I'm actively developing and socializing a thought pattern at this moment that directly addresses this called omnidisciplinary thinking (or Thinking OMNI). Omnidisciplinary thinking is a generic, holistic, nonlinear thought pattern that focuses on blending insights between two or more areas which seem unrelated yet actually share a thought pattern structure by focusing on the similarities between them. In essence, instead of trying to learn many things, learn the patterns of information and how to apply those patterns.
Readit NewsMathematicalArt commented on Ask HN: I want to be an expert in many things but my lifetime won't be enough · Posted by u/kbns
I took a computational neuroscience course many years ago and discovered just how primitive our understanding of neural circuitry is. Case in point: at the time (don't know how it is now) it was not possible to precisely model more than a handful of neurons in time domain. This is done with differential equations, but the systems get extremely complicated very quickly and you can't realistically expect to solve them and get something predictive out. One cell is quite easy. 2 is already getting harder and 3 and beyond are crazy because everything is affected by everything. From that I concluded that we simply don't have the right math to express this. If there have been any developments on the math side since then I'd be interested in hearing about it.
This is likely why ANNs effectively model neurons in frequency domain (where magnitude of the signal is proportional to the strength of the spike train). But they don't do the same thing, and the mechanism the real neurons use to learn patterns is completely different - it relies (in part) on timing of signal arrival, and the processes are continuous, there aren't any "forward" or "backward steps". Nor are there any gradients. And there are other timing effects that have to do with chemistry, on top of all that.
We do have the right math. It’s just that no one is using it. The planet is focused on differential and metric invariants (differential algebraic equations and statistics) and should be leveraging topological approaches to analyzing dynamical systems and networks. Almost no one is doing the latter yet there is already enough research to start applying the theory.
The “shape-shifting” organization. At the moment, organizational dynamics are largely created and maintained by gut feeling, rules of thumb, and inertia. There will be a shift towards flexible organizations that can purposefully change form in response to needs internal and external.
Consider one common pattern. Startup CEO grows successful startup, then the board inevitably replaces said CEO with a more traditional CEO and organization structure. What made the company innovative then slowly goes away as it becomes entrenched in the same paradigm as the established companies the startup had been disrupting. Rinse and repeat.
Why must this evolution be so one-way and so rigidly predictable? Eventually, organizations will be able to flexibly shift to nearly any reasonable state, identifying which resources are needed to initiate such a change as well as when and where to apply them.
MathematicalArt commented on How Long Can We Live? nytimes.com/2021/04/28/ma... · Posted by u/khartig
Longer does not always equal better. The quality of the extended lifespan is key. But, if you could guarantee quality of life, there is still a bimodal distribution I find among my peers - "Why would you want to live forever?" and "Why wouldn't you want to live forever?"
FWIW, I'm in the "Why wouldn't you want to live forever?". Think of all the things to do and learn and experience and relearn. Ask me again in 10,000 years though.
Interesting take. However, consider that if one could learn multiple lifetimes of knowledge in one, it might achieve the same result. I’ve been developing a mindset called omnidisciplinary thinking (or “Thinking OMNI”) which encourages us to Engage with the Root of ideas and thought patterns in order to recognize and leverage their interconnectedness. The Root assumptions we make influence heavily how we can express and explore ideas. One can only express in a given language what that language allows. Right now, we have a boundary- and disciplinary-driven engagement with both knowledge and organizational structures which while a valid way to see the world isn’t the only way. The Thinking OMNI thought pattern is being made rigorous as we speak, yet even an intuitive understanding of it can help you today to manage complexity and reduce uncertainty.
Check us out on YouTube—“Omni Artisans”. If one could reduce the amount of effort it takes to accrue knowledge and drive powerful experiences, would one need to live forever per se?
In “Culture’s Consequences”, Hofstede mentions five key aspects of culture based on extensive research.
1. Individualism (IDV)
2. Masculinity (MAS)
3. Power Distance (PDI)
4. Uncertainty Avoidance (UAI)
5. Long-Term Orientation (LTO)
Furthermore, there is a distinction made between values and practices. Practices are comprised of symbols, heroes, and rituals. Whereas values refer to the meaning to people of their practices. People can thus have the same practices (watching same TV shows, dressing similarly, leisure activities) while have drastically different values. Values and practices together define key aspects of the organization.
Values are more important as you move towards national identities whereas practices tend to dominate at the organizational level. Furthermore, values tend to be instilled earlier in life through family and community while practices are learned later in life, for instance, once one enters the workforce itself.
Some factors of practice include professionalism, distance from management, trust in colleagues, orderliness, hostility, and integration. Likewise, some factors in values include personal need for achievement, need for supportive environment, machismo, workaholism, alienation, and authoritarianism.
