Coordinated actions can’t take up more bandwidth than someone’s working memory (which is something like 7 chunks, and if you’re using all 7 chunks then they don’t have any spare chunks to handle weird edge cases).
A lot of coordination (and communication) is about reducing the chunk-size of actions. This is why jargon is useful, habits and training are useful (as well as checklists and forms and bureaucracy), since that can condense an otherwise unworkably long instruction into something people can manage.
“Go to the store and get eggs” comes with a bunch of implicit knowledge about cars or bikes or where the store is and what eggs are, etc.
“Something that your mind thinks of as one unit, even if it’s in fact a cluster of things.”
The “Go to the store” is four words. But “go” actually means “stand up. walk to the door. open the door. Walk to your car. Open your car door. Get inside. Take the key out of your pocket. Put the key in the ignition slot...” etc. (Which are in turn actually broken into smaller steps like “lift your front leg up while adjusting your weight forward”)
But, you are capable of taking all of that an chunking it as the concept “go somewhere” (as as well as the meta concept of “go to the place whichever way is most convenient, which might be walking or biking or taking a bus”), although if you have to use a form of transport you are less familiar with, remembering how to do it might take up a lot of working memory slots, leaving you liable to forget other parts of your plan.
I think the near-synonym nature is more about convergent evolution. (i.e. words aim to be reflect a concept, working memory is about handling concepts).
I think the actual final limit is something like:
Coordinated actions can’t take up more bandwidth than someone’s working memory (which is something like 7 chunks, and if you’re using all 7 chunks then they don’t have any spare chunks to handle weird edge cases).
A lot of coordination (and communication) is about reducing the chunk-size of actions. This is why jargon is useful, habits and training are useful (as well as checklists and forms and bureaucracy), since that can condense an otherwise unworkably long instruction into something people can manage.
“Go to the store and get eggs” comes with a bunch of implicit knowledge about cars or bikes or where the store is and what eggs are, etc.
What is meant by 7 chunks? seems like that in itself was condensed jargon that i didn’t understand :P
“Something that your mind thinks of as one unit, even if it’s in fact a cluster of things.”
The “Go to the store” is four words. But “go” actually means “stand up. walk to the door. open the door. Walk to your car. Open your car door. Get inside. Take the key out of your pocket. Put the key in the ignition slot...” etc. (Which are in turn actually broken into smaller steps like “lift your front leg up while adjusting your weight forward”)
But, you are capable of taking all of that an chunking it as the concept “go somewhere” (as as well as the meta concept of “go to the place whichever way is most convenient, which might be walking or biking or taking a bus”), although if you have to use a form of transport you are less familiar with, remembering how to do it might take up a lot of working memory slots, leaving you liable to forget other parts of your plan.
So “7 chunks” was used as almost a synonym for “7 words”? I thought that was some cool concept from neuroscience about working memory :)
I think the near-synonym nature is more about convergent evolution. (i.e. words aim to be reflect a concept, working memory is about handling concepts).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_memory