| --- |
| title: "House Oversight: Estate Documents (Nov 12) (HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_015746)" |
| source: "House Oversight: Estate Documents (Nov 12)" |
| sourceUrl: "https://www.justice.gov/epstein" |
| date: "2026-01-01" |
| category: "House Oversight" |
| eftaNumber: "HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_015746" |
| ocrPages: 1 |
| ocrChars: 2387 |
| ocrElapsed: 0.0 |
| parseTier: "external-legacy" |
| engine: "engine undisclosed (ep-nov-12.greg.technology mirror)" |
| externalSource: "greg-ep-nov-12" |
| externalLicense: "not granted" |
| externalCredit: "ep-nov-12.greg.technology" |
| externalUrl: "https://ep-nov-12.greg.technology" |
| --- |
| |
| 56 |
| Are the Androids Dreaming Yet? |
| If you invest |
| a little time on the slide you will understand it |
| and may even see it as a thing of beauty. But Masters' audience was |
| obviously expecting something different and, presented with this level |
| of complexity, went into shutdown. Perhaps they wanted a simpler |
| presentation, a high-level summary, a few bullet points. Of course, there |
| is no simple presentation on Afghanistan. The lesson is that context, |
| timing and expectation are often as important to good communication |
| as the elegance of the content, and that information is a complex thing |
| If you want a lighthearted poke at Power Point here is Peter Norvig's |
| PowerPoint version of the Gettysburg Address. |
| Understanding |
| Next time you are in a business meeting, count the number of times the |
| word 'understand' is used. If you ask the people around you what it means |
| you'll stump many of them. That's because understanding has two very |
| different meanings. Most people don't separate these meanings but the |
| distinction is important. Understanding means to decode information, |
| to comprehend - but, more importantly, it also means to absorb and |
| internalize information. That feeling you have when you 'get it? |
| If I say, "I understand" I mean I have taken in the question you |
| asked and decoded it into ideas so I can provide an answer. This can be |
| quite a mechanical process and computers routinely understand natural |
| language and answer questions - Apples digital assistant Siri being a |
| case in point. |
| When I say, "I understand a problem" or "understand a culture" |
| I mean something far less tangible. Somehow the information I have |
| gathered over my life is formed into a matrix within my brain that allows |
| me to ponder and run scenarios. I can predict the effects of my actions |
| before I do them, and often anticipate your responses. That's clearly |
| a very useful evolutionary adaption, but is there more to it than that? |
| Roger Penrose and David Deutsch think understanding allows us to |
| transfer non-symbolic information from one brain to another. We don't |
| run programs in our brains, nor do we store precise information such as |
| lists and tables. We have, therefore, had to evolve a creative approach to |
| communicating skills and understanding each other. One of the most |
| closely studied areas in the field of communication is when it breaks |
| down in the lead up to a disaster. |
| HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_015746 |
|
|
