PRINCIPLES

May 14th, 2020

Ray Dalio has famously published his book Principles where he outlines the methods and strategies for the way he operates on a personal level.  In the book he repeatedly invites readers to take on the same task, to write down the principles by which they operate. 

Tinkered Thinking is naturally poised to knock together some principles considering the hefty amount of pondering on the page that has emerged over the course of hundreds of episodes.  And certainly this episode is an initial attempt to fashion some principles, with conscientious plans to iterate these principles through time. 

Truth is, though, every one is well poised to take Dalio up on his suggested exercise of writing down a set of personal principles, whether we are accustomed to jotting down our thoughts or not.  We all operate on heuristics and codes of conduct, whether we’re conscious of it or not, whether we’d like to face them or not. 

Those who worry about what they might find when confronted with the question of how they operate, may in fact benefit from the exercise the most.  If we discover something we don’t like, the written word endures in a way that is much harder to ignore when we compare it to some fleeting action or statement.  More importantly, the written word can be edited, whereas the past cannot.  There is freedom in writing because we can tinker with the form and substance of our thought.  We can craft it, and sculpt it to approach an ideal.  Then, in the form of a principle, it can be something that we strive to emulate in action.  In this way, we can leverage our thoughts against our actions in order to change them for the better.

And without further ado:

1. Has the best question been asked?

2. Use it to boost it or lose it.

3. The discovery of the new will always look like wandering before it is found.

4. The ‘question’ is the only real tool. Questions allow for the creation of new tools and all tools are useless without the concurrent use of questions that unlock their use.

5. The sole resource of persuasion is the other person’s mind, a resource which can only be mined with the use of questions.

6. Time is not a resource. Money is a resource because it can be sourced again. Time is only a source because it depletes of its own accord without the option of renewal.

7. Understanding is knowledge in motion. In order to integrate knowledge, one must actively use it until it’s possible to produce predictable outcomes.

8. Honesty is the master variable and it is a skill. Honesty determines how much friction there is in human systems. The less honesty there is, the more friction exists.

9. Peace is a subtractive process. It requires simplification, like the surface of water, any attempt to actively create peace only generates more ripples.

SMART FOOL

May 13th, 2020

There is an entire spectrum of strategies for trying to achieve a certain end.  And while it’s clear the probabilities are fairly skewed towards one end of this spectrum, there are still some incredibly foolish things that pan out quite well.  But no one wants to be a fool.

Unfortunately our default strategy for avoiding the possibility of being a fool is itself a bit foolish.

We read, we plan, we read more, we study, we observe, we educate ourselves, and we continue on this hamster wheel as if one day, we will have consumed all the knowledge of the universe and finally, the time will have come to finally do something.

The irony of such an outlook is that action opens up an new realm of information to analyze and understand, much of which cannot exist in books by default of the fact that books are always objects from the past.  While there exist frameworks and fundamental principles that persist reliably through time which can be learned from book, nothing can be understood without action.

Knowledge is static.

Understanding is active.

Understanding is knowledge in motion.

We understand only when we can apply knowledge to achieve predictable outcomes.  We create new knowledge by reversing this process.  We actively explore and as a result we come to understand something new, and then this understanding becomes knowledge when we share it, either by explaining the pattern of the new phenomenon we observed, or writing it down, or any other method of communication.  And here we strike upon a balance, a dance of give and take.

The fool just dives right in.

The smart one reads up on it first.

But the wise person knows how to be a smart fool.

TITLE

May 12th, 2020

How is knowledge categorized?  Of course, we have encyclopedias and dictionaries, but how is knowledge categorized on an individual level?

We take notes, we highlight, we summarize, we create folders, collections, collages and for the most part..

we forget all of it.

Perhaps there is an innovation in the arena of note taking that will substantially level-up our abilities to organize knowledge on an individual level.  But the flip side is that we might be growing weak leaning on a crutch.

A universal principle is use it or lose it.

Tinkered Thinking’s version of this is:

Use it to boost it or lose it.

As this applies to muscles, it’s likely to apply to memory.  The question of course is, how to use one’s memory.  Does the mere writing down of a desirable conceptual morsel relieve our mind of any sense of obligation to remember it?  Perhaps. 

