The Trinity of Quality 

ahh, good ol' minutephysics. Neither a minute, nor physics, but as long as the quality is high, I'll continue watching ;)

Nitpick note: The Fad of not ending a sentence with a preposition came from academia that studied latin extensively. That rule works with latin, not so well with english. So when speaking english be fine with where the preposition is at.

The fact that you explain and represent completely hypothetical feelings on a line graph is very telling that you're a scientist. Which is awesome, and I would do the same.

One important additional factor is whether you know what you need to arrive at your desired tastes and whether you have the time and resources to achive it. Everyone on the project can know exactly where it is right now, and know exactly what they want the final thing to look like, but the team may be lacking the time, experience or resources to get there and compromises need to be made. Personally I try to identify my own limits early on to know if and where I need to dial down my ambitions. I used to be a perfectionist, and honestly still kinda am, but that used to be a pretty big hinderance to get anything done. I still have very high standards for myself but I also know my limits to which I can achive them, and I try to get as close as I can within my limits.

My Discernment for good wine is based on a scale of 1 to 1... "ah yes, this is wine"

I work as a quality engineer and with little tweaking on terms this is my daily fight. Thank you for helping me gain perspective on working in my field and how to talk to others I work with that aren't. Good luck with the little one and new channel!

In science and engineering we often separate discernment into accuracy (how close the average "measurement" is to the true value) and precision (how repeatable is your "measurement"). This is often equated to shooting arrows at a target. After you take several shots, accuracy is how close the center of your grouping is to bullseye, precision is how small your grouping is. Both of these affect quality in different ways.

You know, this concept of discernment reminds me of some of my autistic tendencies. A lot of people get upset at me because I will often abstain from giving input when asked because I know I don't have a view or adequate knowledge on something. For example someone asked me if a particular song was good, and after listening to it I told them I couldn't give them an opinion on it because it's not my taste of music. Maybe there's a skill of discernment of discernment, i.e. I know what I don't know.

I was so happy to see this pop up on Patreon! The difference between taste and discernment sounds very-much like Dunning-Kruger's main point from their paper (the ability to discern how well you perform requires the same skills as performing well itself, thus it is hard to estimate your own ability). Seems like this breaks down pretty quickly, especially in the fine arts, which is where your focus is here (and I've found the same thing in music, photography, etc). This difference also really sounds like how babies learn languages: spend years listening to discern differences in sound, *then* start to mimic/control those sounds. Also, your part about ending with prepositions was hilarious to listen to... Reminds me of how much Shakespeare ended with prepositions.

I am a Software Quality Engineer. I work with this stuff every single day. What an awsesome breakdown of the field of quality. For as much as people know nice little sentences about Quality in any given product - f.e. "Quality is noticed only by its absence, almost never by its presence" - or about how subjective, intangible, even immeasurable it's supposed to be (Yes in part it is) there ARE means and ways to quantify it, and things like this trinity can really help people understand where a quality disagreement with a customer might stem from.

When working for others, your work is done when it needs to be done. When working for yourself, your work is done when it is done.

I love that you premiered this the same day that I posted my first video, which I finished a week ago but questioned whether it's actually "good enough" by my own standards. I've been wrestling with, "does this meet my standards?" and "are my standards too high?" but something I perhaps neglected is the skill of "discernment" when it comes to my own work!

Oh, so nice! It's basically this conversation: "I want this product to be good" "Do you even know what good means?"

This is a good way of putting language to something I've had lots of experience with. Thanks! I've worked with artists who have what I might call overly developed discernment after a while working on a project. By the nature of the job, they delve into the minutia of the work and so know every tiny flaw that exists. Most artists can back up and see their work from a distance but a few get hung up on these and never want to release it. If time were no object, I'd leave them to it but deadlines are a thing.

