Public release: How can we develop transformative tools for thought?

Thank you for a thorough reply Andy! The book you linked looks really interesting, almost makes me want to learn to interpret EKGs (but I admit it doesn't usually take much to get me interested in a new concept.) And, yes, even though I have no direct data at hand to refer to, I would even intuitively agree that no rhetoric devices, can compete with flashcards in terms of facilitating memorisation. To add to the techniques of implementing acquired theoretical knowledge: With my partner we're now trying to get more fluency in cognitive biases. For example, we'd pick a bias for example and try to find instances in our recent conversations/thoughts where we had fallen victim to it. Or we'd quote fallacious arguments we often come across and try to match them with a bias. Other things I've done before, and tried a little bit with QC, is to explain what I learned in simple words to someone who hasn't read it, or someone who has less of a shared science background (e.g. talk about blockchain to mu mum). Mostly what it does though is it very quickly reveals gaps in my understanding ;-)

Marta Krzeminska

Thank you for that very thoughtful comment! > But, I have no intuition yet to automatically identify something as a Markov process in real life, in a regular conversation, outside of a more formal conversation… We’re very interested in giving this situation a helping hand. We’ve noticed that many of our readers reach some “next level” of conceptual understanding when they bring what they’ve learned on Quantum Country into some kind of social environment. One example asked a thoughtful question on StackExchange. Another example had an interesting conversation with a colleague. Another tried a project in a circuit simulator environment. It’s fun to think about designing the medium to lower the activation energy required to make that kind of move. > Has there been any research attempts to construct the text itself —whether in video or in writing— to incorporate memory techniques? What I mean is probably a tactical use of rhetorical techniques, such as repeating the main/most important concept at regular intervals, using the same term we want the viewer to remember, listing concepts in threes, etc. There’s a bunch along the tactical lines you describe. In fact, good explanatory writers often exhibit the kinds of behaviors you’re suggesting intuitively! My instinct is that it probably often helps, but it seems like a relatively small and unreliable benefit compared to the flashcards. Then there are texts which directly integrate mnemonics. Check out the sample pages in this book, for instance: [Rapid Interpretation of EKG’s, Sixth Edition: Dale Dubin: 9780912912066: Amazon.com: Books](https://www.amazon.com/Rapid-Interpretation-EKGs-Sixth-Dubin/dp/0912912065). I have fewer data on these. It seems that they’re somewhat more helpful than traditional “good writing practices,” but again nowhere near as reliable as spaced repetition. It’s interesting to think about combining these kinds of practices. —Andy

Andy Matuschak

---A bit of a delayed comment, from a recent Patreon--- This essay brought me back 15+ years to when I was at the age of 13 I was first exposed to SuperMemo, self learning Spanish. Other mnemonic techniques followed. It’s a fascinating topic, especially for people who are focused on self-learning and self-improvement (whether its their intrinsic motivation or external pressure of “omg I need to read all those books high performers read!”). I’m one of these people and in the last 1-2 years I decided to shift my strategy a little & incorporate more elements of “processing” the acquired knowledge. Because, as you rightly note, what is the use of reading if you don’t remember. The required overhead for processing is nothing compared to the long-term benefits. My overhead knowledge processing time takes the form of book summaries, or indeed flashcards. Flashcards from Khan Academy on stats, from Coursera’s Model Thinking, Buddhism and Modern Science & more. I have to confess since Anki is a pat of my daily routine I had to also create my own flashcards form Quantum Country part one. Comments on that: * It was done after I already done some review sessions, which probably ipacted the choice of what is hard and needs remembering. * It required skimming through the whole essay again, which a) helped remembering, b) showed me how much easier it was when the concepts & terms weren’t so new. First time reading, my brain was steaming. * It was interesting to compare, and get inspired by, what you decided to be important and how to include it on a flashcard, to what I chose to include. Having read this memory essay, I understand the choices much better. Extra fun fact: my bf is a French teacher (and a recovering compulsive language learner) obsessed with mnemonics and with how to use them for functional language learning. That is not memorising lists of colours, but A) to help reduce reaction time between foreign language input and the learner’s output, and B) increasing the number of words per minute spoken (one of the metrics for conversational fluency). So, your references to French learning really resonated with him. On that note, what I find additionally interesting is the process of retrieval of information. One level is to retrieve when you need it (you referred to the resulting tot feeling), but another is to retrieve when you don’t obviously need it. Example, I learned about the Markov process. But, I have no intuition yet to automatically identify something as a Markov process in real life, in a regular conversation, outside of a more formal conversation (an environment that pushes my brain to search through all concepts internally tagged as "academic”). The idea of having flashcards testing not the same piece of info in different way (the John Adams example), could help to some extent, but I wonder what else can be done. **Mnemonic Video.** Has there been any research attempts to construct the text itself —whether in video or in writing— to incorporate memory techniques? What I mean is probably a tactical use of rhetorical techniques, such as repeating the main/most important concept at regular intervals, using the same term we want the viewer to remember, listing concepts in threes, etc. I wonder if there is a way, and to what extant that could work without the bonus of flashcards/intra-video flashcards, or questions to make the structure of the text itself a memory medium. The goal would be for the reader/viewer “finds themselves” remembering things. **Final note.** I’m not sure if I’m in any way a representative case in this field, because I find it, in some sense, soothing to memorise things. You quoted an example of someone who found it boring to memorise countries in Africa, because of (presumably) lack of a practical reason. I had no reason either (apart from a conviction that one should be aware of world’s geography) and I learned to point them on a contour map, likewise the capitals of the world. I look forward to a day where my (currently in the process of acquisition) data science and visualisation skills become good enough to create tools-for-thought-like Jupyter notebooks, ideally to help more people understand concepts from game theory, decision making models, or probabilities. Not sure how that’d be executed in practice, but I probably have good few years to think about it, and by that time Jupyter might become obsolete.)

Marta Krzeminska

Thanks Ethan - Would you find "highlighted interval" clearer?

Andy Matuschak

In the 3rd image of the card, before the text "The highlighted icon denotes the time interval...," there's no icon shown in the picture. I think the text is referring to the old design of the cards?

Ethan Blackwood

This is absolutely brilliant. Thank you.