Swerve
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I'm the reader who wrote the quoted piece under the "STORIES" tab on TYMC. I've been tuning every day for about a month and a half. I didn't get a huge amount object level value (tension and stress reduction) from TYMC, probably because I already maintained a pretty low baseline stress and tension levels. But nonetheless I got a lot of meta-value from learning, and found the instructions pretty straightforward to do. I'm wondering what you think needs more clarification or detail, and I'd love to help you figure the skill out if I can.
Note: I'm not squirrel, I don't have as much experience with tuning and I'd defer to him... (read more)
These essays had a pretty large impact on how I go about learning mathematics, I always had an easier time when formulas or arguments could be mapped onto visual structure. In-fact, before writing this comment (and in general when constructing arguments) I imagined a mind map containing all the relevant ideas and relations I wanted to portray. I am now (somewhat poorly) attempting to translate my 3-D visual argument into a linear verbal one.
Something else to be noted is visual reasoning and complementary cognitive artifacts seem to go hand in hand. Consider that learning to use an abacus can allow someone to simulate an abacus in their mind and produce the... (read more)
I'm a math/econ undergrad, I've found that using geometry and imagery to contextualize all my classes is the easiest way for me to really understand a subject.
To use a small example: Learning things like the chain rule or the product rule in calculus became trivial once I learned via this method. However, that is not a way of teaching that is present where I'm learning. I've had little (but not zero) success in finding resources on my own that choose to communicate ideas in this way. Or help me hone my visual-math reasoning skills (1 2). I feel like learning other ways just require too much memorization and doesn't easily slot into my intuition. As a result whenever something doesn't intuitively translate to imagery, I feel like I'm plodding along. Are there books, lectures, sequences, or anything out there that I could use? Anything you could send my way would be really appreciated.
Most important idea huh?
Here goes nothin'..
I think that while the community in general has a large amount of declarative information. A very small amount of it is actually put into procedural format. We have repertoires of information and expertise, we can do some really cool things with our minds when we properly use them. However, we are missing a curriculum. We are missing a centralized place where a repository of literally all the most useful information lies. We have no textbook. We have pieces like Hammertime which try to amend some of this with daily exercises and motivational blurbs to reinforce actual practice. We have the sequences, which do a... (read more)
Before anything else, thank you for the small piece about "adjusting your seat". It's taken a considerable amount of pressure/dread off of doing Hammertime.
Anyway,
It seems like the heart of the bug hunting skill, is having enough gears in your understanding of a certain domain. Such that you can find specific faults, inefficiencies, and leverage points to address. The inclination to go meta with the domain is also very helpful.
For example, in my own practice of bug hunt, I initially found myself selecting things I was explicitly doing wrong. Over time I started realizing that while this is helpful, it is not the entire picture. Why? Because the purpose of bug hunt... (read more)
After thinking about your reply for a while, you've made me update strongly towards believing that I had overestimated my own efficacy. In particular:
I've been reading LW for about five years and "knew" about most of these tools abstractly without ever getting anything practical out of it. You can check the comments to Hammers and Nailsand extrapolate that even longtime LWers have each only practiced only 5% of all the techniques we have, and that 5% varies wildly from person to person. It's not clear if what I've written so far actually helps in this direction, but I think a properly written sequence will actually inject readers with the moral... (read more)
My gut reaction told me that I hadn't gone through the experience of the uncanny valley. After a minute of thought, I realized that there was a period of four months last year where I divebombed in grades and class engagement. It was contextually because I had just learned about the diaspora and was rabbit-holing everything related to the disparate rationality blog. I was also rereading HPMoR. I think the historic reason for my failure was two-fold. The realization that the community wasn't dead and I wasn't alone; and the overemphasis the sequences and HPMoR had placed on epistemic rationality. I certainly learned how to have more accurate beliefs about the world,... (read 359 more words →)
Considering the amount of engagement and positive anecdotes people are putting into this; It appears to me to be evidence that writing things down (in some format) is really helpful. As in, helpful enough that if you are not already writing down your thoughts and ideas you should at the very least take five and come up with an easy way to try it out. This is one of those things that's extremely low cost, with a lot of benefit. Please take the low-hanging fruit.
One more anecdote for the pile: I found carrying and using paper very unwieldy for a long time and recently bought a small messenger bag to carry it all for not much money. This holds a journal, folded up large paper, four differently colored pens, and whatever other miscellanea I happen to have on me. This has completely negated my issues with using paper in a productive way on a daily basis.
Putting all of my TAPS on post it notes on my wall so I see them when I wake up. This should make a good trigger for keeping them in mind during the day. It also gives some potentially free utility over time in the form of "see that wall? All those notes are different habits I was able to cultivate".
The first paragraphs of the "Backwards Chaining" section of the post is exactly the place where abstract instructions can be helpful, but concrete step-by-step instructions of the technique are arguably even more important for learning to do the thing in the first place. You appear to attempt to ameliorate this by including examples of things you could apply this to. However I think [93%] this isn't as helpful as walkthroughs of the technique imo.
For example, you could include examples of problems you had to solve, and used this technique on, what it felt like to use the technique, what the actual process and results were, etc.
I say this because I think [89%] you're onto something really helpful as a problem solving tool, but as it stands it's hard (not impossible) to extract practical value from the instructions (ie I'm asking you to assume good faith on the part of my criticism).
Thanks for making the post, I got a pretty large amount of value out of it.