sensemaking
4 linked references
September 24th, 2025
- the vivid reality of sense-making and what it means for something someone says to "make sense" sensemaking - the word "sensible" feels relevant here
March 22nd, 2024
- What does the expression, "It doesn't make sense," mean? (Quora)
- one answer
- I agree with other answers about the context being very important:
- The vague referent “it” could mean many different things in different categories or thought where but generally means is not intelligible, coherent, sensible, and results in cognitive dissonance or immediate questions.
- It doesn’t make sense could be said of:
- someone else’s behavior (out of character)
- a design, as in engineering or architecture
- a process, such as a series of operations to achieve an end
- a theory, as proposed
- an argument that is unsound or invalid as the conclusion does not follow logically from the premises
- an ideology
- a complex or convoluted system whose internal workings are not apparent to observers
- a contradiction
- the expected results or outcome are not attained or fail to be realized with existing knowledge or observations
- When learning something and it 'doesn't make sense' what does that mean? (Quora)
- cool answer
- When you encounter this situation during learning, it means one thing:
- You don't trust it yet.
- Many people articulate this as lack of understanding, missing concepts, or inadequate foundations. It's a lot to take in, so I have tried to distill it into something that I can, ahem, trust.
- Every time I learn something, I simply ask myself if I trust it yet. It's a powerful question, because it implies all of the following related questions:
- Can I rely on how the concept fits in with the rest of my current mental model of the universe?
- Are the sources reliable?
- Is it logically sound?
- Are there conflicting viewpoints and alternative versions?
- Can I trust myself to explain it to others?
- Do different versions of an explanation hold up?
- If there are parts that I can't explain, why is that the case?
- Is my explanation robust enough so that I am confident that I haven't left anything out?
- Is it now a reliable tool that I can use in future problem solving?
- If there are situations where this tool is not applicable, do I understand why?
- Am I using it correctly such that I'm getting the answers I predict?
- Whenever you encounter a situation where a new concept "doesn't make sense," find the weak points in your understanding, so that you come to trust the new concept.
March 15th, 2021
- looking forward to reading this bit on sensemaking