Comments on: Is there a word that means "knowing something solely by references to it?"

Question: Is there a word that means "knowing something solely by references to it?"

flatluigi — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 20:06:16 -0800

Is there a word that means "knowing something solely by references to it?"

I've never seen an episode of Star Trek nor any of the movies. I haven't seen Spinal Tap nor 2001: A Space Odyssey. However, I know so much of what happens and the basic facts of each that I could fake it well -- I bet that there's at least one comparable thing in pop culture for every MeFite.

I've used the slightly-awkward portmanteau 'recumference' for this sort of thing for a while now, but I've always wanted to know if there's an actual word for this.

By: Doohickie

Doohickie — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 20:07:36 -0800

Knowing it through context?

By: about_time

about_time — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 20:20:23 -0800

bluffing is false knowledge, and intuition is knowledge without reasoning. The gist of something is its essence, perhaps stated through bluffing or intuition.

By: nebulawindphone

nebulawindphone — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 20:21:18 -0800

For indirect knowledge that you've picked up without really trying, you can say you know about something "by osmosis."

By: librarina

librarina — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 20:22:14 -0800

I've always called it "cultural osmosis."

By: amethysts

amethysts — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 20:25:20 -0800

I've called it cultural osmosis, but you might have to explain what you mean by that.

By: Bookhouse

Bookhouse — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 20:29:18 -0800

"by reputation" would work.

By: samsara

samsara — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 20:32:41 -0800

It could also be a form of B.S. Artistry (that is what I call it when I'm pretending to know something I don't, but have just enough info by proxy to pull off a convincing aknowledgement...sparing myself from having someone else explain it to me full detail)

By: zamboni

zamboni — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 20:33:40 -0800

Last time I asked, I got "cultural osmosis", and "The Weird Al effect".

By: delmoi

delmoi — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 20:33:45 -0800

Woah, no one's mentioned Simulacrum yet? You people are off the ball. What you're talking about in the MI matches the definition pretty closely.

By: samthemander

samthemander — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 20:35:17 -0800

I've always called that type of knowledge the effect of being "culturally literate."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_literacy

By: hapax_legomenon

hapax_legomenon — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 20:38:56 -0800

pop kultura

By: delmoi

delmoi — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 20:39:52 -0800

(hmm, reading the wikipedia article, it seems like my understanding of the word "simulacrum" is a little off)

The way I had heard it described was that in Baudrillard's work was that a simulacrum was a reference to a reference a reference and so on to the point that the original meaning was lost, but it looks like the word is also used for other things as well. It's something I'm only familiar through cultural osmosis. :P

By: panamax

panamax — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 20:44:43 -0800

osmosis is perfect.

osmosis is the passive transport of water through microscopic channels from an area of higher concentration to lower concentration, essentially the environment one is in pushing into you over time.

It implies an indirect exposure -- ah, indirect knowledge might also work for you.

By: LobsterMitten

LobsterMitten — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 20:46:02 -0800

knowing it second-hand (if someone who saw it describes it to you)
knowing it third-hand (if someone who has heard it described, describes it to you)

general knowledge, cultural literacy, background knowledge?

By: flatluigi

flatluigi — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 20:56:19 -0800

"Cultural osmosis" definitely seems to be what I'm looking for, thanks.

By: flatluigi

flatluigi — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 20:59:24 -0800

For future readers: This and especially this from zamboni's link above helped.

By: Abiezer

Abiezer — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 22:58:46 -0800

"Hearsay acquaintance" would seem to fit too, in a mildly pejorative sense.

By: Jireel

Jireel — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 23:41:31 -0800

It could be assimilated to a term used in cognitiv psychology, called "metaconscience", or.. being aware you know i, somewhere, yes, by reference

By: dhartung

dhartung — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 02:26:05 -0800

the slightly-awkward portmanteau 'recumference'

Gesundheit.

Italo Calvino has a chapter on this sort of thing in If On a Winter's Night A Traveler...., in which he talks about The Books He Has Read, The Books He Will Never Read, The Books He Does Not Need to Buy Because All His Friends Have Been Talking About It All Year. That sort of thing.

You should probably know that the scholarly term for this is "mediated experience", and is very central to postmodern conception of the world. The media, don't forget, are literally in the middle and both pitching their own narrative to you as you are trying to see through and catch one. It's looking at an event in the real world and saying "We've got to get home and see this on TV." Internet memes are an extreme example in a lot of ways, as individuals filter and interpret and reinterpret something like a guy playing with a fake lightsaber into different contexts. If you want, you could really do a lot of reading along these lines.

By: mbrubeck

mbrubeck — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 06:04:12 -0800

"Vicarious"?

By: kliuless

kliuless — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 07:11:40 -0800

fwiw, i thought mediated by thomas de zengotita was pretty good... btw, i think a lot of the idea of plucking things out of stuff floating around in the ~~aether~~ noosphere can be traced back to carl jung and his concept of synchronicity, e.g. the independent development of the calculus by leibniz and newton :P

cheers!