This channel gets a 10/9 on the actual quality scale minimum

Prepositions in English are allowed to be different than Latin, and infinitives in English can be split because English doesn't even have infinitives in the same sense as Latin, but achieves the same meaning with its almost-infinitives. To quote Churchill on trying to make English be like Latin "That is the sort of pedantic nonsense up with which I will not put!"

Taste can't be 100% ever... It tends towards a 100%, as there is always a room for improvement! Just like Henry & MinutePhysics, which is excellent!! And keeps getting better everyday!!

Excellent video, Glad to find it under an hour since it uploaded! Always informative and to the point.

Thank you for the final summary, putting it all together.

So, taste is a bias as well...I've never thought of it that way, and I can't agree more with you, Henry. Very well put !

Thanks! I was struggling a lot with this at my last job. It will surely be easier to handle disagreements sending this video to my colleges LOL. I never thought how programmers and RU-vidrs can have a lot in common. Thanks again.

I thought the triangle diagram was about - courage to face the challenges in the completing the task, - power that gives the skills you need, and - wisdom to be able to judge how well you're reaching the goal

I would love to see a software engineering version of this Trinity. Could be a training video for new management in the SW world (and can't use this version - ppl would get too hung up on the content/video specifics to focus on the messages).

*The explanation of Discernment is really quite thought provoking!*

Reminds me of something from a book I read a long time ago called Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

The problem is that people admit the fault is in discernment, it means they might be wrong and/or have to do some work of their own. People are psychologically lazy and don't want to interrogate their own beliefs or realise their shortcomings, so they don't.

this trinity is a useful artifice for simplifying and exploring some of the difficulties you outlined. I've felt overwhelmed recently and have tried to be more pragmatic by allowing myself to do a crappy or incomplete job (lowering my target,) but it hadn't occurred to me how bad I was at gauging the quality / progress of my work!

This is an excellent way to think about things!! Thank you! I hesitated to post this cuz I didn't want to commandeer the comment section but this is particularly relevant to a majority of controversial political discussion. For example with Roe V. Wade so many people are arguing and don't realize the nuance between what the law is, what they think the law is, and what they think the law should be.

Absolutely stunning composition. Thank you.

I think we can 999/1000 agree that this video is a 10/10. Excellent analysis, and really neatly put!

I had never thought about it that way. Thanks for sharing.

As someone who works as a Quality Assurance Specialist I support this video. I'd use different phrasing such as changing "perceived quality" to "measurable metrics" and "actual quality" to "achieved goals."

Great work 🥳Thank you 💜

I think this true for no matter what you do, not just creative focused products. Very thoughtfully presented. Thanks

Thanks, I really needed this.

"Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." Reinhold Niebuhr

Damn, thanks man, I was just wondering what to write for my physics assignment, I finally found a good research topic with all the work done for me.

Finally, a video that explains this. So I have something to link to instead of clumsily trying to explain it every time it comes up.

Fantastic video, thank you.

The visuals in this video were excellent in getting the point across, chapped hands notwithstanding :)

This explains EVERYTHING!

Well thought out and clearly argued

I find the most important thing for science channels is integrity and honesty. Without that none of the others matter.

"Good enough" is that magical place full of unicorns and rainbows, halfway from "That's what I can do" and "That's what I would do"

Great video!

Woah! I love this video! I think I've lived by this my whole live and never knew it!

In part of this you are essentially describing what Kant would call the faculty of judgement. When judging a piece of art you recognize that there is no universal standard on which it can be determined to be beautiful, and yet you feel that there is something within it which partakes in the universal and which everyone should be able to appreciate. This goes beyond personal taste where we recognize things like different tastes in food (enjoyment on a physiological level), to an abstract (and purely psychological if you're a mind body dualist) appreciation of the form of the qualities of a work of art.

It's been a long time since I learn something this usefull Thank you

Based on the title, I assumed this would be about what my project management classes call the "triple constraint" or "iron triangle". I.e. the combined constraints of scope, time, and budget, which together mark the constraints for a project.

actual eye opener!