The main thesis of this comment is that if one understands the factors that go into culture, one can be better equipped to actually probe the organization thoughtfully and develop their own questions in order to do so.
MathematicalArt commented on Why bumblebees love cats and other beautiful relationships longreads.com/2021/03/23/... · Posted by u/Petiver
The claim “you’ve only got time to read a few thousand books” surprised me, but some back of the napkin math strongly supports it. Assuming it takes a week to read a book and 70 years of literacy only gives you time for around 3500 books. A more avid reader might average, say, 3 books a week—-but then you only get to around 10,000 books. Now, a monk might be able to read 30 books in a week and get to 100,000, but pragmatically “a few thousand” seems to be an accurate accounting for a person who doesn’t dedicate a large portion of their life towards reading.
I recommend “How to Read a Book” by Mortimer Adler. In short, not every sentence, paragraph, chapter, or even book is of equal informative importance. To read all literature as if everything is equally important is really a mistake. Once one recognizes this, it is then ideal to read only at the level of detail and focus as is required for the particular work.
What does it mean to have read a book? To read every single word and symbol? To understand the key ideas and points?
Is every book going to be one hundred percent new ideas to you or are there thematic riffs that allow you to shortcut portions of it without loss of understanding of the entire work?
Confidence also feels a certain way. When you are confident, there is a certain tightness in your chest that you “hang from” in a sense. You should feel confident that you could physically hang from this confidence were it to physically manifest. There’s a stability in stance, a sureness. And when your confidence wavers, this sureness and stability wavers.
While balance is key, there is merit to taking steps to stay in this confident body language as it translates to the confidence you have in your beliefs, actions, and statements. People can and do tune into this. When they are feeling a lack of confidence in whatever you are conveying, you surety can put them at ease. The only other thing for you to do is to make sure you are actually correct in being confident, because we should be confident and correct.
MathematicalArt commented on Let there be more biographies of failures commonreader.substack.com... · Posted by u/commons-tragedy
Actually, there are only finite ways to fail. It just happens to be a large number. Thinking of interactions of the world as propagations of signals and considering Kolmogorov-style descriptions of entropy would lead one to this conclusion of finiteness. See: "Kolmogorov complexity"
Further, there are a finite number of patterns of failure, which is of course less than the number of absolute ways things could fail.
The biggest detriment is not that things can fail, but that people get overwhelmed by believing that such things are infinite in scale.
As an example, there are only 16 categorical manifestations of software exceptions based on the following categories:
- Synchronicity, Scope, Origin
For Synchronicity we have:
- Synchronicity
- Asynchronicity
For Scope we have:
- Process-specific
- Cross-process
For Origin we have:
- Data origin
- Temporal origin
- External origin
- Process origin
Then you combine them such as "Synchronous-CrossProcess-Temporal Origin." The total is 16 ways. Even if something were somehow to be missing from this categorization scheme, it would only add a finite amount of possibilities to the permutations. Yet this taxonomy seems quite complete as is.
See: “Error Handling in Process Support Systems” by Casati & Cugola.
MathematicalArt commented on Let there be more biographies of failures commonreader.substack.com... · Posted by u/commons-tragedy
The problem with failure is there are infinite ways to fail. So from a pov of looking to reduce my chances of failure, reading about a failure means there are now Inf - 1 ways I might fail, not too useful. Pragmatically reading about success and seeing if I can repurpose their techniques to my situation is far more useful.
Where reading about failure is useful is to help remove the general stigma around failure that prevents people from even trying, but there's only so much of that form of self-help a person needs before they move on.
Actually, there are only finite ways to fail. It just happens to be a large number. Thinking of interactions of the world as propagations of signals and considering Kolmogorov-style descriptions of entropy would lead one to this conclusion of finiteness. See: "Kolmogorov complexity"
Further, there are a finite number of patterns of failure, which is of course less than the number of absolute ways things could fail.
The biggest detriment is not that things can fail, but that people get overwhelmed by believing that such things are infinite in scale.
MathematicalArt commented on Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (February 2021) · Posted by u/whoishiring
Desired Position: Chief of Staff (or similar executive role)
Location: USA
Remote: Yes
Willing to Relocate: No
Applied Philosophies: Organizational Psychology, Behavioral Psychology, Computer Science, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Art & Expression, B2B Consulting, Category Theory
~~~~~
About: I have developed a novel thought pattern called omni-disciplinary thinking (“Think OMNI”) which helps companies and individuals better engage with complexity by blending philosophies in order to lower the energy/effort required to deal with them.
Results in:
- risk mitigation
- innovation in saturated, complex markets
- identification/integration of holistic talent
- pooled insights between industries, disciplines, and domains
- "Think inside of _all_ the boxes"
~~~~~
Resume: Please contact HN.<my username>@gmail.com
Email: HN.<my username>@gmail.com
Website: mathis.art
Xavier Waller