Write about your work to improve thinking here.
Making at least 2 predictions per day via FateBook.io. This is a great way to get calibrated over time, like p(Getting to next stage of job application), p(Successfully meditate for 15 mins every morning this week)
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John Boyd absolutely rules. This has been a super generative project so far, and has involved a huge amount of rabbit-holing via Gemini Deep Research. Frans Osinga's book on John Boyd is incredible because it includes 2 chapters about the scientific Zeitgeist that he was immersed in, so I've now got a grasp of the key events of the 60s to 90s, it rules.
For example, reductionism being replaced by the organismic revolution. Karl Popper and Thomas Kuhn, the epistemological revolution. Tacit knowledge from Polanyi. Chaos and complexity theory. Complex adaptive systems. Cybernetics. The cognitive revolution! So much cool stuff.
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I grew up in a non-intellectual household. At "A Level" (ages 16-17), I did Biology, Chemistry, English Literature and Psychology. I then did a Biomedical Sciences undergrad, and a Bioengineering Master's degree. All this to say, it's recently become really salient to me how shoddy my world model is. History, philosophy, economics, politiics... international relations, etc. The great news is that I'm very good at learning, and AI tools like deep research + Speechify mean that it's never been easier to absolutely devour information. Because my god is there a lot to consume!! I see many flashcards in my future (and I'm excited!!!)
Currently looks like learning about Microeconomics & Macroeconomics
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I love you John Vervaeke. Absolutely wild that he made a 50 hour lecture series on youtube that covers so much ground. I love that a serious cognitive scientist has created a resource that also delves deeply into philosophy, religion, buddhism, history, meditation, cognitive processes, it's such an incredible body of work.
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I've deprioritised this for the time being, but I have a strong sense that Heidegger is the perfect philosopher for the current age. Thinking about how we've kind of turned ourselves into technology. Countering the Decartian (Cartesian?) notion of us being our thoughts, countering with instead the idea that we are fundementally "in the world" first and foremost (I am, therefore I think). Our thrownness, existential anxiety due to not being the basis of our own existence, interpreation and meaning-making as the core mode of being, embodied and extended cognition, etc. Really excited to dive deeper.
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I use the Feedly RSS reader → took me maybe an hour to move away from Substack, but my god does it feel good to have a Feedly inbox rather than having Substacks hitting my email inbox. I subscribe to a bunch of AI news blogs (Zvi's "Don't Worry About the Vase" is the one I read most), some news ones (Tangle, News Minimalist), and some tpot-y ones.
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I am a nerdy STEM guy who didn't do a maths A level, meaning my maths education stopped when I was like... 15? Which is insane and ridiculous. I have a sense that learning e.g. linear algebra would be useful for understanding AI more, but also maths feels like this really useful skill that I could probably use in a bunch of ways that are currently unknown to me. E.g. at the moment if I learn about economics or cybernetics or chaos theory or whatever, I just can't interact with the mathematics of these things at all. I want to be well educated!
So, I've started using MathAcademy, which is very hyped for it's thorough curriculum and knowledge graph, ensuring you don't learn advanced concepts until you've really mastered the prerequisites. Sadly this means that I'm currently doing PREALGEBRA, but I guess you can't rush greatness...
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The cognitive scientist Michelene Chi discovered the "self-explanation effect", where students who would explain what they've learned back to themselves did much better. This mostly looks like me going on walks where I talk to myself (or ChatGPT voice mode) about what I've been learning, to test my recall and what I still don't properly understand. The aim is to look like you're on the phone so people don't think you're crazy, thank god for airpods. I really love saying "I'm learning about xyz, please quiz me" and then doing an insane stream of consciousness ramble at ChatGPT, it rules.
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Andy Matuschak is doing awesome research on learning - I pay £17/month to his Patreon and want to learn more from him. His work with Michael Nielsen was foundational in my early meta-learning journey.
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I'm slowly making my way through the Accelerated Expertise textbook. So far I haven't seen much that wasn't at least quickly covered in the "Learning How To Learn" online course, but it's nice to get a refresher. I'm also doing the Deep Research deep dive thing of "huh, William Chase is mentioned as a seminal learning researcher, I've never heard of him, let me make a report about him, make flashcards from that, and maybe make further reports based on that report" - a kind of recursive rabbit-holing which gives a much more rich knowledge base.
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