High quality video about quality. Nice

Great video - also, the two biggest problems with people who are new to a given creative field is realising how bad their early stuff really is (which happens to everybody and is totally fine) but therefore not improving, or not being honest with themselves about whether they're actually serious about improving it. Interesting stuff!

On the analogy of the not level painting I literally have an abstract painting hanging on my wall, slightly tilted off center, because I think it looks better that way But people keep telling me it’s slanted an try to fix it, sometimes even _after_ informing them that the slant is intentional So sometimes a person with a different taste might not be “settling” for a lower quality because it’s “good enough” they may be _choosing_ a lower quality in some aspects because doing so raises the overall quality

Wonderful video! :)

This is incredibly well communicated

I enjoyed this video. It was interesting, and it shed some light on a few discussions we had when I played in a band. It is, in my view, a good video. But when I first started watching minutephysics videos, starting with the oldest and then working my way up to the newest, and then subscribed to know when a new video came out, it was because I learned about physics. Tell me more about general relativity, or some quantum mechanical spookiness, or some hydro-chrono-thermo-somethingorother- mechanical thing I don't even know yet. As said, I enjoyed the video. But it feels like it's on the wrong channel. Still leaving a "Like", because Henry.

Discernment is a skill like any other. The way you develop it is good old fashioned practice. If you're a cine buff, watch, analyze shit loads of movies and then make videos with people for fun. You'll be a better -- whatever you are doing. Writer, read assloads, write constantly... etc. It's a visceral skill too so if you can notice your "gut" telling you something, well you've got that down. All you have to do is listen. One sure fire trick to develop good guts is to look at bad work or work that is contrary to your taste and then your own works as well. If you get the cringe however slight, that's your gut asking for mercy. Something is off and now you have to figure out why. Once you have discerned then you can go about solving whatever problem you are discerning. That's a different skill but equally as important to creating quality anything. For example, in my case, I'm an editor. I'm really good at discerning what pictures are good and how they go together at a pace that feels good while juxtaposing images and ideas to tell a story that keeps people engaged the whole way through story arcs. When my gut says something's off with the editing I have the skills and experience to fix it. However, I'm not hugely practiced on set so if the lighting is off, I can discern that it is but would struggle with how to solve the problem. That's fine if you're not an expert because you can go to someone who is hence the collaborative nature of filmmaking. That's also how I got good at editing, not just by doing it a lot but learning form those who are better than me and asking for advice. Most people will enthusiastically oblige. Even now after 20 years of doing it, if I'm stuck. Ask a colleague, see what they think.

Wow, you just expressed and articulated my understanding of aesthetics. These were my collective thoughts over 17 years. Can you do a similar thing with "sphere of knowledge" or rather spongy sphere with the center or core is also being dense or consolidated as the sphere grows with a more porous portion towards the surface?

The issue with this is very early. The notion of "actual quality" being a thing that can be objectively measured independent of the observer's biases and tastes. You have to be *very* particular about what you mean when you say "quality" As in, you don't mean quality as in "how good is it" but quality as in "what qualities does it have that can be objectively measured?" It is true that you can objectively measured a crowd's reaction to the work, however, what you would be doing there is factoring in the general tastes of the audience and accepting that as your definition of and rubric for objective quality. The issue with this is that you can cheat, and every content creator of every type throughout history has cheated this notion, by _targeting specific audiences_ . A better approach for that first one is to call it "criteria conformity" or basically, what "qualities" (with an S) does the work have that can be objectively measured and do these qualities line up with the set of criteria necessary to achieve your goal. Basically, you're not trying to tell how "good" it is but rather, what characteristics the work has that you can objectively measure. "Entertainment value" is a very vague and bad one. Stuff like "watch time" and "engaging the audience with questions" and "use of visual effects" and so forth. If you don't make this distinction, quality and taste become a bit circular, unless your notion of it is something like "quality is everyone else's preferences and taste is your own preference and discernment is your ability to predict if a work will appeal to someone else's taste" sort of. But even with something like that, it still feels clearer to think of quality as "criteria conformity" instead as that homes you in on what you are really doing regardless, trying to figure out the characteristics or "stats" your work possesses and then measure that against a set of characteristics or stats that you propose or believe or have deduced will be effective for your goal.

