# Truly New Ideas Begin as Incomprehensible by Roger Schank > “Because people understand by finding in their memories the closest possible match to what they are hearing and use that match as the basis of comprehension, any new idea will be treated as a variant of something the listener has already thought of or heard. Agreement with a new idea means a listener has already had a similar thought and well appreciates that the speaker has recognized his idea. Disagreement means the opposite. Really new ideas are incomprehensible. The good news is that for some people, failure to comprehend is the beginning of understanding. For most, of course, it is the beginning of dismissal.” > **— Roger Schank**, *2004, Edge Annual Question, “WHAT'S YOUR LAW?”* ## Sources and Context - **Direct Edge response and surrounding essay:** [Schank's Law](https://www.edge.org/response-detail/11825) — Edge published this exact, continuous passage in its 2004 Annual Question collection, *WHAT'S YOUR LAW?*. The response page preserves the surrounding argument and qualifications. - **Complete local collection index:** [[research/Edge 2004 Full Quotation Curation|Edge 2004 Full Quotation Curation]] — retained source-first record for the response cohort and this passage's promotion status. ## Related Articles and Collections - **Collection:** [[collections/Edge|Edge]] - **Collection:** [[collections/Machine Succession|Machine Succession]] - **Article:** [[articles/Modern Artificial Intelligence in the 1970s|AI in the 1970s]] - **Article:** [[articles/Digital Darwinism and the Invisible World of Machine Evolution|Digital Darwinism]] - **Article:** [[articles/Machine Intelligence from Cortical Networks and the Allen Institute|Cortical Networks]] - **Wiki map:** [[wiki/Information Theory|Information Theory]] ## Related Topics - [[wiki/Information Theory|Information Theory]] - [[wiki/Knowledge Representation|Knowledge Representation]] - [[wiki/Information Architecture|Information Architecture]] - [[wiki/Collective Intelligence|Collective Intelligence]] ## Share on Social Media ``` “Because people understand by finding in their memories the closest possible match to what they are hearing and use that match as the basis of comprehension, any new idea will be treated as a variant of something the listener has already thought of or heard. Agreement with a new idea means a listener has already had a similar thought and well appreciates that the speaker has recognized his idea. Disagreement means the opposite. Really new ideas are incomprehensible. The good news is that for some people, failure to comprehend is the beginning of understanding. For most, of course, it is the beginning of dismissal.” — Roger Schank, 2004, Edge Annual Question, “WHAT'S YOUR LAW?” https://bryantmcgill.com/simple-reminders-roger-schank-truly-new-ideas-begin-incomprehensible ```