Below are a couple of pages I created or updated during the last three months (see all updates in the Change log). I know one click away is sometimes too far so I include excerpts from the notes below.
Epistemology
Alas, belief is easier than disbelief; we believe instinctively, but disbelief requires a conscious effort. So instead, by dint of mighty straining, I forced my model of reality to explain an anomaly that never actually happened. And I knew how embarrassing this was. I knew that the usefulness of a model is not what it can explain, but what it can’t. A hypothesis that forbids nothing, permits everything, and thereby fails to constrain anticipation.Your strength as a rationalist is your ability to be more confused by fiction than by reality. If you are equally good at explaining any outcome, you have zero knowledge.
– Eliezer Youdkowsky from Your Strength as a Rationalist
Questions
My fav questions: What is your top-idea of your mind?
This could be answered with A) What solution, or definition you are anxious to bring to the world? Or B) What is under-valued or under-discussed? What problems your mind goes to automatically to explore? What overlapping concepts or intersections of disciplines do you think about? What should we start thinking more about or what should we start doing more of?
My fav Askhole questions:
Have you ever had (what you consider to be) a spiritual experience? If so, what was it like and what effects did it have on you?
If you could have one but not the other, would you rather love someone or be loved by someone?
What unusual trait do you find most attractive in a romantic partner?
Which life lessons that you’ve learned would be most important for the people in this room to hear?
Of all the beliefs you hold, which is most likely to be considered barbaric in 150 years?
In what ways do you tend to fail at communication?
If you could press a button that would instantly erase every single false belief you have, would you do it?
Have you been loved enough?
Death
Why do we fear death? You’re essentially dead every night during sleep, same thing if you’re under anesthesia, so why do we fear death so much? – Naval Ravikant
What's "small stuff?". Roughly, work that has zero chance of being mentioned in your obituary – Paul Graham
The longest-lived and those who will die soonest lose the same thing. The present is all that they can give up, since that is all you have, and what you do not have, you cannot lose. – Marcus Aurelius
Death is our friend precisely because it brings us into absolute and passionate presence with all that is here, that is natural, that is love. – Rainer Maria Rilke
Writing
Quotes
When you write you complete your ideas. If you don’t write at all you don’t even realize you have incomplete ideas. You have an illusion that all of your ideas are complete.
– Paul Graham from Putting Ideas into words
Writers recognize in much higher resolution that there is a difference in how they think about certain subjects before and after writing. Non-writers don’t even realize this delta exists
Use the first word that comes to your mind
– Stephen King
This one feels important because every word in the sentence can be substituted with any other. I could have written: this one feels meaningful, significant, crucial, vital, consequential, pivotal, etc. Each of these words has a different meaning network, and connects to slightly different contexts. An animal inside you does a roughly good job picking the right words. And when writing, it needs to pick a couple of words every second. If you don’t trust the first word that comes to mind, you can only overthink it and become a victim of distortions, rationalizations, and false aspirations.
Learn how to ruthlessly edit out
– Michael Schur describes process of creating Saturday Night Live sketches on Tim Ferriss Show
Writing warm-up
When I write I focus on not stopping writing. What helps me to do it well is a writing warm-up. I heard this from A. J. Jacobs . on Tim Ferriss's Podcast. He said that the writing process is very hard for most writers. And he admitted that it can be also very painful for him. He is a pro writer, an editor of Esquire, a publisher of many widely read books.
The writing warm-up is simply putting a timer on (I do it from 10–60 min) with the only goal of not stopping writing. During this time I usually process emotions, speculate on things, sketch first drafts, or describe how the present moment feels. I think what happens during this time is my mind slowly getting used to the mode of writing – a process of thoughts being translated into words. Maybe the transitory period is needed as writing has a peculiar rhythm. It needs to tap into some specific mind abilities. (People may need to slow down, be more precise with the words, browse words for more precise ones etc.)
I highly recommend it. It feels a lot less effortful to write later on. I actually took this idea further. Probably a majority of writers struggle with writer’s block. I want all my writing to be as dynamic as describing an idea to a friend. I don't want to overthink how to describe a thing. I want just to keep trying. I also use this method when editing. Whenever I think a sentence or paragraph is off I hit enter and mark it with "\" and then rewrite it again and again until it feels right.
TLDR: Guessing the Teacher's Password
by Eliezer Yudkowsky
TLDR
The way knowledge is often tought at school is through memorizing and guessing correct answers AKA teacher’s “passwords”. In school teachers hands you a gold star for saying the answers that teacher heard a physicist emit. It leaves people with the impression that they have knowledge but what they mostly have are memorized words.
Real learning is about finding knowledge that controls anticipation. The key skill is about being aware of the difference between an explanation and a password.
And a little deeper with some quotes:
What remains is not a belief, but a verbal behavior.
Explaining the guessing password process:
Suppose the teacher asks you why the far side of a metal plate feels warmer than the side next to the radiator. If you say “I don’t know,” you have no chance of getting a gold star—it won’t even count as class participation. But, during the current semester, this teacher has used the phrases “because of heat convection,” “because of heat conduction,” and “because of radiant heat.” One of these is probably what the teacher wants. You say, “Eh, maybe because of heat conduction?” This is not a hypothesis about the metal plate. This is not even a proper belief. It is an attempt to guess the teacher’s password.
Knowledge should be about controlling what you anticipate:
Part of unlearning this bad habit is becoming consciously aware of the difference between an explanation and a password.
Even visualizing the symbols of the diffusion equation (the math governing heat conduction) doesn’t mean you’ve formed a hypothesis about the metal plate. This is not school; we are not testing your memory to see if you can write down the diffusion equation. This is Bayescraft; we are scoring your anticipations of experience. If you use the diffusion equation, by measuring a few points with a thermometer and then trying to predict what the thermometer will say on the next measurement, then it is definitely connected to experience. Even if the student just visualizes something flowing, and therefore holds a match near the cooler side of the plate to try to measure where the heat goes, then this mental image of flowing-ness connects to experience; it controls anticipation. If you aren’t using the diffusion equation—putting in numbers and getting out results that control your anticipation of particular experiences—then the connection between map and territory is severed as though by a knife. What remains is not a belief, but a verbal behavior.
Maybe, if we drill students that words don’t count, only anticipation-controllers, the student will not get stuck on “Heat conduction? No? Maybe heat convection? That’s not it either?”
Read Eliezer Yudkowsky’s article
pogU