> How do LLM advancements further such a view? They make people willing to seriously consider a wider ranger of possibilities. Without the example of LLMs, people tended to be very attached to a "hoomanz special, you need to have the exact same physical substrate to do anything remotely similar." With LLMs, now you have the equally misguided (IMHO) "LLMs talk like people, so they must be doing the same thing as people". > Couldn't you have argued the same thing prior to LLMs? That evolution is a greedy optimizer etc etc therefore humans don't perform symbolic reasoning. Could and did. I've…
This list of books may sum up my entire personhood, some I read at a young age. Thinking Fast and Slow. After you read it take a course on statistics & probability. The Art of Strategy The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance Armor by John Steakley Great book of fiction, helped me understand PTSD. Read a lot of Asimov, robot series, foundation and short stories starting with The Last Question. Jules Verne Mark Twain, various stories but particularly the Diary of Adam & Eve The Jungle Book by Kipling Lost Horizon Robinson Crusoe Dune Series Enders Game and…
I took the other route and decided to read 100 books in a year. Did that for 3 years. They were mostly top rated or highly popular or highly recommended non-fiction books of all time, including the one pictured in the article. Most books are highly overrated. They usually take some useful ideas, usually what author perceived was useful to them, and add things to them to make it sound useful to their target readers, which may or may not make sense... enough to fill the length of a book. Are some books life changing? Sure! But some can change how you think to your detriment because the…
This aside is more speculative and significantly based on personal experience doing 2 green-field products for one employer, founding 3 startups, and doing some internal research projects at Google... But what I've noticed is that aside from frequently co-occurring with creative work, depression and anxiety are frequently the trigger to finding a non-obvious solution and making forward progress. In other words, they're not just mental disorders; they're feelings that can give you useful signal about how to proceed next, if you listen very carefully to them. Anxiety is basically your…
I'm convinced that different people process handwriting (and movement) differently. This is true with latin languages as well. I think this may explain the difference between recognizing shapes versus drawing them for some people. I remember when I was in school, some people had really neat handwriting, they could write fast and all their letters looked exactly the same with apparently little effort. On the other hand, I had to focus hard to ensure that my letters were all the same style, shape, size and slope... Also, I didn't have a single 'handwriting style' I could write in a number of…
That's a great point. I read the book and indeed, there's something of that dichotomy between what he calls "system 1" and "system 2". System-2 is the very thorough, conscious thought; the visual or otherwise perceptible, representable as abstract but tangible objects (like please think of an elephant: this thing you see right now in your mind is an abstract but tangible object). System-1 by comparison is more intuitive, and I think can typically be illustrated by procedural memory: things you know but forgot how you learned, like riding a bike or playing chess. In interviews he explains…
Daniel Kahneman's "Thinking, Fast and Slow" doesn't get the mention it deserves; it's alluded to, together with an interview of the author, and then back to "Blink". But if you're interested in these subjects, Kahneman is a much better read than Gladwell, if only because he did most of the research himself (and got a Nobel for his efforts). One takeaway is that so-called "System 1", the intuitive, immediate and "blinking" operating mode of our brain is usually super-effective, but takes shortcuts that can can result in flawed conclusions. Those shortcuts are consistent and can be…
Plenty. A consequence of being a founder is that you will have to report results. As well as financial projections. Even if its just to yourself and your "executive team" of one other co-founder. More probably on an investor conference call. Or in legally-actionable board meeting minutes. Perhaps it may even occur live one morning on CNBC's Squawk Box. You need to know the finances of your own company. And need to know the economics of your chosen space. Cold. To grow, you need to design for growth. And communicate your business objectives with crystal clarity. To speak intelligently and…
As previously mentioned, the library. The argument that one has to wait sometimes is superfluous. Anyone saying such a thing isn’t a regular library user. Whatever is popular for the moment is just that: popular for the moment. It will pass. Almost never does a book need to be read the year it comes out. I mean, after all, if you value books, you value in-depth reading that provides perspective. As an example, when “Thinking Fast and Slow” first came out, getting it at even larger central branches was tough. Fast forward a few years and now every library has a few copies just sitting there.…
Not just John Wick but also Squidward! In the world of SpongeBob SquarePants, the character Squidward Q. Tentacles exemplifies the concept of "Thinking Fast and Slow" in his problem-solving abilities. Squidward, being a more sophisticated and intellectual character compared to SpongeBob and Patrick, often finds himself in situations where he must rely on both System 1 and System 2 thinking. One situation that highlights Squidward's use of System 1 thinking is when he is tasked with completing a complex painting for an art exhibition. Squidward quickly uses his instinctive and emotional…