Henrik Karlsson is becoming a decently popular writer on substack within a certain niche crowd (which I am definitely a part of). Here he uses the popular Paul Graham essay, Putting Ideas Into Words, as a launch point for using writing as a medium for developing deep thoughts.
Many of the great popular intellectuals have talked about the power of writing as an idea refinery, rather than a recording device. Two great examples noted by Andy Matushak are Feynman,
Weiner: (Referring to Feynman’s journals) And so this represents the record of the day-to-day work.
Feynman: I actually did the work on the paper.
Weiner: That s right. It wasn’t a record of what you had done but it is the work.
Feynman: It’s the doing it — it’s the scrap paper.
Weiner: Well, the work was done in your head but the record of it is still here.
Feynman: No, it’s not a record, not really, it’s working. You have to work on paper and this is the paper. OK?
and the mathematician Alexander Grothendieck:
He said that he couldn’t think without writing. I, myself, would find it more convenient first to close my eyes and think, or maybe just lie down, but he could not think this way, he had to take a sheet of paper, and he started writing. He wrote X → S, passing the pen several times on it, you see, until the characters and arrow became very thick. He somehow enjoyed the sight of these objects.
Karlsson managers to explore this well-trod subject with a new perspective. Plenty of great tidbits and intellectual fodder here; my favorite so far is the parallel of general writing with mathematical conjectures. Common writing and mathematical writing may appear incomparable at first, but Karlsson notes that starting with “a conjecture” has great use in any research-oriented writing (that is, writing where the goal is developing your underlying thoughts). In starting with a conjecture, you attempt to solidify a nebulous cloud of ideas in your head; once it is out, you need to defend or expand upon the conjecture for your own sake. As more explanations pour out, you surely find problems with your understanding. As my advisor would say, “sometimes saying too much can make the review process harder”. She was noting that many reviewers have a tendency to latch on to anything worth of critique; this may be an offhand comment you included at the end of your main point. Even if you find their critique unimportant relative to the main argument you are making, you need to address all comments, so you are creating more work for yourself.
This description of the peer-review process is tinged with my pessism about it: I agree with her assessment of the reality about how to most quickly get through peer-review; I do not believe it leads to better research papers or a higher quality of knowledge generated.
In Karlsson’s essay, he points out that in your own writing, you want to aim for exactly the opposite of this. Whereas playing the peer-review game calls you to limit the surface area of possible attack, thought-developing writing tries to create as large an area as possible for cracks to form:
Seeing your ideas crumble can be a frustrating experience, but it is the point if you are writing to think. You want it to break. It is in the cracks the light shines in.
The Secret of Raising Smart Kids (2015): A Carol Dweck article about how to instill a Growth Mindset in children. It starts with the normal compelling narrative illustrating the difference, moving on to “Proper Praise” for children which directs their attention to their process and away from innate abilities.
The article is from 2015, so there wasn’t much new content for those who have read about Fixed vs. Growth Mindsets. Recently, I’ve become less sure whether “How should I most effectively praise my child without instilling X bad trait?” is the wrong question. In the book Hunt, Gather, Parent, the author outlines research that the excessive focus on praising children to “develop their self-esteem” is self-defeating. Constant praise backfires by transforming a child’s motivation from intrinsic to extrinsic: All activities become ways to earn praise rather than joyful pursuits in their own right.
Many adults, myself included, have found the Fixed vs. Growth concepts useful for self-reflection about our inner mental processes, especially during difficult learning. However, if the newer praise research is true, it means that any list of tips and tricks for modifying your praise is dead in the water. An extrinsically motivated child will almost surely have a Growth Mindset, but the way to produce that mindset may require a deeper rethinking about how to interact with your child each day.
Yes, you can create more clouds by adding aerosols to the atmosphere.
No, it most likely was not the cause of the massive flood in Dubai.
Sabine Hossenfelder on climate sensitivity
A primer on the Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS) metric in climate models. It is the amount of warming expected from a doubling of greenhouse gasses. The clickbait title of the video is “I wasn’t worried about climate change. Now I am.” because some 2020 models have had ECS numbs larger than the previous median, which are generally the models people look at when thinking about what might happen. Specifically, the ECS numbers for the highest weighted models in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) were in the 2-4.5 range; the newer scarier ones she talks about are above 5 Celcius.