FI Learning

For learning with practice. Posts are not private and could end up on Bing.

📢 Plan for Basecamp

I made this Basecamp project because I think people should treat learning more like an organized project, and a project management tool can help people do that.

Feel free to make todo lists for yourself and use other features like creating scheduled check-ins for yourself or opting yourself in to check-ins others have made. I'll do some stuff like the Time Tracking project post, but don't feel like you have to wait for me to organize or lead everything. You're welcome to jump in, make stuff, try stuff, etc.

I think it'd be good if people made todo lists for some stuff they're doing and then others could learn from their example or maybe give suggestions.

Basecamp's design is meant for trusted colleagues and gives out a lot of access and permissions. It's not like a typical public forum with fairly powerless users who are controlled by a moderator who doesn't trust them. If people abuse stuff then this format probably won't work well because it's not set up well for admins to control bad behavior, but I don't expect that to be an issue.

Comments & Events

internet
 I made this Basecamp project because I think people should treat learning more like an organized project, and a project management tool can help people do that. 

so maybe ppl treat learning like a random thing that just happens when they do stuff. but learning is more like something you actively have to do, i think it has something to do with guesses and criticisms NOTE: this sentence is kind of stolen from stuff ET has already written about, and then its being paraphrased from memory with my own interpretations
Elliot, Fallible Ideas
Unschoolers hate organized learning. Schools organize learning poorly. Organizing can be done badly but is important. 
ingracke
I think a lot of unschoolers reject organized learning because schools organize learning so poorly. They see that school is bad, and they don't want to replicate that at home with their homeschooling, so they just try to entirely reject that model and do something different.
internet
!SPOILERS FOR THE ALCATRAZ BOOKS! this reminds me how in the book series Alcatraz Vs The Evil Librarians how the people in the Free Kingdoms (the good guys) didnt have any libraries and tried to avoid organizing things cuz thats what the evil librarians do!
Elliot, Fallible Ideas Oh ya i remember
doubtingthomas
Lulie Tannet is doing a lot of work on unorganized learning. She has somehow linked unorganized learning to inexplicit learning and suggest that that is the path of least resistance. Do you guys have criticisms of it?
Alan Forrester
doubtingthomas doubtingthomas You haven't linked to Lulie's position and you might have misstated or misunderstood it. You shouldn't be attributing stuff to people without a link. Also the position as you have expressed it isn't clear. What does "unorganized learning" mean? Does it mean I just spend all day acting on the first whim that comes to mind? Does it mean I go to a random article on Wikipedia and spend all day looking at whatever topic happens to interest me?
Elliot, Fallible Ideas
doubtingthomas doubtingthomas Don't bring up a person who won't engage in discussion or debate, who doesn't actually write articles to explain their (IMO bad) claims, and who is actively contributing to the harassment against FI members, including the vandalism of the Basecamp a couple days ago, and who is ghosting all FI members who ask her about her ongoing involvement in using aggressive force against FI. See http://curi.us/2382-andy-b-harassment-continues But you've been around a while I think maybe you've already seen it and maybe brought her up before (not sure from memory). Are you stirring up trouble on purpose?
doubtingthomas
Are you stirring up trouble on purpose?
No.

I didn't know how much she was involved with andy-b. We have talked about it before. If I remember correctly she thought something like that you deserved getting DDOSed but I didn't know anything about her active involvement.

I decided to figure out what this basecamp project is about. First thing I have figured out about this basecamp project is that it says that you have to treat learning like an organized project. I don't understand LT claims very well but they make feel like learning is all fun and games. Which is the reason why I brought her up. I wanna know if those claims are wrong. I have been deriving implications from her claims and doing things based on those implications. If her claims are wrong then I will save my time on not doing incorrect things.


Edit: Also I engage in second-handedness (I have a vague understanding of this concept). I think DD supports her theories and maybe is helping LT develop these theories. I think DD is right about everything. So I think this theory about learning being all fun and games is supported by DD so I choose to think it is right.

Edit:
"We have talked about it before."
By we I meant Ellliot and Me. Not me and LT.
Elliot, Fallible Ideas
Thank you for telling me that. I appreciate the info. I DMed you ("Pings" feature). As to LT's claims about learning, I think they're bad and you'd be better off ignoring them. But it's hard to debate with or refute them when no one writes them down in any sort of organized way, so there isn't really anything to respond to.
doubtingthomas
Alan Forrester Alan as Elliot recommends I won't bring up another person. I will just post my understanding of it.

