Pondering about Reasoning Errors

This note is mostly about teaching and, in general, communicating with other human beings. I have thought about writing it for a while but I was afraid not to have enough material. I'm writing it now because of new observations and I don't care too much about the length, today. In logic, we have the two important notions of soundness and of completeness. In short, a logical system is sound if you can only use it to prove statements that are true (but maybe not all of them) and complete if you can prove all statements that are true (but maybe also some false statements). I mention them because they appear more and more relevant to the way I choose to explain or with which I choose to help people. In such cases, it is necessary to make assumptions in order to explain or skip notions. Two kinds of errors are of interest for me here: either I assume that the other person does not know something and choose to explain it while he or she already know about it or I assume that he or she does and skip it while he or she does not know about it. In the first case, the reaction can be to be insulted because the attitude seems patronizing because the notion seems obvious. In the second case, the other person can miss a notion and be too afraid to appear stupid to ask about it. While I was an intern at A2M (a game developer in Montreal), my supervisor, which I regard with high respect, taught me that it is desirable to make communications as simple and concise as possible and to trust that the other person (in this situation an engineer or a scientist) will not be shy to ask about the missing parts. During the last hour, I've been thinking about this post while doing my groceries and I realized that there are a handful of people that I trust enough to be very straightforward in my communications because I've been talking to them for a long enough period to see that they are active while listening. For the others, it does not mean they are any less. It just means that I don't know if they will ask questions and, from time to time, I don't want to risk them misunderstanding me. In no case is this a sign that I mistrust someone's intelligence because I noticed recently that I was too explicit even with some people which I have in high esteem. This is pretty short but it's all I could summon before my stomach started threatening me. Simon August 14th 2009 Zürich