Thanks!

My discernment for water is 0 or 1. 1: nice, its watery 0: oh no, its sparkling water.

wow dude excellent wisdom

this video made me think about how to choose a partner, actually. the gradients of characteristics i'm looking for, if i know how to perceive them, etc. very helpful.

Interesting video - thanks. One niggle: it's implied that discernment is linear. Take a product assessed by two people: one is colour-blind, other is not. Both have their own discernment ability, but neither can assess from both perspective. There may be various colour and texture combinations that are perfect from each perspective, and at least one which is perfect from both. But it seems like discernment can be 'multi-channel'. More speculatively (for me, anyway), sensory taste may have a genetic element that means two people experience the same taste differently... in which case any one wine connoisseur can have a discernment ability up to 100% based on his own DNA. There may be an achievable taste profile which satisfies connoisseurs of both (or all) relevant genetic differences, or maybe there will be no solution that can be perfect for both/all.

You threw me for a loop by having the images in the corner of the trinity swap places. At the start of the video, discernment is bottom-left, and target is bottom-right, but you switch them by the end of the video. This (un?)ironically made it hard for me to parse the part of the video where you distinguish between the two things!

The right way to hang pictures is obviously to be slightly askew, to give the OCD people in your life some sense of control over their environment.

This is so cool. How does your conclusions apply to situations, where the judgement of quality is ordinal, such as is your work in the top 5, top 100 etc? In that situation quality is defined by an inequality rather than a closed interval.

as a tradesperson. there are times when functionality and serviceablilty is more important than looks and aesthetics. and vice versa. it's all in the ability to determine when each is the most applicable to the situation you are in. which you have pointed alluded to.

Nice. I tend to use the A* algorithm where I make choices and rate each choice on a scale of 1-10. Then make more choices & repeat. If I feel that I am progressing I'll continue to repeat until I am satisfied or backtrack if things are getting worse. But I never really know when I'm done.

Reminds me of the XKCD comic about telling the difference between wines (and has a punchline about photos being viewed for a year in a box)

That might have been my favorite MinutePhysics ever.

Discernment is Actually the #1 Principle in all of Life Holmes ,,,,,,,,,,, great channel

This is not quality as taught in manufacturing. But is somewhat similar. Quality in manufacturing is a set of standards, developed comprehensively often through market analysis, experiment and expert opinion which deal with a set of desired characteristics related to a specific product. We always measure differences between the target value and actual production values. We ask the question: "How close is the arrow to the bulls eye?". The mathematical basis for the effort in industry is Fisher Information. Subjectivity is not much of an issue. Although personal perception can be a significant handicap, human beings can be trained to make remarkably consistent observations of quantities which are mostly perceived, i.e. color, style, taste, fashion etc. People are taught what it means to see the color red.

I struggle with this every single video, It is so hard to know how good your own work is

Is this the stealth announcement of the new minuteproductivity channel? 😆 Even so, loved it anyways. A long as Henry keeps being Henry, it's still going to be great!

This was super cool. I’m a bit ashamed to say that I’ve felt like my interest in this channel has been dwindling over time. But ive been reminded with this video of the quality of content you create. Thanks, and good job.

„Henry, just post these damn minute physics videos! they are already perfect!“ Henry: …

And I came here thinking I was going to get a cool stick figure rendition of "Price, Time, Quality" Then I realise that "Price, Time, Quality; pick two" is the [Universal Trinity] of which Trinity of Quality is but one segment.

Just be yourself, it does not matter if it is good enough, for someone else 🎵

Here I am applying this to my work in financial data and math.

The taste vs discernment bit is highly relevant in the review/critic world rn

4:23-4:39 This is humor up with which I will not put.

