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We can’t circumvent the work needed to train our minds

zettelkasten.de

121–130 of 188 posts

Re: We can’t circumvent the work needed to train our minds

#121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are asking random people, then your approach is incorrect. You should be asking the domain experts. Not gonna ask my wife about video games. Not gonna ask my dad about computer programming. There, I've shaved a ton of the spread off of your argument. Possibly enough to moot the value of the AI, depending on the domain.

This all assumes you have experts that you can talk to. But they might be difficult to find or expensive to hire. You wouldn't want to waste your lawyer's time on trivia.

That is why experts often publish books and articles, which is then corrected by other experts (or random people if it’s a typo). I’ve read a lot of books and I haven’t met any of their authors. But I’ve still learned stuff.

Re: We can’t circumvent the work needed to train our minds

#122

> You have to remember EVERYTHING. Only then you can perform the cognitive tasks necessary to perform meaningful knowledge work. You don't have to remember everything. You have to remember enough entry points and the shape of what follows, trained through experience and going through the process of thinking and writing, to reason your way through meaningful knowledge work.

Just to be clear, are you saying that to know something:

1- You may remember only the initial state and the brain does the rest, like with mnemonics

2- You may remember only the initial steps towards a solution, like knowing the assumptions and one or two insights to a mathematical proof?

I'd say a Zettlekasten user would agree with you if you mean 1

Re: We can’t circumvent the work needed to train our minds

#123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are asking random people, then your approach is incorrect. You should be asking the domain experts. Not gonna ask my wife about video games. Not gonna ask my dad about computer programming. There, I've shaved a ton of the spread off of your argument. Possibly enough to moot the value of the AI, depending on the domain.

Before the internet, I didn't have the phone number of domain experts to just call and ask these questions. perhaps you did. For a lot of us, it was an entirely foreign experience to have domain experts at your finger tips.

Didn’t you have books? And teachers?

Re: We can’t circumvent the work needed to train our minds

#124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Feynman wasn't a neurobiologist. I'd read Spontaneous Brain by Northoff (Copernican, irreducible neuroscience) or oscillatory neurobiology Buzsaki. The brain is lossless. I would agree that external forms of memory are evolutionarily progressive, that ability to utilize the external forms requires a lossless relationship. Once we grasp the infinitely inferior external of arbitrariness (symbols words) are correlated t…

Popsci books tend to be horseshit. Reading one does not make YOU a neurobiologist.

They're not popsci books. I'm a co-lead developer on a project with neurobio consultants, so I better know wtf they're talking about.

Re: We can’t circumvent the work needed to train our minds

#125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Feynman wasn't a neurobiologist. I'd read Spontaneous Brain by Northoff (Copernican, irreducible neuroscience) or oscillatory neurobiology Buzsaki. The brain is lossless. I would agree that external forms of memory are evolutionarily progressive, that ability to utilize the external forms requires a lossless relationship. Once we grasp the infinitely inferior external of arbitrariness (symbols words) are correlated t…

"The brain is lossless." Nothing is lossless.

Fourier transforms are lossless. If it entered the oscillations of senses, it's still there in your brain. You may never need it, but every action is detailed by difference.

Re: We can’t circumvent the work needed to train our minds

#126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But taking notes and writing ideas out requires that we think them through...which we usually don't do otherwise. This has been a commonplace of the intellectual life for centuries.

Words and thoughts are wholly separate. Notes aren't the direct results of perception, they are more like sportscasters reading the mind of pitchers. Notes point to thoughts or observations, they aren't the thoughts themselves. “We refute (based on empirical evidence) claims that humans use linguistic representations to think.” Ev Fedorenko Language Lab MIT 2024

I did not say that my brain uses linguistic representations internally when I think; I said that the process of turning my ideas into words helps me think.

Re: We can’t circumvent the work needed to train our minds

#127
post #80

I am either too stupid or too lazy to remember everything. Or my version of ADHD specifically restricts my ability to remember things, or to have sufficient energy to engage daily with the process needed to memorize information (e.g. build and review anki decks). I gave up on Anki. I abandoned org-roam and switched to trillium with very simple summaries of hand written notes. I don't summarize articles I read, I simp…

People should just stop worrying about their Anki backlog. The truth is, every little bit you do helps, even just one card a day. That "backlog" is just telling you that you are falling short of perfection wrt. keeping the whole content of your deck securely memorized. You'll still be able to recall the bulk of it as long as you keep a reasonable routine.

Re: We can’t circumvent the work needed to train our minds

#128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Words and thoughts are wholly separate. Notes aren't the direct results of perception, they are more like sportscasters reading the mind of pitchers. Notes point to thoughts or observations, they aren't the thoughts themselves. “We refute (based on empirical evidence) claims that humans use linguistic representations to think.” Ev Fedorenko Language Lab MIT 2024

I did not say that my brain uses linguistic representations internally when I think; I said that the process of turning my ideas into words helps me think.

Actually you said "writing ideas out requires that we think them through" and this isn't what's happening in brains. In actuality, words interfere with our ability to think.

Re: We can’t circumvent the work needed to train our minds

#129

> Rowlands et al. wrote about the so called “digital natives” that they lack the critical and analytical thinking skills to evaluate the information they find on the internet. This doesn't match the cultural shift in the last 20 years. A generation of people grew up with chat rooms and immediately discovered the ability to misrepresent oneself on the internet. "On the internet, no one knows you're a dog", as they say…

> That has to be attributed to the newer generations. They are more skeptical of propaganda than ever before. To them, the high production value media outlets are just a quaint legacy variety of content slop.

Right. The skeptical newer generation knows better. It's the generation that is immune to influence. They're so resistant to it that they've finally driven advertisers to realize that spamming YouTube, IG, TikTok, with ads peddling some new hype every week is pointless.

Sarcasm aside, the newer generation, in any generation, is always as naive as they're said to be. You're not born with wisdom and your parents can't save you from the candle fire, no matter how much they try. Sooner or later, you'll have to burn that finger to learn. Life is an experience game. No way around it.

Re: We can’t circumvent the work needed to train our minds

#130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The brain is lossless." Nothing is lossless.

Fourier transforms are lossless. If it entered the oscillations of senses, it's still there in your brain. You may never need it, but every action is detailed by difference.

Math is models, not reality
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