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How to think in writing

henrikkarlsson.xyz

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Re: How to think in writing

#91

Post by mistermann »

astrobe_ wrote: post #56
BeetleB wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would urge you to seek feedback from a more diverse crowd then. The article talks about counterexamples. It's hubris to think you will find most of the relevant counterexamples on your own. It's also hubris to think you'll do it quicker than others. As for scalability, I'm confused. If you have a crowd of followers, for example, you'll reach lots of people quickly, whereas by writing for yourself you'll never get f…

> If you have a crowd of followers That's a big if , and that's the problem with relying on feedback. The more specific the topic, the less people you'll find that can give relevant feedback. Even within a team (less people but more specialized in your problem domain), it can be difficult to get relevant feedback. It still works because it is a form of "rubber-ducking". But the less involved in your topic the "crowd"…

> It still works because it is a form of "rubber-ducking". But the less involved in your topic the "crowd" is, the less efficient it is.

Might this be based on some unsound assumptions?

We might have accidentally stumbled into a real-world test of the proposition here. :)

Re: How to think in writing

#92

Post by mistermann »

kazinator wrote: post #51
BeetleB wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By the very definition, if your brain has a blind spot it'll not think of all the corner cases to test. That's why we do code reviews.

The code will reveal the corner cases to you; you will think of things you didn't think of before writing the code. Before you write the code, your ideas may be so poor that they don't even hit the happy cases when you try to code them. You go "Oh, what was I thinking; it's obvious now that it could never work that way ..." Of course, it's coding we are talking about; there will be bugs. Fewer than in some wishful pr…

> The code will reveal the corner cases to you; you will think of things you didn't think of before writing the code.

The step of putting propositions into a proper form such that tests can be written against them is arguably half the benefit.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Well-formed_formula

Re: How to think in writing

#93

Post by mistermann »

jstanley wrote: post #60
BeetleB wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get that the comment came across as arrogant. However you misunderstood the point. It's not that I'm very smart, but that a superior intelligence was not the factor in me finding glasses in his reasoning. It can't be, because as I pointed out, my intelligence is not superior to his. Of course I do get your point that I should consider whether both he and I are simply not that intelligent and that's the reason I fin…

In some sense, isn't making flawed arguments an intelligence flaw by definition?

Not necessarily.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Logical_truth&d...

https://iep.utm.edu/gettier/

For example:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trickster

Re: How to think in writing

#94

Post by DenisM »

toxik wrote: post #55

Writing fleshes out thought because writing is like talking to yourself with automatic history recording. I suggest trying to skip the middle step (writing) and just talk to yourself via voice recording or something else. It works and it takes a lot less formatting effort. Similarly, conversation works beautifully too.

Where would you store the voice memos? I’m concerned that unfiltered stream of thought would be perceived not well if it surfaces. This needs strong privacy and at the same time convenient UX.

Re: How to think in writing

#95

Post by mistermann »

afc wrote: post #78
card_zero wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's like: people who point out logical errors in internet comments look more foolish - always, no matter what else they did - therefore no one who hasn’t done that looks perfectly foolish. Or, say, people who have caught a Snorlax have more Pokemon, therefore no one who hasn't caught a Snorlax has all the Pokemon. This assumes that there's such a thing as a "fully formed idea" (which means an exception to "alway…

I think you're right. But I still think the quote from Graham is terrible writing: confusing, brittle, convoluted, almost as if it was designed to hide something from readers and manipulate them into a different understanding than what it actually claims. The quote is, as you explain, technically correct due to its use of "always". Take this word away and the sentence is correct English, but the meaning now is incorr…

> So while I fully agree with you, I still think the sentence quoted is an example of terribly unhelpful and confusing writing.

Would you have us believe that there is zero utility in this conversation (which was catalyzed by the flawed writing)?

Possibly relevant, and don't miss the "see also" section:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causality

Also note that this topic is different than this one (they often appear to be the same, because of causality):

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causality_(physics)

Re: How to think in writing

#96

Post by [deleted] »

afc wrote: post #78
card_zero wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's like: people who point out logical errors in internet comments look more foolish - always, no matter what else they did - therefore no one who hasn’t done that looks perfectly foolish. Or, say, people who have caught a Snorlax have more Pokemon, therefore no one who hasn't caught a Snorlax has all the Pokemon. This assumes that there's such a thing as a "fully formed idea" (which means an exception to "alway…

I think you're right. But I still think the quote from Graham is terrible writing: confusing, brittle, convoluted, almost as if it was designed to hide something from readers and manipulate them into a different understanding than what it actually claims. The quote is, as you explain, technically correct due to its use of "always". Take this word away and the sentence is correct English, but the meaning now is incorr…

[deleted]

Re: How to think in writing

#97

Post by mizzao »

QuadrupleA wrote: post #45
codelord wrote: post #6

"If writing down your ideas always makes them more precise and more complete, then no one who hasn't written about a topic has fully formed ideas about it." Apparently, even writing it down didn't help the author with this flawed deduction.

"If allspice makes food taste better, than no one who doesn't use allspice can cook well."

The analogy is probably something more like:

Salt is necessary to bring out the flavor in pretty much all food. So no one who doesn't use salt has made a good meal.

Because salt is much more irreplaceable than allspice in cooking, just like writing is difficult to replace in honing ideas.

Re: How to think in writing

#98

Post by gregates »

card_zero wrote: post #67
supersrdjan wrote: post #58

The introduction to the article denies its main point: > If writing down your ideas always makes them more precise and more complete, then no one who hasn't written about a topic has fully formed ideas about it. It’s a logical error. It’s like saying: people who point out logical errors in internet comments look foolish, therefore no one who hasn’t done that looks foolish. Clearly there are other ways to look foolish…

No, it's like: people who point out logical errors in internet comments look more foolish - always, no matter what else they did - therefore no one who hasn’t done that looks perfectly foolish. Or, say, people who have caught a Snorlax have more Pokemon, therefore no one who hasn't caught a Snorlax has all the Pokemon. This assumes that there's such a thing as a "fully formed idea" (which means an exception to "alway…

Stressing the "always" makes the argument valid only because it's a wordier version of "ideas can always be made more precise and complete, therefore no idea is perfectly precise and complete," which has nothing to do with writing. If we try to salvage the argument by making the assumption that the author obviously meant some ideas are perfect, but only written ideas, this becomes "unwrittendown ideas can always be made more precise and complete, therefore no unwrittendown idea is perfect". Which is vacuously valid in that the antecedent and consequent are identical.

The argument is either merely asserting the conclusion or invalid. I guess it's a matter of judgment which one is the charitable interpretation of the author's meaning.

Perhaps the most charitable interpretation is that the quoted bit isn't intended as an argument at all, just a restatement to cast an already-established conclusion in a different light. It's presented as a "shocking" additional implication, but perhaps it's the shock that's supposed to be novel, not the implication.

Re: How to think in writing

#99

Post by paultopia »

This is a fantastic essay. As a professor, I routinely work with students on research and writing projects where they're suffering under the common misimpression that they need to know everything they intend to say before writing a single word down; I may start sending this to them to help clear the brain worm out.
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