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Richard Feynman: "What's the name of a bird?"

Yves Messer
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YouTube
1 HN user recommended this commentary1 month2016–2026 score 1
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026

Reached for whenever a thread touches on naming versus actually understanding something.

A short clip from a 1973 NOVA episode in which Richard Feynman recalls his father teaching him that knowing the name of a bird in many languages tells you nothing about the bird.

“You can know the name of a bird in many different languages, but that tells you nothing about it.” (HN, 2023)

1 recommendations · 8 citations · Commentary

9 Hacker News comments

From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.

@Quai Aug 2020 Recommends
on HN thread Joan Feynman has died
If you dont mind listening to Richard himself, you can watch this pre-historic 4:3 videos on youtube; [this video] [link]
Feynman speaking himself in vintage footage

Citations, criticism and jokes

@yati Mar 2016 Cites it
on HN thread Randall Munroe, XKCD Creator, Goes Back to High School
Totally agreed. However, I've found that learning something new without regards for the actual name for it helps me build a solid, abstract representation in the mind. But like you say, communicating these ideas becomes cumbersome when you don't speak the common language :) And here's Feynman on the same topic: [this video]
Feynman on knowing names versus understanding
@anotheryou Feb 2017 Cites it
on HN thread 27 Jobs with Unbelievably Tough Interview Questions
Why do they ask about capitals? Relevant Feynman: [this video] And nowadays we have google for some added prosthetic knowledge. It's becoming increasingly important to grasp concepts well enough to ask the right questions, but knowing simple unrelated facts by heart becomes irrelevant. At most you have to remember that there was something to remember so you can look it up. edit: can a native speaker guide me on where to set commas correctly :) ?
@scythmic_waves Nov 2021 Cites it
on HN thread They don't even know the fundamentals
Though he does admit [1] > So I had learned already that names don't constitute knowledge... That's caused me a certain trouble since because I refuse to learn the name of anything... What [my father] forgot to tell me was that the knowing the names of things is useful if you wanna talk to somebody else. I think an interview might count :) [1] [this video]
Feynman admits names are useful for communicating with others
@gnramires Dec 2023 Cites it
on HN thread Vowels and Diphthongs in Sperm Whales
Read more
It's not that simple. LLMs are great for predicting next word, but this needs a more unsupervised approach. Ultimately, you need to know the environment of whales. Sure, you know the next probable token, and even relationships between tokens, but how do they relate to what whales are doing? , in other words what does it mean? . It reminds me of the great quote by Feynman: "look at the bird"[1]. You can know the name of a bird in many different languages, but that tells you nothing about it. If you want to understand birds, you need to look at it and see what it's doing. If we want to communicate with another species, we need to understand what they're doing, why they're communicating, and from there we can begin to infer what they're communicating. It could be simply a callsign/identification/name for each individual, it could be communicating you've found a place with food, it could be communicating about predators, who knows. There could be all sorts of interesting variation and nuance to their calls. But ultimately it's necessary to look (in the general sense of having information about what it's doing -- could be through all kinds of sensors!) at the ~~bird~~ whale :) [1] Feynman tells the as a lesson from his father. (that you can know their names and still know nothing about the birds themselves). [this video] Bonus related video!: [link]
Names tell nothing about the bird; look at what it does

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