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How You Know

paulgraham.com

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Re: How You Know

#61

Post by smeyer »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #30

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 p…

>go find a DVD of Black Mirror

It also recently made it to Netflix. I've been hearing about it all over among my friends the last few days as they've been watching it there (and watched the first couple of episodes myself.)

Re: How You Know

#62

Post by poppup »

not_that_noob wrote: post #46
nilkn wrote: post #10

There'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.

Perhaps this is the function of conflict (ideally nonviolent and hopefully led by smart people), to speed up the process of change by injecting humanity's shared model(s) with new ideas. When older models become problematic, people have a duty to overturn them, toppling them like tables outside a synagogue.

"The extent of and continuing increase in inequality in the United States greatly concerns me. … It is no secret that the past few decades of widening inequality can be summed up as significant income and wealth gains for those at the very top and stagnant living standards for the majority. I think it is appropriate to ask whether this trend is compatible with values rooted in our nation’s history, among them the high value Americans have traditionally placed on equality of opportunity." Janet Yellen

Re: How You Know

#63

Post by hcarvalhoalves »

d0m wrote: post #50

> 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.

Probably because we hit a threshold where dealing with mutability started to get unmanageable.

Another area of interest is "microservices", for the same reason.

Re: How You Know

#64

Post by amatix »

nilkn wrote: post #10

There'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…

An article by Ted Chiang: The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling -- talks about some of these issues from a couple of different & interesting perspectives which I found really intriguing. One of which being a thought exercise about what it would mean to have the ability to accurately replay everything we'd ever seen or done. And how two people who went through the same experiences can come out with vastly different memories and interpretations. It's a good read :)

http://subterraneanpress.com/magazine/fall_2013/the_truth_of...

Re: How You Know

#65

Post by ojbyrne »

worklogin wrote: post #51
ojbyrne wrote: post #33

I hate this: "What use is it to read all these books if I remember so little from them?" Because reading is enjoyable?

Did you read the article? There are multiple reasons for reading, and though many of them feed into enjoyment, it's not always the end.

I did read it, and found it trite and obvious. My problems with it were essentially summarized by the particular sentence I quoted.

Re: How You Know

#66

Post by irln »

> 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 be the reason we're still around.

Re: How You Know

#67

Post by pacalleri »

While I was reading came to my mind the Borges's short story "Funes the memorious". It's about someone who can't forget any detail. He remembers absolutely all the things and the infinite instances of them through the time. At some point of the story Borges conjectures: "I suspect, nevertheless, that he was not very capable of thought. To think is to forget the difference, to generalize, to abstract. In the overly replete world of Funes there were nothing but details, almost contiguous details."

Re: How You Know

#68

Post by Kluny »

bcbrown wrote: post #25

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.

How long does it take you to get through it? I struggle with reading non-fiction books, and gave up at around 100 pages in last time I tried it. Sucks, cause I've heard that it's one of the more readable books go, in terms of programming manuals.

Re: How You Know

#70

Post by agentultra »

sbensu wrote: post #47
agentultra wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A good article on the importance of fiction from a scientifically validated point of view: http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2012/04/28/why-fiction-good... Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury L'Etranger - Albert Camus Frankenstein - Mary Shelley Metamorphosis - Ovid Oryx and Crake - Margaret Atwood The Picadilly Papers - Charles Dickens Permutation City - Greg Egan Fiction allows us to experience the most intimate thoughts…

I agree that good fiction book can be an eye opener. I'll give the ones from you list I haven't read a try. By non-fiction I didn't only mean science but also historic novels and biographies. I find they come with connections and lessons that no human could have come up with.

Try the Penguin Classics hardcovers. Frankenstein for example[0] includes an amazing abridged version based on the original manuscript and later revised editions as well as a very engaging historical account of the author's life, times, and influences when she wrote it. These are also important things to understand about a story as well and can give deeper insights into its inner structure.

[0]http://www.penguin.com/book/frankenstein-by-mary-shelley/978...

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