I don’t know either, but I do know that an internalised, correct understanding of pressure and one of its measures ‘pounds per square inch’ would be a sufficient condition to save his life. The parable of the pressure vessel seems to be a case of an incorrect belief (one pound isn’t much), whereas the parable of the invisible dragon seems to be a case of a correct belief (invisible dragon in my garage) that hasn’t been internalised, and so has not produced beliefs it ought to (invisible DRAGON IN MY GARAGE!)
I don’t know either, but I do know that an internalised, correct understanding of pressure and one of its measures ‘pounds per square inch’ would be a sufficient condition to save his life.
I think this is a good opportunity to point out that many people haven’t internalized what it means to say “the atmosphere’s pressure is about 15 psi”. It implies that, if you were to lie face down and someone like me stood on your back, eliciting excruciating, “GET OFF ME!” pain on your end, they’ve only increased the pressure on your back by maybe 30% of what was on it your entire life, even as it may seem like much more than that.
Indeed, when I visited the Boston LW meetup, a few people there initially refused to believe the implications of 15 psi atmospheric pressure, apparently never having connected that figure to everyday experience.
Fortunately, there are easy experiments to impress people with. As a kid, my favorite one was laying a ruler on a table so half of it was sticking out perpendicularly, put a few layers of newspaper over the other half, and then quickly hit the exposed half downwards—and fail to knock it off the table because atmospheric pressure helped hold it down.
(At least, I think this is how it went. It was a long time ago. I’m sure there are other nifty experiments.)
I suppose that in doing it in the form of a parable (or this parable, anyway,) I erred on the side of being memorable over clear, but that was what I had in mind when I wrote it. A dragon in one’s garage is something where it’s intuitively obvious that you don’t want to go near, once you internalize the fact that it’s really there. That’s the kind of mistake that we’ve had millions of years of evolution to prepare us against making. Opening up the garage door to investigate is the sort of behavior that only makes sense when you haven’t internalized the idea that there’s really something in there that’s liable to eat you.
Realistically, the man would probably be terrified if he had seen it eat other animals already, but I threw that in to make the parable flow better. The invisibility and inaudibility probably wouldn’t be sufficient in real life given that, but they’re stand in qualities for the sort of remove that might prevent one from internalizing a belief.
I upvoted because I immediately understood what you meant; I am humble enough to believe that is a fact about the post and not about my skill at understanding.
I don’t know either, but I do know that an internalised, correct understanding of pressure and one of its measures ‘pounds per square inch’ would be a sufficient condition to save his life. The parable of the pressure vessel seems to be a case of an incorrect belief (one pound isn’t much), whereas the parable of the invisible dragon seems to be a case of a correct belief (invisible dragon in my garage) that hasn’t been internalised, and so has not produced beliefs it ought to (invisible DRAGON IN MY GARAGE!)
I think this is a good opportunity to point out that many people haven’t internalized what it means to say “the atmosphere’s pressure is about 15 psi”. It implies that, if you were to lie face down and someone like me stood on your back, eliciting excruciating, “GET OFF ME!” pain on your end, they’ve only increased the pressure on your back by maybe 30% of what was on it your entire life, even as it may seem like much more than that.
Indeed, when I visited the Boston LW meetup, a few people there initially refused to believe the implications of 15 psi atmospheric pressure, apparently never having connected that figure to everyday experience.
Fortunately, there are easy experiments to impress people with. As a kid, my favorite one was laying a ruler on a table so half of it was sticking out perpendicularly, put a few layers of newspaper over the other half, and then quickly hit the exposed half downwards—and fail to knock it off the table because atmospheric pressure helped hold it down.
(At least, I think this is how it went. It was a long time ago. I’m sure there are other nifty experiments.)
I suppose that in doing it in the form of a parable (or this parable, anyway,) I erred on the side of being memorable over clear, but that was what I had in mind when I wrote it. A dragon in one’s garage is something where it’s intuitively obvious that you don’t want to go near, once you internalize the fact that it’s really there. That’s the kind of mistake that we’ve had millions of years of evolution to prepare us against making. Opening up the garage door to investigate is the sort of behavior that only makes sense when you haven’t internalized the idea that there’s really something in there that’s liable to eat you.
Realistically, the man would probably be terrified if he had seen it eat other animals already, but I threw that in to make the parable flow better. The invisibility and inaudibility probably wouldn’t be sufficient in real life given that, but they’re stand in qualities for the sort of remove that might prevent one from internalizing a belief.
I upvoted because I immediately understood what you meant; I am humble enough to believe that is a fact about the post and not about my skill at understanding.