Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How You Know

paulgraham.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 276 posts

Re: How You Know

#21

Post by debacle »

larrys wrote: post #17
debacle wrote: post #4

I don't like the flavor of this post. It feels very much like navel-gazing and, if it wasn't for the domain name, it likely would have been lost to /newest. Where is the knowledge here? That we don't have immediate recollection of retained information? Knowledge is based on a beginning and ending context.

Which makes me think of a saying. One that I remember. "Sophia Loren without a nose is not Sophia Loren". Here's another one "if my grandmother had balls she'd be my grandfather". The point is PG wrote it so just like if anyone of note wrote it it would be more of interest than the same thought from anyone else. After all these are analog thoughts and subjective this isn't science.

When a renowned writer writes something weak, it doesn't give credence to the piece, it takes credence from the writer.

Re: How You Know

#22

Post by chris_j »

applecore wrote: post #16

It's deeply heartwarming to see another “OG” PG essay enter the canon. (Obscure reference to historical French prose in the introductory sentence? Check!)

What is meant by "OG" in this context?

Re: How You Know

#23

Post by chubot »

agentultra wrote: post #9

> Your mind is like a compiled program you've lost the source of. Hence the important art of keeping a journal. You can keep a transaction log of changes. The act of replaying the journal allows you to identify patterns in your thought processes and identify cognitive dissonances. The very act of reading should induce a reactive compulsion to write. As Burroughs taught in his later creative writing courses -- in orde…

I'm definitely a fan of taking notes on things you've read (among other things, the effort to write notes makes you choose what you read more carefully). And I agree that it will help you remember the sources for various ideas.

But I think a journal is the wrong model (i.e. time ordered entries, either electronic or paper). I have used a paper notebook in the past, but I would rarely go back and look at things, and it's not searchable, and paper is not editable.

For the last 10+ years, I've used a Wiki. Hyperlinks are huge. They really do model the associations your brain already makes. I have wiki pages that are 10 years old and that still grow new associations. I think it takes a big load off your brain to have all that stuff written down, and searchable with ease. (I had to write my own Wiki to get it fast enough though.)

Re: How You Know

#24

Post by ctchocula »

I really enjoyed Paul's compilation analogy. It reminds me of a quote by Robertson Davies. "A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity and once more in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon and by moonlight."

It also reminds me of that MIT paper that gives advice on how to do research. The part it talks about why it is that when your colleague gives you a paper to read and says it's particularly poignant, but when you read it it doesn't seem like anything special. Maybe it's because your colleague had the dependencies in his state of mind that you did not have in yours, so it didn't seem as memorable to you as to him when the code compiled.

Re: How You Know

#25

Post by bcbrown »

A few years ago I started an annual tradition, where around the new year I'll re-read the Pragmatic Programmer. This year will be the third year, and I expect I'll continue to gain new insights from future rereadings.

Re: How You Know

#26

Post by vanadium »

sinak wrote: post #7

If you haven't seen it, S01E03 of Black Mirror, The Entire History of You , deals exactly with what PG describes at the end of this post: technology that lets you review and relive your past. It's very much worth watching, and was recently added to Netflix's library: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2089050/ http://www.netflix.com/WiPlayer?movieid=70264856&trkid=33258...

Without seeing your comment I made the same recommendation to one of my lead devs a few minutes ago with the same segue, having also recommended this article.

Fantastic episode.

Re: How You Know

#27

Post by lmkg »

sbensu wrote: post #13

I experienced this phenomenon starkly when I started a book, and felt it was filled with obvious remarks and little novelty. It took me 50 pages to realize I had already read it.

This is the primary downside of reading without a bookmark. Any book I've read on public transportation, I would guess on average each page gets read about twice (with some chapter intros reaching double-digits). It's hard to figure out if it's really something you've read before, or if it's just a very logical continuation of what you read yesterday.

I also feel obligated to one-up you. One time in high school English class, the teacher put a sample student essay up on the projector and picked it apart in front of the class. It took me half an hour to realize that I had written the essay in question, and by that point I had concluded that I did not completely agree with it. I learned something that day about writing.

Re: How You Know

#28

Post by kiyoto »

This theory explains why many smart people also read a lot. Not necessarily books or even any body of text, but reading as a generic behavior to find meanings in various objects and events in life (Books, I feel, is just one of the easiest things to read). Because they read a lot, they have broader and deeper mental models, which they use to model new/different things/events well.

Also, in my experience, what sets the smartest people apart from "just" smart people is their ability to retain the how: not only do they have broad and deep models, but they also know how these models are built and can adapt them quickly as they acquire new information.

Most people need to run a disassembler of their compiled thoughts, and after a certain point in life, their binaries are so bloated that they can't decompile them at all.

Re: How You Know

#29

Post by mempko »

So apparently the metaphor that our brains are computers is still used? And that they "compile" experiences (though we don't understand how).

What if our brains are not easily shaped? And maybe our brains are good at forgetting experiences?

Re: How You Know

#30

Post by lifeisstillgood »

I strongly advise pg to go find a DVD of Black Mirror a horribly under-rated TV series from the excellent Charlie Brooker - the one on replaying ones memories suggests just reading will be a lot less troublesome !

I do suspect we will be less likely to record our lives for later playback than have them analysed at or near the time for feedback on how to improve. Twitch TV is (I am told) full of streams of top rated people playing WoW and commenting on their actions (so others can learn, or be entertained). It's probable that there are shows now or soon that have players commentating on other players streams, and a fairly short leap from that to commenting on videos of me training my dog, or performing reps or basically anything in the life coach / therapy repertoire.

Audio and visual analysis already allows therapists to zoom in on the important parts of observed patients (certainly in sleep therapy) and will only get better.

Whilst the unexamined life is not worth living, there is no reason you have to be the only examiner. We shall all have our own life long therapists.

Post reply on HN