[robg]

Not in physics, I didn't. Infants start testing gravity. They watch how objects move and collide. Physics is built-in. We do understand it. A decade and half later that "understanding" is exactly what's necessary for driving a car.

The problem isn't that I missed his point. It's that he makes the wrong one. We understand physics just fine. But I bet most folks have little understanding of how a combustion engine works, but they drive the car just fine. That's the analogy he's going for.

[graeme]

Your error is that people don't study physics to get their understanding of physical laws. We learn, from trial and error.

Jobs was clearly talking about studying theoretical physics from a textbook.

[robg]

There's a theory of epistemology that's tied to naive physics. We're built to study physics.

The same is not true of computer science except in the vaguest possible uses of "language".

[graeme]

In context, Jobs was clearly using this definition of study:

Study: 1. the devotion of time and attention to acquiring knowledge on an academic subject, esp. by means of books

You're willfully ignoring that. You're making a point that would be valid if Jobs had said something dumber. That's called a strawman argument.

[robg]

No, I'm not ignoring anything. It was a poor analogy based on the science. Naive physics means we understand pretty deep points about how objects move even if we can't express the formalisms. Exactly because we know deeply how objects move we can drive a car pretty darn well. And by the way, infants in the crib do study and experiment to understand physics.

He wasn't making that point about computer science. We need know nothing about how computers work to use them. A decent, correct analogy to driving is combustion engines.

[graeme]

Ah, that's much clearer than before. I guess the issue was the word "study" which has no English definition which refers to the kind of naive physics learning you referenced above.

To be clear, you mean: it's a poor analogy to say we don't need to know physics to drive, because we have thousands of hours learning physics from our normal experience. A better analogy would have been we can use a combustion engine without knowing the science.

I think you're right, then.