But you should be capable of more than just “pointing in the direction of the basic idea”; you should be able to explain the full idea, from its layman-level foundations, all the way up to its bordering on humanity’s collective knowledge. If you can’t do that, well, start brushing up on your field’s grounding, because you’ve probably overcompartmentalized.
For most real things that someone has learned over a lifetime, it just isn’t feasible to explain most of what they know and why in any modest conversation. One can point in that direction quickly, but the whole shebang is just way way too much to explain.
But the advantage of it being a conversation is that you don’t have to explain all of it. Rather, you take as large inferential steps as you like, and when you get to the point where someone thinks your reasoning is too hasty or otherwise unjustified, they can stop you and point out the unsatisfying part, and you can explain that part in greater detail.
Also, you needn’t tell the full experiential content when making your point; just say, e.g., “Over this time I concluded that it is important to have several close friends”. If your conversation partner already accepts that part of the chain, then of course you don’t need to list all the experiences that led up to that conclusion. But if they don’t, then you can start to say how your experiences support that sub-point, going into greater detail as necessary.
That’s assuming, of course, you actually know how it all fits together.
But you should be capable of more than just “pointing in the direction of the basic idea”; you should be able to explain the full idea, from its layman-level foundations, all the way up to its bordering on humanity’s collective knowledge. If you can’t do that, well, start brushing up on your field’s grounding, because you’ve probably overcompartmentalized.
For most real things that someone has learned over a lifetime, it just isn’t feasible to explain most of what they know and why in any modest conversation. One can point in that direction quickly, but the whole shebang is just way way too much to explain.
But the advantage of it being a conversation is that you don’t have to explain all of it. Rather, you take as large inferential steps as you like, and when you get to the point where someone thinks your reasoning is too hasty or otherwise unjustified, they can stop you and point out the unsatisfying part, and you can explain that part in greater detail.
Also, you needn’t tell the full experiential content when making your point; just say, e.g., “Over this time I concluded that it is important to have several close friends”. If your conversation partner already accepts that part of the chain, then of course you don’t need to list all the experiences that led up to that conclusion. But if they don’t, then you can start to say how your experiences support that sub-point, going into greater detail as necessary.
That’s assuming, of course, you actually know how it all fits together.