Also the position as you have expressed it isn't clear. What does "unorganized learning" mean? Does it mean I just spend all day acting on the first whim that comes to mind? Does it mean I go to a random article on Wikipedia and spend all day looking at whatever topic happens to interest me?

I am imagining something like this: when I figure out why I need to learn grammar I won't need to make a plan. I won't need to decide that I should spend 30 mins everyday learning grammar. I will just be effortless for me to put in hard work towards improving my grammar.
Elliot, Fallible Ideas
I am imagining something like this: when I figure out why I need to learn grammar I won't need to make a plan. I won't need to decide that I should spend 30 mins everyday learning grammar. I will just be effortless for me to put in hard work towards improving my grammar.

That doesn't say why it'd be effortless. It lacks details, reasons or a models of reality (how learning works in a mind, what activities learning involves, how human psychology works, etc.) which makes it hard to engage with. My main response is "Why? Go ahead and argue your case."

One of the many issue is: There are many valuable things. You don't have time for all of them. How will you prioritize? Will you look at them all and figure out which are best and why? If you do that, you're creating an organized priorities list. It could be a written list, or you could spend mental energy remembering it or, you could reinvent it frequently. If you didn't organize your priorities, then what would cause the highest priority things to happen?

The only reason people think maybe they don't need organization is because they do a lot of unconscious organization. They don't actually have experience with real chaos. But one of the major themes of rationality is doing some conscious thinking instead of just relying on your gut or intuition. Rational analysis and planning is a step up from the unexamined life of whims and, basically, following your childhood programming (which mostly means doing whatever your culture/society thinks is good, which is involves lots of static memes).
deroj Good explenation
doubtingthomas
That doesn't say why it'd be effortless. It lacks details, reasons or a models of reality (how learning works in a mind, what activities learning involves, how human psychology works, etc.) which makes it hard to engage with. My main response is "Why? Go ahead and argue your case."

I have not thought a lot about this so I don't have details and models. I read an article on curi.us (http://curi.us/2177-hardness-emotions-mental-automation) and I think the model in the article about how learning works is correct.

I can present a reason for why I think this
this = when I figure out why I need to learn grammar I won't need to make a plan. I won't need to decide that I should spend 30 mins everyday learning grammar. I will just be effortless for me to put in hard work towards improving my grammar.
I think that doing something feels effortless when there is no conflict between your explicit and inexplicit ideas. So the reason for things not feeling effortless is that there is a conflict between explicit and inexplicit ideas. So the reason for me thinking that when I realize why I need to learn grammar (learning grammar is an example) it would feel effortless to learn grammar is that there will be no conflict with my explicit goal of wanting to learn grammar and my inexplicit ideas (which includes whims). When I understand why I need to learn grammar there will be knowledge planted in my mind about what is the importance of learning grammar. That knowledge will also contain inexplicit ideas which will be able to destoy/override any other inexplicit ideas (whims) I have which stop me from learning grammar. For example the idea that sex is enjoyable is rooted in my mind. The knowledge (explicit + inexplicit) of sex being pleasurable is planted in my mind. So when a hot girl offers to have sex the planted knowledge of sex being pleasurable makes everything effortless. It overrides all other whims. Tidying up my apartment (which I find to needs too much effort) becomes effortless because I know untidy apartment can be a turn off.

Example A
Goal: Become good at reason. Sub-goal: Learn grammar. Learning grammar feels effortful because of conflict between explicit and inexplicit ideas. Explicit idea: learn grammar. Inexplicit idea: isn't convinced learning grammar is good. Result: doing sub goal feels effortful

Example B
Goal: Have sex. Sub-goal: Clean apartment. Cleaning apartment feels effortless because no conflict between explicit and inexplicit ideas. Explicit idea: Clean apartment. Inexplicit idea: sex is pleasurable. Result: doing sub goal feels effortless


One of the many issue is: There are many valuable things. You don't have time for all of them. How will you prioritize? Will you look at them all and figure out which are best and why? If you do that, you're creating an organized priorities list. It could be a written list, or you could spend mental energy remembering it or, you could reinvent it frequently. If you didn't organize your priorities, then what would cause the highest priority things to happen?

