Do you feel like you do this ‘sometimes’, or ‘basically always’?
I don’t know what “this” refers to. If the referent is “have a concrete example in mind”, then I do that frequently but not always. I do it a ton when I’m not very knowledgeable and learning about a thing; I do it less as my mastery of a subject increases. (Examples: when I was initially learning addition, I used the concrete example of holding up three fingers and then counting up two more to compute 3 + 2 = 5, which I do not do any more. When I first learned recursion, I used to explicitly run through an execution trace to ensure my program would work, now I do not.)
If the referent is “make statements that reflect my beliefs”, then it depends on context, but in the context of these dialogues, I’m always doing that. (Whereas when I’m writing for the newsletter, I’m more often trying to represent the whole discourse, though the “opinion” sections are still entirely my beliefs.)
I don’t know what “this” refers to. If the referent is “have a concrete example in mind”, then I do that frequently but not always. I do it a ton when I’m not very knowledgeable and learning about a thing; I do it less as my mastery of a subject increases. (Examples: when I was initially learning addition, I used the concrete example of holding up three fingers and then counting up two more to compute 3 + 2 = 5, which I do not do any more. When I first learned recursion, I used to explicitly run through an execution trace to ensure my program would work, now I do not.)
If the referent is “make statements that reflect my beliefs”, then it depends on context, but in the context of these dialogues, I’m always doing that. (Whereas when I’m writing for the newsletter, I’m more often trying to represent the whole discourse, though the “opinion” sections are still entirely my beliefs.)