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Discovering-Abstractions.html
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<title>Discovering Abstractions - SPK's Rationality Essays</title>
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<h1 id="post-title">Discovering Abstractions</h1>
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<p><strong>Entry Question</strong>: How do we factor out higher-order abstract thoughts from conventional essays?</p>
<hr />
<h1 id="what-do-i-want-to-do">What do I want to do?</h1>
<p>I want to make my writing more modular, the same way I do with programming.</p>
<p>I’m particularly inspired by John Hughes’ examples in “Why Functional Programming Matters”, where he factors out higher-order functions from innocuous function definitions and makes the resulting definition an order of magnitude smaller.</p>
<p>What is the equivalent of that in writing?</p>
<p>I’m convinced that there are some higher-order thoughts or abstractions underlying each essay. If I can factor them out, then the final essay would be a combination of the higher-order thought and the specific thought needed for that particular essay.</p>
<p>Why go to these lengths?</p>
<p>Because you end up getting a whole lot more with just a little more effort. I can use the higher-order abstraction to solve a bunch of similar problems, almost for free.</p>
<p>For example, if you hit upon a great analogy for the problem you’re solving, then you can probably bring out other claims about that problem just by following the analogy to its limits.</p>
<p>Similarly, if you discover the core idea you really care about, then, instead of settling for this specific instance, you can rise up and generate a bunch of corollaries at no additional expense.</p>
<p>In essence, it’s about generalizing from the current specific instance and solving a bunch of related problems.</p>
<p>Examples:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Focus Paradox</p></li>
<li><p>Vacuum Theory</p></li>
<li><p>Enough Paradox</p></li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Note</strong>: Take care that you don’t make this into an External Repository. Isolate as many as you can, and burn them into your head. Don’t try to make this the be-all, end-all of writing.</p>
<h1 id="guidelines">Guidelines</h1>
<ul>
<li><p>Don’t write about the specific <em>conclusions</em> in that essay. Write about the <em>operators</em> you used to get to those conclusions.</p></li>
<li><p>Analogies are Abstraction Smells. They are signs that you are using a higher-level abstraction to generate them. Ditto for Corollaries.</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 id="operators">Operators</h1>
<ul>
<li><p>Protect the Top Idea in your Mind</p></li>
<li><p>Beware of Corrupting Scenarios - Power, Revenge, Seduction, Status / Disrespect, etc.</p></li>
<li><p>Way to get great benefits - Positive-sum games.</p></li>
<li><p>Notice Smells - Catch a thing by catching its consequences. If something is strong evidence for a particular hypothesis, then when you find that evidence, you can infer that the hypothesis is kinda true.</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 id="revenge-or-grow">Revenge or Grow</h1>
<ul>
<li><p>Protect the Top Idea in your Mind if you want to do important work.</p></li>
<li><p>Emotions will consume you. Don’t fuck around with powerful emotions.</p></li>
<li><p>Want to get great benefits? Move into Positive-sum areas.</p></li>
<li><p>Corrupt Hardware: The general version of “Emotions will consume you”</p>
<p>You’re running on corrupt hardware. You cannot trust your judgment while in the grasp of strong influences. It will feel right. It will feel <em>sooo</em> right.</p>
<p>Beware any kind of emotionally-charged scenarios - revenge, power, seduction, etc.</p>
<p>They lead to vicious cycles. Your corrupt hardware will give you all kinds of reasons to keep going. It will take you far off the road of rationality.</p></li>
<li><p>Corrupting Emotions vs the Top Idea in your Mind - who’s gonna win?</p>
<p>Actions are good to the extent they protect the rational Top Idea in your Mind. They are bad to the extent they hijack your corrupt hardware and drain away your precious mental resources in pointless activities.</p></li>
<li><p>Positive-sum xor Zero-sum</p>
<p>You may need to shun zero-sum games that arouse strong emotions.</p>
<p>Zero-sum involving strong emotions => Emotions will consume you => This becomes the Top Idea in your Mind => You won’t feel like going into positive-sum games.</p></li>
<li><p>To see people’s intentions clearly, disengage yourself and just observe. Don’t react.</p>
<p>That could work even for non-living topics where your <a href>identity</a> is engaged. <a href>Politics is the Mind-Killer</a>. So, to oppose the mind-killing, remove yourself from the game and observe without reacting.</p></li>
</ul>
<div class="info">Created: December 5, 2014</div>
<div class="info">Last modified: January 22, 2015</div>
<div class="info">Status: finished</div>
<div class="info"><b>Tags</b>: writing, abstraction, bottom-up</div>
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