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How You Know
91–100 of 276 posts
Re: How You Know
#92This comment will run the risk of sounding condescending, but I believe it's true so I'm going to post it anyway.
Thought processes like the ones captured in pg's post are fostered by education in critical analysis--the sort of analysis that one learns in the humanities. Art, literature, philosophy, history, etc. are the products of human thought, and learning to critique them is in part an exploration of how humans think. Not the physics or neurology, but how influences can shape each person's mental model.
Part of this is exploring the influences that affected the mental model of the person writing or creating the art. Another is exploring the mental model(s) that the artist or writer sought to create. (This is what we experience when we "get into" a book.)
So, if you're looking for a reason that CS or engineering students should take humanities courses, I think one is illustrated in this post: it teaches you how to read books consciously. It gives you a framework for exploring how the thoughts of others (and therefore yours as well) are influenced and shaped by the information that is consumed during a lifetime.
Re: How You Know
#93If 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...
I just watched the whole series, and I wanted to go ahead and recommend that everyone watch more than that single episode (although I think it's one of the strongest). It's only 6 episodes total (each season has 3 episodes). I think this audience would especially like the series: 'Black Mirror is a British television anthology series created by Charlie Brooker that shows the dark side of life and technology. Brooker…
There's a new episode being broadcast tomorrow evening in the UK.
Re: How You Know
#94There's also a danger associated to this phenomenon. If the source of your mental model is later debunked, you may not realize that you need to revise your model precisely because you don't remember what your source was. You may even read about the debunking of the source but fail to draw the connection and realize the implications that it has for your own view of the world. I think that perhaps very squishy subjects…
In practice, people rarely if ever revise their mental model as the world around them changes. Which is why a younger generation without this baggage inevitably rises to supplant the older one.
There is something to what you say, unfortunately. Here's an interesting article from the New Yorker about it.
http://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/i-dont-want...
Re: How You Know
#95This essay reminds me of a NY Times essay:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/19/books/review/Collins-t.htm...
Interestingly, if shown a series of hundreds of images, we wouldn't remember many in the list. But if we're shown alternates (was it a goldfish or a watch?), we would instantly recognize the item.
We didn't forget, we just couldn't access the memory on demand. The conclusion is the same: it's there, influencing us and adding to our lives, even if it doesn't feel like it sometimes.
Re: How You Know
#96I have an interesting take on this. Most of the books I've read, I have a copy of. A while back, I endeavored to cut, scan and OCR them all into my computer. One idea was then I could do a full-text search, limited to what I've already read rather than what google thinks is relevant.
So far, I've found it very handy to find something if I at least remember which book it was in. But I need a program that can extract the OCR'd text from .pdf files - anyone know of a simple one?
(I can do it manually, one at a time, by bringing it up in a pdf reader, but that's too tedious and slow.)
Re: How You Know
#97There's also a danger associated to this phenomenon. If the source of your mental model is later debunked, you may not realize that you need to revise your model precisely because you don't remember what your source was. You may even read about the debunking of the source but fail to draw the connection and realize the implications that it has for your own view of the world. I think that perhaps very squishy subjects…
Great point - a possible explanation for a wide range of phenomenologically bizarre viewpoints (e.g.: anti-vaccers, birthers, chem-trails, creationists, etc.)
Most of your examples are social membership tests. You have to publicly say "XYZ" to join the club, where "XYZ" doesn't necessarily mean anything, but joining the club does. Like saying Abracadabra to open a door.
(Spoiler alert don't read till the 26th)
Do you believe in Santa? I believe in Santa. Oh how nice you also believe in Santa. Aren't we all happy members of our club? It would be so antisocial for someone to say Santa doesn't exist, because then how would we tell who is in our club? This is the best club ever. Santa? Who's that? We just talk about him to pledge allegiance to each other, we don't actually care about fat dudes in red suits.
Re: How You Know
#98> Intriguingly, this implication isn't limited to books. We can see it clearly with the functional paradigm renaissance right now. The same arguments already existed 40 years ago, but _something_ changed recently where the perception of some people toward functional paradigm completely changed.
Perhaps because OOP was the big thing for so long, younger people learned on OOP. Those arguments from 40 years ago were either not taught or not emphasized. As a result, functional seems fresh and interesting. Throw in a few problems that become trivial with it and people get very excited and it becomes the "new thing".
Re: How You Know
#99There's also a danger associated to this phenomenon. If the source of your mental model is later debunked, you may not realize that you need to revise your model precisely because you don't remember what your source was. You may even read about the debunking of the source but fail to draw the connection and realize the implications that it has for your own view of the world. I think that perhaps very squishy subjects…
"I think that perhaps very squishy subjects like politics are particularly vulnerable to this sort of disconnect, where a complex viewpoint is formed based on the hot topic of the day, and this viewpoint persists for years or decades even if the basis for its formation is completely forgotten."
Not only disconnect: What I've read of psychological studies indicate the mind amplifies those facts that support it's current model of the world and actively ignores those that do not.
Which goes a long way to explain why it's nearly pointless to argue with fanatics of one kind or another.
Re: How You Know
#100> 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 i…
I only recently started taking notes in my own books and already see the flaws with doing so. I like that you approached the problem with a more direct solution.
I wonder about future technology when PG says "Eventually we may be able not just to play back experiences but also to index and even edit them." I also wonder about the iterations between now and then.
What do you think could be an intermediate step (company idea) between your wiki and something like a searchable memory catalog that would do what PG describes?