**Tacitness** refers to the implicit or unspoken aspects of knowledge, skills, or practices that are not explicitly expressed but are still essential for their effective execution. In other words, tacitness is about the "knowing-how" that is not easily articulated or formalized. The concept of tacitness was first introduced by [[Michael Polanyi]] in his 1958 book **Personal Knowledge: The Path to the Discovery**.  Polanyi argued that many aspects of human knowledge are tacit, meaning they are not explicitly stated but rather learned through experience, intuition, and implicit understanding. Examples of tacitness include: 1. **Skilled crafts**: A master carpenter might not be able to explain exactly how they achieve a specific joint or finish, as it is based on years of practice and intuition. 2. **Artistic creativity**: An artist might struggle to describe the process by which they come up with new ideas or techniques, as it is often driven by subconscious influences. 3. **Business acumen**: A seasoned entrepreneur might not be able to articulate exactly how they make decisions or navigate complex situations, as it relies on a combination of experience, instinct, and contextual understanding. The significance of tacitness lies in its role in: 1. **Knowledge transmission**: Tacit knowledge is often transmitted through apprenticeships, mentorship, or hands-on training, rather than explicit instruction. 2. **Innovation**: Tacitness can facilitate creative problem-solving and innovation by allowing individuals to draw upon implicit understanding and intuition. 3. **Expertise development**: As individuals gain experience and expertise, their tacit knowledge becomes more refined and nuanced, enabling them to excel in specific domains. The study of tacitness has implications for various fields, including: 1. **Education**: Recognizing the importance of tacit knowledge can inform teaching methods that emphasize hands-on learning and apprenticeships. 2. **Management**: Understanding tacitness can help organizations foster innovation by recognizing the value of implicit knowledge and expertise. 3. **Philosophy**: Tacitness raises questions about the nature of knowledge, perception, and understanding, inviting philosophical inquiry into the relationship between explicit and implicit knowing. In summary, tacitness is a crucial aspect of human knowledge and skill that is often overlooked or underappreciated. Recognizing its significance can lead to new insights in fields like education, management, and philosophy.z´ **Tacitness**, **Emergence**, and **Compositionality** are three concepts that intersect and influence each other in intriguing ways. 1.  **Tacitness**: As we discussed earlier, tacitness refers to the implicit or unspoken aspects of knowledge, skills, or practices that are not explicitly expressed but are still essential for their effective execution. 2.  **Emergence**: Emergence refers to the phenomenon where complex systems exhibit behaviors, properties, or patterns that cannot be predicted from the characteristics of their individual components. In other words, emergence is about how the whole becomes more than  the sum of its parts. 3.  **Compositionality**: Compositionality describes the ability to break down a complex system into its constituent parts and understand how these parts interact and influence each other. Now, let's explore how tacitness relates to emergence and compositionality: **Tacitness and Emergence**: Tacit knowledge is often essential for emergence to occur. In complex systems, tacit knowledge can manifest as implicit rules, habits, or intuitions that guide the behavior of individual components. These tacit elements can contribute to the emergence of novel patterns, behaviors, or properties at the system level. For instance: *  A flock of birds exhibiting emergent flight patterns, where individuals follow implicit rules based on distance, speed, and orientation. *  A network of neurons in the brain displaying emergent cognitive functions, such as language processing or problem-solving, which rely on tacit knowledge and complex interactions between individual neurons. **Tacitness and Compositionality**: Tacit knowledge can also influence compositionality by affecting how we decompose a system into its parts. In complex systems, tacit knowledge can shape our understanding of the relationships between components, leading to more nuanced and accurate representations of the system's structure and behavior. For example: *  In music theory, composers often rely on tacit knowledge when composing melodies or harmonies, which are decomposed into individual notes, chords, and rhythms. However, the underlying rules and patterns that govern these compositional decisions are often implicit. *  In software development, programmers may use tacit knowledge to recognize patterns in code and compose more complex systems from simpler components. **Emergence, Compositionality, and Tacitness**: These three concepts are interconnected: *  Emergence can arise from the interactions between individual components that possess tacit knowledge or implicit rules. *  Compositionality is essential for understanding how emergent properties arise from the interactions between system components. Tacit knowledge can influence this composition process by shaping our understanding of the relationships between parts. *  Tacitness, in turn, can be influenced by emergence and compositionality. As we learn to decompose complex systems into their parts (compositionality), we may uncover tacit knowledge that was previously implicit. # Conclusion In summary, tacitness is closely related to emergence and compositionality: *  Tacitness can facilitate emergence by providing the implicit rules or habits that guide individual component behavior. *  Compositionality is influenced by tacitness, as our understanding of system structure and behavior relies on recognizing patterns and relationships that are shaped by tacit knowledge. *  The interplay between [[emergence]], [[compositionality]], and [[tacitness]] highlights the importance of considering both explicit and implicit aspects of complex systems. # References ```dataview Table title as Title, authors as Authors where contains(subject, "tacitness") sort title, authors, modified, desc ```