Uploaded March 2023 | Updated September 2026, 2 hours ago
What is tacit (or implicit) knowledge and what does it have to do with learning? To answer this question, we have to explore bike riding, expert blindness, a Chinese room, and how we remember.
Join my online learning community: benjaminkeep.com/community
0:00 An intro to tacit knowledge
0:45 Let's try an experiment
1:42 "Weak tacit knowledge"
3:36 Expert blindness
5:31 "Body knowledge"
8:03 "Social tacit knowledge" and Searle's Chinese Room
11:10 How do you learn tacit knowledge?
REFERENCES
The bones of the video come from: Collins, H. (2019). Tacit and explicit knowledge. University of Chicago press. I changed the labels he gave for the different kinds of tact knowledge he identifies because I found them pretty confusing.
Michael Polanyi is credited with first identifying and discussing tacit knowledge. His thoughts can be found in: Polanyi, M., & Sen, A. (2009). The tacit dimension. University of Chicago press.
The "explicit to implicit" model of skill acquisition is commonly exemplified by the Dreyfus model:
Dreyfus, S. E., & Dreyfus, H. L. (1980). A five-stage model of the mental activities involved in directed skill acquisition. California Univ Berkeley Operations Research Center. https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA084551.pdf
A good introduction to Searle's Chinese Room (with plenty of references), can be found here: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/chinese-room/
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Star Trek clip from youtube.com/watch?v=hdjL8WXjlGI
The physics of bike riding visuals come from this gem from 1970: Jones, D. E. (1970). The stability of the bicycle. Physics today, 23(4), 34-40. Available here: https://home.phys.ntnu.no/brukdef/undervisning/tfy4145/arkiv/2010/diverse/UnridableBicycle.pdf
The clip of a robot riding a bicycle came from: youtube.com/watch?v=mT3vfSQePcs
“Frampold” entry and other rare word screenshots from the OED found here: oed.com/view/Entry/74166
The recipe screenshots are from Serious Eats: seriouseats.com/the-food-lab-how-to-make-creamy-vegetable-soup; seriouseats.com/spicy-carrot-and-ginger-soup-with-harissa.
Urban Dictionary add word screen found here: my.urbandictionary.com/add.php
Image of Harry Collins from Alexei Kouprianov on Wikipedia. upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5f/Harry_Collins.20101118.jpg
What is tacit (or implicit) knowledge and what does it have to do with learning? To answer this question, we have to explore bike riding, expert blindness, a Chinese room, and how we remember.
Join my online learning community: benjaminkeep.com/community
0:00 An intro to tacit knowledge
0:45 Let's try an experiment
1:42 "Weak tacit knowledge"
3:36 Expert blindness
5:31 "Body knowledge"
8:03 "Social tacit knowledge" and Searle's Chinese Room
11:10 How do you learn tacit knowledge?
REFERENCES
The bones of the video come from: Collins, H. (2019). Tacit and explicit knowledge. University of Chicago press. I changed the labels he gave for the different kinds of tact knowledge he identifies because I found them pretty confusing.
Michael Polanyi is credited with first identifying and discussing tacit knowledge. His thoughts can be found in: Polanyi, M., & Sen, A. (2009). The tacit dimension. University of Chicago press.
The "explicit to implicit" model of skill acquisition is commonly exemplified by the Dreyfus model:
Dreyfus, S. E., & Dreyfus, H. L. (1980). A five-stage model of the mental activities involved in directed skill acquisition. California Univ Berkeley Operations Research Center. https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA084551.pdf
A good introduction to Searle's Chinese Room (with plenty of references), can be found here: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/chinese-room/
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Star Trek clip from youtube.com/watch?v=hdjL8WXjlGI
The physics of bike riding visuals come from this gem from 1970: Jones, D. E. (1970). The stability of the bicycle. Physics today, 23(4), 34-40. Available here: https://home.phys.ntnu.no/brukdef/undervisning/tfy4145/arkiv/2010/diverse/UnridableBicycle.pdf
The clip of a robot riding a bicycle came from: youtube.com/watch?v=mT3vfSQePcs
“Frampold” entry and other rare word screenshots from the OED found here: oed.com/view/Entry/74166
The recipe screenshots are from Serious Eats: seriouseats.com/the-food-lab-how-to-make-creamy-vegetable-soup; seriouseats.com/spicy-carrot-and-ginger-soup-with-harissa.
Urban Dictionary add word screen found here: my.urbandictionary.com/add.php
Image of Harry Collins from Alexei Kouprianov on Wikipedia. upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5f/Harry_Collins.20101118.jpg
