I can reduce “pushing the envelope” to other pre existing concepts. It’s a shorthand not a whole new invention (which really would make little sense, new language is usually created to describe new physical phenomenon or to abstract over existing language, maybe and exception or two exist, but I assume they are few)
Can you give me one example of an invention that couldn’t be communicated using the language of the time ?
For example, “a barrel with a fire and tiny wheel inside that spins by exploiting the gust of wind drawn towards the flame after it consumes all inside, and using an axel can be made to spin other wheels”… Is a barbaric description of a 1 chamber pressure based steam engine (and I could add more paragraphs worth of detail), but it’s enough to explain it to people 2000 years before the steam engine was invented.
It is part of the problem though, it’s actually THE problem here.
You can use normal language to describe anything that would be of use to me, anything relevant about the world that I do not understand, in some cases (e.g. an invention) real-world examples would also be required, but in others (e.g. a theory), words, almost by definition ought to be enough.
I can reduce “pushing the envelope” to other pre existing concepts. It’s a shorthand not a whole new invention (which really would make little sense, new language is usually created to describe new physical phenomenon or to abstract over existing language, maybe and exception or two exist, but I assume they are few)
So how do you communicate entirely new inventions? Or should you not?
Can you give me one example of an invention that couldn’t be communicated using the language of the time ?
For example, “a barrel with a fire and tiny wheel inside that spins by exploiting the gust of wind drawn towards the flame after it consumes all inside, and using an axel can be made to spin other wheels”… Is a barbaric description of a 1 chamber pressure based steam engine (and I could add more paragraphs worth of detail), but it’s enough to explain it to people 2000 years before the steam engine was invented.
I don’t suppose you or be able to explain a quantum computer to a caveman.
No, and a caveman would have no use for them.
I’d instead try to explain brick making or crop selection or reaching high temperatures using clay or maybe some geometry (?)
But if your claim is “What I have here is a technique so powerful that it’s akin to inventing computing in prehistoric times”
Then it begs the question: “So why aren’t you emperor of the world yet?”
That was not part of the original problem.
It isnt.
It is part of the problem though, it’s actually THE problem here.
You can use normal language to describe anything that would be of use to me, anything relevant about the world that I do not understand, in some cases (e.g. an invention) real-world examples would also be required, but in others (e.g. a theory), words, almost by definition ought to be enough.
But anyway, as far as I can see we’re probably in part talking past each other, not due to ill intention, and I’m not exactly sure how, but I was recently quite immersed reading the comment chains here: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/mELQFMi9egPn5EAjK/my-attempt-to-explain-looking-insight-meditation-and && https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/tMhEv28KJYWsu6Wdo/kensh, and it seems like we’re probably talking past each other in very similar ways.
Why not say so, then?
Most people don’t know how their phones work.