Agreed. Organizing priorities is important. Making a list (brainstorming) and then getting quality criticism on it will help me figure out what is higher priority. Organizing makes processes which are aligned towards a goal efficient.

The only reason people think maybe they don't need organization is because they do a lot of unconscious organization. They don't actually have experience with real chaos.
This is true for me. I haven't dealt with real chaos so I didn't need to get good at organizing. I was able to get by with unconscious organization


But one of the major themes of rationality is doing some conscious thinking instead of just relying on your gut or intuition. Rational analysis and planning is a step up from the unexamined life of whims and, basically, following your childhood programming (which mostly means doing whatever your culture/society thinks is good, which is involves lots of static memes).
Can one not improve/overcome static memes? (Using analogy from article linked above) When the manager sets up workstation doesn't he improve old workstations which were faulty (because of static memes) and upgrade them with dynamic memes?
Elliot, Fallible Ideas
Can one not improve/overcome static memes? (Using analogy from article linked above) When the manager sets up workstation doesn't he improve old workstations which were faulty (because of static memes) and upgrade them with dynamic memes?

I think there's some kind of misunderstanding or miscommunication going on. But I think I can answer your main point anyway so I'm gonna try that.

Yes we can improve on and overcome static memes. But not with tools like "gut feelings", "whims" or "intuition".

To do better than static memes requires tools like "conscious thought" and "rational analysis", and "intentional practice". These are tools that help us improve our ideas and intuitions.
doubtingthomas
I think there's some kind of misunderstanding or miscommunication going on

I re read my comment and the example I presented and didn't make sense to me. The only thing I still find to have some sense is the conjecture of when doing something feels effortless. The conjecture is that:

Doing Things or Activities feel effortless when there is no contradiction between ones explicit and inexplicit ideas.


Is that conjecture correct?

And my guess is that when we improve our intuitions by rational analysis we reduce such contradictions between what we can explicitly decide as a good goal and what our inexplicit desires want. Is that correct?
Elliot, Fallible Ideas
Reasonable approximation 
doubtingthomas
I don't wanna be a plagiarist so I will bring up a person I was asked not to bring up. I am making a exception because not plagiarizing is more important. I got this idea
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Doing Things or Activities feel effortless when there is no contradiction between ones explicit and inexplicit ideas

Elliot, Fallible Ideas
so what? people have been saying similar things in the TCS community for decades. i don't see why you're focusing your attention on this instead of practicing a skill.
doubtingthomas
I had a misconception. The misconception was: I believed that there is always a path of improvement which is effortless (and that path is the best one too). I have thought about practicing a skill but I never started any of them because doing them didn't feel effortless.

I was focusing on this because I was resolving this misconception which was getting me stuck. Now it is resolved. Now I can focus on practicing a skill.
Elliot, Fallible Ideas
I'm unclear on the resolution.

I think being scared of effort is bad. Effort is OK.

People avoid learning b/c it feels like effort/work, but then spend their whole lives as coerced, struggling failures because they didn't have a superior alternative.
doubtingthomas
The resolution is that I shouldn't expect improvement to be effortless.

Improvement requires effort.

At my current unimproved level there will be contradiction between my inexplicit ideas (~childhood programming + static memes) and the goals that I come up with after rational analysis. So improvement will require effort.
Elliot, Fallible Ideas
Contradictions in our ideas will never go away. We will always have plenty of ignorance and error. The contradictions can get more subtle.
doubtingthomas
Doing something is effortful is a feeling which arises when there is a contradiction between an explicit goal and your inexplicit whims. When you improve you overcome the static memes which control your whims. So even if there will always be contradictions in our ideas learning won't feel effortful after improving.
doubtingthomas
Contradictions in our ideas will never go away. We will always have plenty of ignorance and error. The contradictions can get more subtle.

I'm confused. I don't understand why you said this here. Is it a criticism of what I said above it? Is it adding more detail to my understanding?
Elliot, Fallible Ideas
adding detail to the topic and also responding to

At my current unimproved level there will be contradiction
doubtingthomas
Great.