Books · Said Aspen

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Jan 2021

We seem to pay a lot of attention to the arrow of time. Causality really isn’t very important to the universe itself.
Science is enough, and complete, on its own.
Different perspectives can be used to describe the same phenomenon. The different perspectives can all be correct, and they can be useful in different situations.
Everything is a slave to the second law of thermodynamics.
Poetic naturalism is concerned with only the one natural world, and a language for describing it.
Bayesian Inference, a heuristics for updating credences and beliefs.
Emergent properties can’t always be explained by breaking it into its pieces. That does not mean that what they describe is not real.
Quantum Field Theory (The Core Theory), so far, seem to cover more or less everything. It deals with quantum fields and their interactions.
Life is a process, it actively sustains low entropy.

Dunning-Kruger effect the inability to evaluate one’s own competency, leading to general tendency to overestimate one’s abilities.
We seek out information that confirms our current beliefs.
When presented facts that go against our current beliefs, we are very creative in finding ways to rationalize that such that it does not affect our world view.
It is very hard to change peoples minds, but it is possible.
It is hard to change one´s own mind, because beliefs are part of one´s own identity. One way of getting better at this, is to instead try to change one´s own identity to be that of someone who takes pride in being able to admit error and change one´s mind.

Maps are not the territory
In your circle of competence you easily have multiple solutions to a single problem, and can reasona bout them.
Inversion - Approach situation from opposite end of the natural starting point