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Why thinking out loud with someone beats thinking alone

thesignalist.io

141–150 of 169 posts

Re: Why thinking out loud with someone beats thinking alone

#141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Obviously you also have mental imagery I personally don't since I suffer from aphantasia. Perhaps I also suffer from not having an internal monologue?! I do think in words but not in complete sentences, it kind of happens much faster.

Look into "worded thinking", "unworded speech", "partially worded speech": https://hurlburt.faculty.unlv.edu/codebook.html See also papers from Hurlburt and others on "unsymbolized thinking" and surrounding topics

"There is a depth of thought untouched by words, and deeper still a depth of formless feeling untouched by thought." - Rilke

Re: Why thinking out loud with someone beats thinking alone

#142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This shit gets me irrationally mad. Well, the existence of such content doesn't, but the fact that other people aren't disdained by it (this dogshit has almost 300 upvotes on _HN_ right now) is what gets me.

As someone who doesn't follow the specifics of how LLMs write, how can you be sure it's an LLM? I'm asking this genuinely because I've been using stuff like these separators before LLMS - now someone can just say "ahh dismiss the content they used style X it's LLM, it's dogshit".

Look for triads and "it's not this, but that". These are dead giveaways. You can also pass it through Pangram which is quite reliable these days.

Re: Why thinking out loud with someone beats thinking alone

#143

It started out as an interesting read, until I got to this paragraph: > The value didn't come from what was said at that moment. It came from what had been built across many such moments: a pattern of mutual recognition, a shared context, a baseline of trust that made the later exchange possible. The relationship was the infrastructure. The conversation was where it had been built, one cup of coffee at a time. And th…

how can you tell it's llm that wrote this paragraph

Usually the smell is when it sounds profound or insightful but then you realize it's word salad and not really saying anything. LLMs also try to make the most mundane thing sound revolutionary or write about it in an alarmist way like 'increasing x by 1% is a ground breaking innovation' or something.

There's no concept of what truly is important with the writing itself since there's no actual thinking going on. The opinion of the supposed writer, which colors how they structure the writing and the language they use, is often all over the place since an LLM has no real opinions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Signs_of_AI_writing

Re: Why thinking out loud with someone beats thinking alone

#144
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I draw a lot to figure out engineering details. I used to make beautiful drawings in diagramming software (draw.io and the lil). But man, it took a lot of time. Now I scribble on printer paper unless it’s something I plan to share.

Fellows devs at my company think I'm strange, but I always have a cheap coil-notebook. It has diagrams, notes, doodles, minutes, checklists, mostly not even in order. I try to remember to write the date at the top of each page. I just counted, 11 notebooks (b5, 60 pages) in two years, so just about a new notebook every 2 months. Funny thing is, coworkers will now ask to use my pen and paper to flesh-out something tog…

my remarkable comes close enough for my similar purposes

Re: Why thinking out loud with someone beats thinking alone

#145

This proves nothing but, in my earlier days, I'd come home with something on my mind from work and tell my wife about how I couldn't get something to work the way I wanted. She had no clue what I was talking about but she'd offer up clues and suggestions to which I would try to explain to her how things actually worked. Somewhere in that process it would lead to a solution that I would bring to work the next day!

Why are you making your wife work for free :(

Re: Why thinking out loud with someone beats thinking alone

#146
post #145

This proves nothing but, in my earlier days, I'd come home with something on my mind from work and tell my wife about how I couldn't get something to work the way I wanted. She had no clue what I was talking about but she'd offer up clues and suggestions to which I would try to explain to her how things actually worked. Somewhere in that process it would lead to a solution that I would bring to work the next day!

Why are you making your wife work for free :(

Strange perspective. They are partners.

Re: Why thinking out loud with someone beats thinking alone

#147
post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There has been many a time where the process of thinking through in my head how I was going to describe the problem to someone else on the way over to them, that a testable idea pops up. Could probably have gone for a walk around the block instead, but the formulation of the problem to be able to explain it to someone else seems to be key.

This is what I miss from (the early) Stack Overflow: often the process of writing up a well-framed question ended up solving the problem. I sometimes put out the question anyway and added an answer. Never quite figured out if this was considered bad style.

Jeff Attwood in his Coding Horror post about Rubber Duck Debugging mentioned that as well. I would think he wouldn't have considered it bad style.

https://blog.codinghorror.com/rubber-duck-problem-solving/

Re: Why thinking out loud with someone beats thinking alone

#148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how can you tell it's llm that wrote this paragraph

Usually the smell is when it sounds profound or insightful but then you realize it's word salad and not really saying anything. LLMs also try to make the most mundane thing sound revolutionary or write about it in an alarmist way like 'increasing x by 1% is a ground breaking innovation' or something. There's no concept of what truly is important with the writing itself since there's no actual thinking going on. The o…

[dead]

Re: Why thinking out loud with someone beats thinking alone

#149
I always found explaining the problem to one of my cats was a good way of getting to the solution, sadly I had to put the last one down on Monday and now my office feels empty and lifeless.

I'd wait a bit and get a kitten but having lost both cats inside a year frankly it hurts too much and they don't live long enough.

Re: Why thinking out loud with someone beats thinking alone

#150

I always found explaining the problem to one of my cats was a good way of getting to the solution, sadly I had to put the last one down on Monday and now my office feels empty and lifeless. I'd wait a bit and get a kitten but having lost both cats inside a year frankly it hurts too much and they don't live long enough.

Sorry for your loss.
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