For instance, in Judo you’ll quickly realise that some Japanese fighters have a very particular instantiation of the 4 rules — they don’t break grips unless absolutely necessary!
Instead, they nullify existing grips with movement and positioning. This is difficult to observe!
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In fact, as a novice, there’s probably no way that you’ll pick up on the minor, minor things that top Japanese players are doing unless you have the 4 rules to guide you.
You’ll instead be like, “hmm, that’s odd, the opponent doesn’t seem to be able to attack at all. Why?”
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With the 4 rules, you are (or at least I am!) able to go “ahh, so this is Rule 1 and Rule 3 in action.” Whereas to the uninitiated the whole match is just a flurry of unstructured action.
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In business, I’ve written before how the instantiations of 7 Powers in real world cases are just so *damn weird*: commoncog.com/7-powers-in-pr
Again, the point is that you have the framework to guide your observations.
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I struggle with articulating a generalisable property for such frameworks.
Why are some frameworks useful and others are not? Why do some feel like they’re carving reality at the joints, while others feel contrived and stupid?
I … don’t know. But I want to find out.
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Ok, I have a first stab: frameworks that work this way are a) universal, and b) exhaustive.
The four rules works because every grip fight in every judo match may be reduced down to the four rules.
7 Powers work this way because the Powers are exhaustive.
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totally agree with this thread. when I’m coaching folks, I talk about needing to feel for the friction a model brings to a situation; using the model to evaluate the situation but also using the situation to evaluate the model - what Taleb refers to as “Wittgenstein’s ruler”.
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One of the challenges that I run into, though, is that when learning a new framework you often don’t have enough expertise to know if it’s actually universal and exhaustive (or whatever we decide); and it’s easy to go far down the wrong path before you figure it out.
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like, i’m no judoka, and so while your framework on grip seems plausible, I have no real way of knowing if you’re bullshitting or if it’s an expression of deep expertise.
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but maybe it doesn’t matter - the way you figure it out is by actually trying to use it, and looking for (or at least being sensitive to) disconfirming evidence that will break the model; and if I’m not trying to use the framework, why should I care if it’s accurate or bullshit.
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