13 Matching Annotations
  1. May 2025
    1. But just as often, as I grasp about, I’ll realize I had never really understood the idea in question, though I’d certainly thought I understood when I read the book.

      This is a big reason why I tend to make notes directly after reading a chapter of even sub-section. I used to (as I had seen it recommended) simply note that there was something interesting, but that strategy ended up with an accumulation of pointers to things I should have understood by now but didn't. As Andy points out, books build on concepts introduced just a few pages ago.

  2. Oct 2024
    1. Directed version:Review notes related to your topic (and a step or two beyond those—Notes should surprise you)Write an outlineAttach existing notes to each point in the outline; write new notes as needed.Concatenate all the note texts together to get an initial manuscriptRewrite it.

      This is an approach that, as the outline notes must all be written, is constructive in the sense of Grothendieck's problem solving is. Rather than solve the problem (pump out the work) this strategy advances the understanding in a way that new writings of the same topic can be undirected.

  3. May 2024
  4. Mar 2024
  5. Feb 2024
    1. A very good system

      I enthusiastically recommend anybody who is serious about reading for insights (and writing themselves) to learn about "Knowledge Bases" or "Zettelkasten" or "Personal Knowledge Management."

      My notes are not bridges to the understanding present in the book, like I gather is their role here. Instead, they are the building blocks of a greater corpus of wisdom sourced from all the books, articles, papers, and experiences I "read." This system becomes a "Second Brain" that I use to enhance my own thinking, whether that be creatively, factually, or even in preparation to read new material.

    2. though not always

      In this case, should we search for more information online? I also have concerns about halo and framing effects learning about the author would have on the work.

      I imagine a superficial reading should be blind, but before engaging with the material at a deeper level, research on the author and motivations should be conducted by the reader.

    3. Before you begin, figure out why you are reading this particular book, and how you aregoing to read it.

      I think I should have a pattern for this, as it is easy to simply say "I'm reading it to learn," which does not give any helpful insight into the reading. Maybe, for each of the 3 readings mentioned above, I can declare a purpose for reading.

      I could approach a book with a vague over-arching notion while approaching the superficial read with a specific methodology, where my purpose in reading is to find the purpose to read it another time.

    1. The moral: If you want to be an effective altruist, you have to think it through with the part of your brain that processes those unexciting inky zeroes on paper, not just the part that gets real worked up about that poor struggling oil-soaked bird.

      This looks like good evidence to leave moral decisions to your System 2. Scope insensitivity would hurt my intuitions of what is right and wrong, since systems (e.g. utilitarianism) depend on calculations.

    1. It’s just that lectures, as a format, are shaped as if that were true, so lecturers mostly behave as if it were true.

      Most of my college level lecture experiences are not so much about learning, but about presenting knowledge to aid existing knowledge learned from assigned reading. I find lecture recordings great, as I can get confused, take a break, do some of my own research, and then get the over-arching picture from an expert. In person, a lecture is about giving an extra organization to a domain, showing how concepts that you already know about connect together.

    2. All this suggests a peculiar conclusion: as a medium, books are surprisingly bad at conveying knowledge, and readers mostly don’t realize it.

      Understanding and making insights (composition) is an internal process. Only through internal effort can external knowledge be brought in. Merely reading and expecting insight is fatal.

    1. Most questions and answers should be atomic

      If you cannot answer a card consistently, break it up into it's elements. On Anki, I can suspend the card and somewhere else make a task to resume the card at some later date.