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How You Know

paulgraham.com

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Re: How You Know

#261

Post by whattimeisitnow »

irln wrote: post #66

> Eventually we may be able not just to play back experiences but also to index and even edit them. Like most things this may have unintended consequences. I think our ability to forget is an important "feature" of cognition. What would happen if we were unable to forget even petty squabbles between friends, loved ones, supposed enemies? How far could this escalate? Our ability to forget and put things behind us may…

I'm not an expert but I'm pretty sure it's quite important. Autistics I believe have lost some of this filtering (forgetting).. non-autistics like probably you and I capture our environment photographically but ditch the things our brain thinks is unimportant

Re: How You Know

#262

Post by kaybe »

mirchiseth wrote: post #162
scobar wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The same book would get compiled differently at different points in your life. Which means it is very much worth reading important books multiple times." For me, this quote was the most powerful. I strongly and immediately agreed, yet I hadn't consciously considered the idea before. I now ask myself the question, "Which ones were the important books?" Some seem obvious, but I may have a deeply rooted worldview estab…

One way to better internalize information/concepts for me has been reading a lot of books on the same topic. For example at different times in my life I have been interested in Finance, Behavioral Finance, Stoic Philosophy, GISes etc.I typically read about 4-5 books on the same topic and it helps me internalize the concepts better.

Not just the concepts, it's also great to learn and keep the language specific to the topic. (Especially as a non-first-language speaker.)

Re: How You Know

#263

Post by Dragonai »

normloman wrote: post #260

I will never understand why this guy's essays are so revered. I'm expecting some profound conclusion, but the only message of the essay is "reading and experience form mental models." Well, duh! Whats worse, he doesn't support his claims with evidence, besides a single anecdote. Am I missing something here?

Well, Paul's essays aren't all meant to be mind-shatteringly revolutionary. He simply likes to share his thoughts and advice on a wide range of subjects that have helped shape who he is and what he knows, and the general public respects both him and his essays because a.) he's got the credibility to back them up, and b.) because it shows in his work and in his writing.

I personally think this essay is some pretty nice food for thought.

Re: How You Know

#264

Post by agentultra »

chubot wrote: post #238
agentultra wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plain-text and a file system? See emacs' org-mode. It has many of the features parent listed. update I'd even add perhaps the solution is really to take the best ideas out of org-mode and give it a platform-integrated UI. It does basically what everyone here has been asking for and more... it's just buried in Emacs which is definitely not for everyone. Document sharing across devices is easy if you're comfortable sha…

Yeah, for a long time my wiki based file system based, and the markup is plain text, so you can read it without any software. (I've since switched to sqlite for query flexibility.) I hear about org mode a lot when I talk about the Wiki, but I'm not an emacs user so it's not as appealing to me. Can org mode export HTML? At least for reading, plain HTML is the format that works best across all devices, and gives fast a…

It can export to HTML, PDF via LaTeX, and a couple of others.

Emacs is definitely not the best editor for everyone. It's a shame that org-mode is sort of a secret weapon of Emacs. It's such a great package that I think it could stand on its own.

Re: How You Know

#265

Post by gdulli »

larrys wrote: post #11

"What use is it to read all these books if I remember so little from them?" Well for one things it gives you pleasure. You could also say "what's the point of listening to music" or "what's the point of watching comedy". Other than pleasure, as a generality, you might read because it makes you feel good to do so. I find that a key to good mental health (that works for me) is not to question what harmless things make…

He wasn't actually questioning the value of reading. That question was only a rhetorical device that led into his main point. It was put there as a straw man to start the process of disproving that there's no value to reading if you don't remember details. And that it's unnecessary to lament not remembering details.

Re: How You Know

#266

Post by normloman »

Dragonai wrote: post #263
normloman wrote: post #260

I will never understand why this guy's essays are so revered. I'm expecting some profound conclusion, but the only message of the essay is "reading and experience form mental models." Well, duh! Whats worse, he doesn't support his claims with evidence, besides a single anecdote. Am I missing something here?

Well, Paul's essays aren't all meant to be mind-shatteringly revolutionary. He simply likes to share his thoughts and advice on a wide range of subjects that have helped shape who he is and what he knows, and the general public respects both him and his essays because a.) he's got the credibility to back them up, and b.) because it shows in his work and in his writing. I personally think this essay is some pretty nic…

I have a problem with sharing every thought that pops in your head. If you don't have something new to contribute to the discussion, why add to the noise?

As for "food for thought," have you really never thought about how reading and experience shape your beliefs? I thought this was pretty basic stuff. Maybe I'm wrong.

Re: How You Know

#267

Post by tim333 »

kbart wrote: post #255
aswanson wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what makes so many people getting "breaking" sensational headlines from partisan blogs so dangerous. It becomes calcified reality for the vast majority of people; most folk are not hygenic with their belief structures. I actively seek disconfirmation of my beliefs, but most people seek reinforcement only.

That's one of the core principles of how propaganda works. And Russians are currently utilizing it perfectly.

The Russians are utilizing it alright. However glancing at todays headlines eg. "Russian rouble in free-fall despite shock 17% rate rise" I'm not sure how well that's working out for them.

Re: How You Know

#268

Post by bentcorner »

noonespecial wrote: post #183
arjunnarayan wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an important corollary of Paul's essay that I wish he mentioned. Sometimes when you update your model of the world significantly, you still have a cache of previously computed facts that were computed using the old model. You have to clear out that cache and recompute with the new model, and that takes a significant amount of time. Often, rereading is a core part of that, since it forces you to revisit a lot…

Worse still many of these are formed in childhood from large misunderstandings. I'm constantly finding myself "closing out" old bogus lines of thought decades old.

I've argued with grown adults about childhood facts learned in error. It's frustrating, although I'm certain I have beliefs of my own that are still incorrect.

Re: How You Know

#269

Post by thoughtpalette »

ejstembler wrote: post #130

Having read Carl Sagan's Cosmos in my youth, I always feel guilty re-reading a book: “If I finish a book a week, I will read only a few thousand books in my lifetime, about a tenth of a percent of the contents of the greatest libraries of our time. The trick is to know which books to read.” ― Carl Sagan, Cosmos

Kind of a tangent but I love this quote of his.

"A book is made from a tree. It is an assemblage of flat, flexible parts (still called 'leaves') imprinted with dark pigmented squiggles. One glance at it and you hear the voice of another person - perhaps someone dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, the author is speaking, clearly and silently, inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people, citizens of distant epochs, who never knew one another. Books break the shackles of time, proof that humans can work magic."

Re: How You Know

#270

Post by Gostport »

DustinCalim wrote: post #209
jayro wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep! How facts backfire - Researchers discover a surprising threat to democracy: our brains "In a series of studies in 2005 and 2006, researchers at the University of Michigan found that when misinformed people, particularly political partisans, were exposed to corrected facts in news stories, they rarely changed their minds. In fact, they often became even more strongly set in their beliefs. Facts, they found, were…

This is the commitment and consistency effect. The extreme cases can be found in cults where followers cling tighter to their beliefs once exposed. A great example are the followers of Harold Camping, the Christian radio broadcaster who predicted the end of the world a few years ago, and kept re-predicting when it never came. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Camping

But to complete the Camping story, and validate your argument (you still believe only the original, not the recant); Camping stopped after 2 failed dates, re-read his source material, and stated that he no longer believed that anyone could predict the end of the world. (Source: Netflix documentary on Camping)
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