If you regularly have to write a list of items with quantities in order to have them on hand a few minutes later, say it’s a dozen things, it doesn’t take much time and pain to verbally list those quantities and remember them.  The mind finds the way if it’s pushed in that direction.  This is only to say that memory is trainable in different ways.

The Homeric bards had epics consisting of tens of thousands of lines memorized by heart.  And even though it is an incredible feat of immense memory, those poems are riddled with mnemonic techniques to help the bard in that titanic task.

Here is a suggestion that has arisen during the creation of Tinkered Thinking.  Many times, when an idea of what to write about pops into the mind, it is then summarized in the smallest possible unit, usually, it’s summed up as a potential title for the post.  That word, or short phrase becomes a seed which collapses the entire subject, but also allows it to regrow once the time and space of a blank page is available.  This has become a valuable memory exercise because the expansion of the topic is expected to stay in the brain until the time to explore it comes around.

This brings up an even more important point. 

A collection of knowledge is useless if not used, and using it is the best way to winnow out the unnecessary and entrench the influence of the good.

This is one of the reasons that makes writing such a powerful tool on a personal level.  It is a medium of cognitive exploration.  A writer is quite literally exploring their own mind in a structured, captured way.  It’s a way to figure out what you really think about something, a way to edit what you think about something, and importantly here, it’s a way to integrate new knowledge, by putting it in your own words and mixing it in with other ideas that come to mind during the process.

Writing –in this way- serves us in two ways, as a memory exercise and as an evolution engine that gives rise to new ideas..

ANTILINDY

May 11th, 2020

The Lindy effect is a supposition that the future life expectancy of things like technology or ideas - things that are non-perishable, is proportional to their age.  In short, things that have existed for a long time will probably continue to exist for a long time.

There is a class of situations, perspectives, or rather phenomena that inhabit a unique intersection of what appears to be lindy but is inherently perishable.  They are,

problems.

Many problems are longstanding, they have existed for years, centuries and even millennia.  And given this life span, it can seem as though such incidences of reality are permanent.  The catch to this may in fact be the reason why the Lindy effect is observed with technologies and ideas.  Such developments may be solutions to problems that existed beforehand.  The Lindy effect is perhaps bolstered by the lifespan of the problem that existed before the solution in addition to the lifespan of the solution itself. 

This is perhaps a transformation of the Lindy effect as opposed to a negation, but the psychological implications are far more important.

A long standing problem can feel like an immutable fact of reality, but this is an illusion.  It’s a false effect of the seeming Lindyness of problems.   The longevity of any given problem becomes less likely over time as problems are solved and resources and time to solve problems expand to tackle other problems.  David Deutsch would likely call this The Beginning of Infinity.  All problems are inherently antilindy by default because of the way we identify and interact with these phenomena.  The concept of a problem is similar to a bull’s-eye.  It is something we have subtly or overtly marked out for future attention, with the aim of transforming the pieces of reality involved so that the situation is better fit to our liking and well-being.

This steamrolling power of progress is extremely important to hold in mind on an individual level.  It must be used as a defense and remedy for learned helplessness, an unfortunate phenomena that many people develop.  Learned helplessness is when a person comes to believe they cannot do anything about a particular problem or situation, that they are in fact helpless.  This tendency is likewise antilindy, a problem in it’s own right that bars an individual from dealing with other problems.  But as with any problem, with enough time, attention and effort, it will yield as do other problems.  Every solution and development should serve as a reminder both for the individual and the group that problems exist only as long as a solution doesn’t exist, and that there’s no downside to betting on the possible existence of a solution.  The very effort itself, at the very least solves that insidious individual problem since merely trying extinguishes any helplessness we have learned.

A LUCILIUS PARABLE: REUNION

May 10th, 2020

This episode is dedicated to Dr. David Sinclair.  Check out his book entitled Lifespan to get a glimpse of what our future healthspan might look like.

This parable is now published in the second volume of Lucilius Parables. Click on the book below to visit the store to consider purchasing.

 

 

 

Several decades into the twenty-second century, the theory of Information Aging finally began to yield fruit, and shortly after, people began perfect maintenance of their bodies.  Many used such regenerative techniques to reverse their biological age back in time.  There was much experimenting, and strangely it turned out that people preferred to have their body at the age they were when they were most satisfied with life.  The range of distribution wasn’t much of a surprise, but there was still a range. Not everyone was happy during their late teenage years and early twenties.

