For a comparison to make sense — it has to be meaningful Otherwise it’s meaningless, obviously When it’s meaningless — it’s rather useless, or at very least misleading What is better? Cats or washing machines? Green or furry? Rich vs sunny? Having tail or having little debt? Like is this meaningful? Obviously it’s …
Tag: Understanding
The Way You’re Wrong Reveals Your Truth-Seeking Process
Falsification gets us closer to knowledge than corroborating evidence. We know more about others through their failures and flaws than through their virtues and accomplishments (all that is old) Likewise the way someone is WRONG is often more philosophically, epistemically interesting — than the way they are right You can be right, or rather, …
The Modalities Of Understanding, And The Trap Of Borrowed Comprehension
You can read or hear something, Let’s assume that thing to be true, or useful Now there’s a number of things that can happen One option is that you DON’T UNDERSTAND it At which point — you can either be aware of this failure of comprehension, OR NOT The latter is of course …
Contrarianism Is Downstream From Being Right
Are you a contrarian? Or just a fool? The question to ask is: Are you MORE OFTEN RIGHT than others? If not — then you’re just a fool, aren’t you? Of course there’s the question of payoff Maybe your scepticism makes you unduly reject prevailing wisdom sometimes, And maybe it makes you susceptible …
The Software and Hardware of Mind
There’s a computational theory of mind Maybe it’s right maybe it’s wrong It’s cute, philosophically But isn’t it profound practically? Your results are downstream from your actions, which are downstream from your mind Isn’t your mind quite like a computer? We speculated about our nature since time immemorial But aren’t computers some of …
There Are No Gurus — Only Experts
There are no gurus Only experts We distrust experts Because experts are sometimes wrong, or corrupted What a joke It’s like distrusting air because sometimes it smells Doesn’t mean you should stop breathing Experts are still the best we have By definition, that’s what expert is — the most qualified, educated, capable person …
Sincere Care vs Sincere Learned-Care vs Insincere Care
You look at a thing / person / idea / phenomenon, and you CARE, or DON’T care You can choose to CARE in which case you will provide that thing with more attention, more effort in your actions, more thoughtfulness and respect in how you consider that thing, and it can result in some …
Always Run Top-Down And Bottom-Up
Top-down is a plan of how the WHOLE is going to work Bottom-up is how you intend to EXECUTE various subparts By nature top subsumes the bottom, but it’s only at the bottom that you explore it in all practical nuance (i.e. literally execute). And only once you executed the constituent parts — do …
Object Thinking vs RELATIONAL Thinking
We tend to consider reality in terms of FIXED OBJECTS, ENTITIES, E.g. dog, tree, you, me, Scotsman, Russia, etc. This of course runs into multiple problems, Entity you assume to be fixed — often eludes fixed boundaries, Which poisons your reasoning with category errors, E.g. judging entire race by the behaviour of some of …
Broad, then Depth, then OPPORTUNISM
-Let’s define broad as “the whole” -Let’s define narrow as the smallest division -Let’s consider “normal” breadth as the kind of breadth of subject matters that most people engage -Let’s consider “normal” narrow as the kind of focus that most people achieve in their single career First let’s acknowledge that those two are not …