I got that "Snarky " reference at 0:55 - TechnologyConnections and your impression of him wasn't too shabby :)

Thank you for this, never really thought about it like that before. Would be interesting to know if you think that there is such a thing as a intrinsic value of taste? In your example of different taste with the same discernment you talk about the crookedness of the painting, that one might be ok with it being more crooked. This gives the idea that there is a "correct" answer to where the taste is supposed be on the scale, even if you haven't numbered it. Do you think this intrinsic value is something that exists in all kinds of taste?

This reminds me about the test where most people think they are above average drivers. The mainstream reasoning is that people tend to overvalue their and undervalue others abilities. But I think it's more because people have different tastes about what a good driver is. Being a good driver has different qualities and people have different tastes about their importance: - safety - speed - smoothness - fuel efficiency - wear and tear on the vehicle -... f.e. Someone that puts high importance on safety, could be considered a bad driver by someone that puts high importance on speed.

I'm picturing some behind-the-scenes conflict over these issues and you decided to give 'em all what for. I'm right, ain't I?

I appreciate that this covers the distinction between taste and discernment, but I often find that people also frequently confuse taste with quality. That's where I've found a lot of my own disagreements with people, and I think it's frequently the cause of poor discernment. That is, that people can't accurately judge the quality of something because they assume that if it is not to their taste, that it is of bad quality. The classic example being people who think "I didn't like that movie" means "That movie is bad." It is a conversation I always find very frustrating, because it's entirely okay to not like certain high quality content, and totally awesome if you find low quality content that you enjoy, and people need to stop acting as if their personal preferences represent any sort of objective truth about the quality of content. Maybe it's just semantics at that point and when people say "that's bad" they really mean "I didn't like that" but I think it's an important distinction 🤷

Hey just wanted to share a possible video idea(?): Say you had a special paint, that changes color at an even pace with the passing of time, say from blue to red. Then you paint a giant flat disk with the paint, and start spinning the disk extremely fast. Due to the theory of relativity, wouldn't you eventually see a color gradient with blue towards the outside of the disk, and red at the center?

I've actually thought about all these in completely unrelated things to videos and i somehow thought i was alone in thinking about them. It is overthinking at it's best which makes it, not over-thinking i guess

Quality is defined by the owner not the video producer... just as beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so is quality. The best horse whip is of little value today, it was quality then and is not now

There's some interesting work on this in the higher education literature. The general question there is how assessment and feedback can help learners to develop their evaluative capacities and become better judges of their own work and the work of others. Boud et al. (2018) provides a nice overview of the current state of this field. I think a lot of it echoes what you've argued here, but in the context of learning, where feedback plays a crucial role in helping fine-tune our sense of quality.

Din, the goddess of quality; Farore, the goddess of taste; and Nayru, the goddess of discernment = the Triforce of Quality

Hello If you get the time. Can you please explain how the electric keeps us from being pushed or pulled into the centre of the earth. To be more specific, what stops us from falling into the center of the earth and why. Thank you

nobody talking about how adding "dugs + sex" will bring the most improvement to video 2:44

Another important thing- discernment not only includes knowing the quality of something but also the "taste" or how good you want it to be. If a work is of a certain quality, and you know it's that quality, you can still fail in figuring out if that is enough quality.

This is a real interesting way to take apart the good old "there's no accounting for taste", to say "taste" might not actually be what you're accounting for.

I like the distinctions you make. My wife thinks I can't taste the difference between mayonnaise and Miracle Whip. I can, I just don't care. She also thinks that I can't taste the difference between butter and margarine. She is correct.

3:48 thinking with portals!

One important point in this conclusion is missing in my opinion. How much effort do you want to or be able to put into a project to make it good. Often is good enough the point to stop because reaching the final percents to make it better takes disproportunate amounts of effort to reach.

Surprised at 15 hours that I received a 20% off, thanks kindly. I've been meaning to start treating my brain right since graduation.