 

After some initial laziness about getting on board with the whole program, Lucilius finally felt enough pressure from his insurance company to start with his own regenerative program.  Exponentially increasing costs, was the new phrase that insurance companies were using to goad people in the direction of the new therapies.

 

Lucilius had been around for quite a while at this point and was already well-read on the science and had plans for the perks the medicine would allow.  His hearing had been rather poor for a while and it would be nice to get that low-grade ringing out of his skull.  His current projects came to a nice breakpoint and so he took the dive.

 

Within a month his body was as it had been at age twenty-five.  Lucilius felt great.  But there were all sorts of other things attached to the new phase of living that he hadn’t anticipated.  New kinds of social groups were forming as identities became compounded with old abilities regained.

 

Lucilius was vaguely surfing one of these forums which curated all these new groups and came across one that peaked his interest.

 

High School.

 

Lucilius expanded the link and discovered that there were groups of people who had regenerated their bodies back to high school age and then recreated their high school life from scratch, building a perfect replica of the school and even whole towns so that these people could live in a state of perpetual summer break. 

 

Curious, Lucilius looked up his old high school and his year of graduation, and found that a number of the students had done just this – recreated the circumstances of that idyllic time.

 

Anyone was free to join the community for any length of time.  The only requirements was that one actually did attend the school and that they now possessed a body regenerated back to one of those late teenage years.

 

Lucilius had decided to take off some time before starting his next project, and figured this would be as interesting as any other vacation he could think of. 

 

He set the dial on his system for regenerative medicine and within a week he was back to the state he’d been at eighteen, just in time for his arrival.

 

The place was exactly the same.  He was astonished at the detail.  Each day was a repetition of the last day of school before summer vacation, and he walked into the high school just as the last bell was ringing.  Everyone was there, as missing people were filled in with AI generated holograms, recreated from the communal memories of every real person who was taking part. 

 

An old friend saw him and raised a hand for a high-five.

 

“You made it.”

 

“Thought I’d visit.”

 

“Careful, it’s a lot more fun second time around with a little life under your belt.”

 

“Yea, I bet.”

 

The two chatted, throwing around the usual dialogue to catch up on decades, when the rhythmic clack of a pair of Mary Jane’s tapped out the stretch of distance.  Lucilius looked, as the two kept talking, and between the fluttering gaps of people in the hall Lucilius could see the figure of a girl he’d once had a crush on.  The young woman pushed open a door, walking out of the school, sunshine spilling over her, and she was gone.

 

Lucilius smiled at the old feelings that suddenly rushed up within him.  He felt the heat of blush in his face, and laughed a bit.

 

“What’s funny,” his old buddy asked.

 

“Nothing, just so weird to be back here, like this.  So what are we doing?”

 

“Party.  You know how the school year ends, always.”

 

And then in unison, the two said “Miller’s parents always go away.”  The two laughed and took off to find some beers and catch up with a night on the town before things got under way.

 

Later that night the two were in the roil of the party, laughing as one of the class clowns had finally passed out after holding court, standing atop a keg.  Lucilius could barely breathe, he hadn’t laughed so hard in so long, and it was as though all the life he had lived since were but a mere dream and he were back to who he’d been in this place.

 

“You,” he suddenly heard.

 

Lucilius looked to find the girl from before, the young woman he’d spent so many sleepless teenage nights thinking about.

 

“Finally decided to show up?” she said, an eyebrow raising.

 

Lucilius shrugged.  “Figured I’d check it out.  See who’s here.”

 

She reached out a hand to him.  Lucilius was puzzled. He slowly reached out, unsure what she wanted. She grasped his hand and tugged him to stand.

 

“You know,” she said, “after the neural privacy laws were passed it was impossible to look you up.”

 

Lucilius was a little confused as she went on.

 

“I’ve been here at this stupid school, waiting for three years.”

 

By now the rest of the room had grown quiet, curious as the prom queen spoke.

 

“and, finally, you decide to show up.”

 

Lucilius looked merely perplexed.  The girl rolled her eyes.  “You dummy,” she said.  She gently grabbed the front of his shirt and slowly curled her fist for a grip as she bit her lower lip.

 

“I’ve had a crush on you for almost a century.”

 

Then she pulled Lucilius toward her and kissed him.