apart, you might learn.
But it might break.
So if you dropped it and it broke would that be really inconvenient, or easily replaced?
If something falls it might break.
There might be an opportunity to learn.
To put the pieces back together well.
But there is risk in things falling.
And breaking.
Sometimes they break forever.[1]
There is less risk in taking things apart.
But we don’t do it very often.
And sometimes we stop before finishing, because we’re afraid of breaking things.[2]
But if something is easily replaced
And we’re not afraid of breaking it
Then we might learn something by taking it apart.
If it breaks it breaks.
If we learned something, we learned something.
If we learn a better way of doing or making things, we learn a better way of doing or making things.
Is a broken thing too high a price to pay?
For knowledge?
For a chance to learn a better way?[3]
[1] You might have to learn, how to make glue (red link).
[2] If this isn’t you, then this...isn’t you.
[3] Even if it takes more than one thing broken?
Until you find a way
to put it back together.
Until you find, another way/how, to use it.