On Naming Things

“The day you teach the child the name of the bird, the child will never see that bird again.” ~ Krishnamurti

This quote from Jiddu Krishnamurti captures the danger of labels. In the context of “objects and functions” framework, the “name” is a shortcut that often kills curiosity. The moment we label a phenomenon, our brains categorize it and move on, often failing to observe the actual properties of the object in front of us.

Richard Feynman famously recounted a similar lesson from his father:

“You can know the name of that bird in all the languages of the world, but when you’re finished, you’ll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird… So let’s look at the bird and see what it’s doing—that’s what counts.”

Labels vs. Essence

In technical fields we are often buried in “names”: holomorphic, manifold, contravariant.

• The “name”: is a pointer. It is social; it allows us to communicate with other mathematicians or physicists.
• The object: is the underlying reality. It is the “bird.”

I struggle with isolated facts because they are just names. To learn effectively, I have to ignore the label for a moment and struggle with the “object” until its “functions” (its behaviors and transformations) become obvious.

We must be careful not to mistake the vocabulary of a field for mastery of the subject. Knowing the “name” is the start of communication, but seeing the “bird” is the start of science.

Death of Curiosity by Categorization

Labels act as cognitive shortcuts. Once we learn that the moving, feathered object is called a “sparrow,” our brain creates a “sparrow” folder, files the observation away and moves on.

Curiosity is replaced by a sense of “knowing,” which is often an illusion.