[pdonis]

"All models are wrong, but some are useful."

Sure, but all this means is that you and I should both have used the word "useful" instead of "wrong". It doesn't materially change what I said: he doesn't know his ideas will be useful, he just believes they will, and the impact if he's wrong about that is still just what I said.

Have you ever been inspired by a great teacher?

Sure, but he didn't use the word "inspire". He used the word "influence". The great teachers that inspired me didn't tell me what to work on; they just told me I had a lot of potential and I should find something good to do with it. What he's saying is a lot more specific than that.

Someone who did not try to communicate their understanding would be doing a disservice to us all.

Again, he's not just communicating his understanding (which I agree is beneficial). He's trying to get people to do something different than they would have done otherwise. He doesn't just think "this stuff would be useful for others to know". He thinks "people should devote their time and energy to this thing I believe in". That's a very different matter.

[espeed]

So you're pro-"inspire" but anti-"influence"?

Not to go all Webster on you, but the primary definition of inspire is to influence:

  in*spire

  verb (used with object)

  1. to fill with an animating, quickening, or exalting
     influence: His courage inspired his followers.

  2. to produce or arouse (a feeling, thought, etc.): 
     to inspire confidence in others.

  3. to fill or affect with a specified feeling, thought, 
     etc.: to inspire a person with distrust.

  4. to influence or impel: Competition inspired her to
     greater efforts.

  5. to animate, as an influence, feeling, thought, or the
     like, does: They were inspired by a belief in a better
     future.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/inspire

BTW: You do realize your entire thread has been an argument of influence, advocating your point of view?

[pdonis]

So you're pro-"inspire" but anti-"influence"?

When appropriately defined, yes. See below.

the primary definition of inspire is to influence

Ah, you would rather continue to play word games than actually address the substance of my argument. But sure, I'll play.

I could quibble with your claim that the primary definition of inspire is to influence, since in that definition, "influence" is used as a noun, not a verb. But that's really a side issue, because you didn't bother to ask me in which sense I was using the word "inspire" (or "influence", for that matter), or to take into account the context in which I used the words. That context should have made it evident that senses #2 and #3 of "inspire" are the ones I meant, and those do not mean the same as "influence" as a verb.

I suppose, for the record, I should also make explicit that I am using "influence" in sense #8 of the dictionary definition, taken from the same dictionary you used:

8. to move or impel (a person) to some action: Outside factors influenced her to resign.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/influence

You do realize your entire thread has been an argument of influence, advocating your point of view?

I was wondering how long it would take for someone to make this play. :-) Fortunately, it's easy to refute since I just gave the dictionary definition of "influence" in the sense I've been using the term. I'm not trying to move anyone to any action; I'm just trying to explain why the post bothered me enough to rant about it, and then to clarify my position in response to questions and counterarguments. I don't want or expect anyone to drop what they're doing and devote time and energy to something else as a result of what I say. If anything, I hope that people will be less likely to do that in response to "influence", as a result of what I say.

[espeed]

Did you bother to ask Bret in which sense he was using the word "influence"?

[pdonis]

Fair question. No, I didn't, because I had no way to do so; I don't know him, there's no way to comment on the article linked to in the OP, and he doesn't appear to be posting here on HN.

So all I had to go on was the linked article and the context of how he used the word "influence" in it. I have said, several times, that my reaction is my personal judgment and that others' judgments may differ. (I also said I agree with his general point that tools for thinking have much more impact than particular solutions to particular problems.)

And as regards the substantive question: do you disagree that he is trying to move people to take actions that they would not otherwise have taken? That he is trying to get people to spend time and energy on developing tools for thinking, instead of something else?

[espeed]

No, I do not think he's trying to twist anyone's arm -- that's not his style. Have you watched his videos?

"Inventing on Principle" http://worrydream.com/#!/InventingOnPrinciple

"Media for Thinking the Unthinkable" (MIT Media Lab) http://worrydream.com/#!/MediaForThinkingTheUnthinkable

He's making the case that when information is presented in a way that enables you to visualize and interact with it, then it makes it easier understand and develop intuition because you're better able to "explore it from every angle" (he's referencing Feynman here), and for that reason, it's a worthwhile endeavor.

"It's not quite true that Feynman could not accept an idea until he had torn it apart. Rather, the idea could not yet be part of his way of thinking and looking at the world. Before an idea could contribute to that worldview, Feynman wanted to turn over the idea, to see why it was true, from any angle that he could find" (http://www.freakonomics.com/2011/04/08/how-richard-feynman-t...).

If you've only read this blog post, watch the two videos above, and see if you still have the same impression.

[pdonis]

I do not think he's trying to twist anyone's arm

I agree he's not explicitly trying to twist anyone's arm; he doesn't say "do this". But he's making clear that he has a strong opinion. See further comments below.

Have you watched his videos?

I have now--I had only really briefly skimmed them before. I'll comment on them in reverse order to the order you linked to them, because, ironically, if you'd only given the link to the second one (Media for Thinking the Unthinkable), I'd be more inclined to revise my impression; but the first one (Inventing on Principle) contains some elements that the second one doesn't.

I agree with his general point in the Media video, although I would state it slightly differently: our representations of systems constrain how we think about them. For any given representation of a system, there will be some thoughts about that system that are "unthinkable" using that representation. So it's good if we can find multiple representations of systems, particularly important ones. (Feynman once said that any theoretical physicist who is any good knows several theoretical representations for exactly the same physics.)

I also agree with his point about representations constraining how thoughts can be communicated; his example of a well-written paper still being incomprehensible because the authors had no other way of talking about their findings than dense mathematical jargon is a good one, and his reworking of the paper is a good illustration of how changing representations can greatly help in understanding an idea.

He also makes a key admission at the end of the Media video, which I did not expect after reading the article that started this thread. He admits he doesn't know what "the new medium" will be. In the article, he says we don't know what is going to be important in 100 years, but he appears to be saying we can still, right now, know what tools to build to help our children to see it. At the end of the video, he seems to be saying that's not the case--he doesn't know what tools to build, but he's dedicated to searching for them. Fair enough--if that were the only video I had seen, I'd say you were right, he's not proselytizing, he's just informing.

But in the Inventing video, the stance he takes is quite different. Much of the underlying material is the same; but there are two key points that aren't there in the Media video. First, he says he views creators being constrained by their tools as a moral wrong. At that point (about halfway through the video), he says he's not trying to make everyone believe that--he's only trying to show that you can believe that. But at the end of the talk, he explicitly contrasts his view--find a principle, find something you think is morally wrong, and fix it--with taking the path that is "laid out for you" by parents, teachers, corporations, whatever; he says "you can choose to sleepwalk through your life, but you don't have to." That's proselytizing. And as far as I can tell, his audience in that talk is at least partly students, so proselytizing makes me even more uneasy than it would in a talk for a general audience.

So bottom line, I agree his overall position is more complex than I made it sound in my original post upthread; but I still think he's trying to influence people as I was using the term, and it still makes me uneasy.