05/03/23 16:20:59
Summary from last retro
Got close to nothing done in terms of learning this week, went home, had wedding, felt generally sad and had quite a bit of anxiety (stress eating when home).
Summary
Definitely feeling better. But that was two weeks ago. I started meditating consistently in the morning. In particular when I was home last weekend I felt a sense of control and calm I don’t think I’ve ever felt. It wasn’t that dramatic but it was interesting. * This mornings meditation session talks about learning to medidate. As I mentioned, I kind of got a glimpse of being good at it last weekend. If every day is not like this I feel like I’m failing. Yesterday, I wasn’t as well able to enter that kind of mindful state. I knew it was because of lack of sleep really but still blamed myself or weakness for it. * This is something I felt early on in the injury. That I was weak if I let it get to me. It’s along those same self destructive lines. That I set myself up for failure. I make things harder than I’ve proven to be capable of in the past and if I don’t make it all I consider it a failure.
- I’ve been watching lots of TNG. Enjoying how inventive it is. I feel I can apply some game theoretic and bayesian thinking to it at times, which makes sense as the hero is normally explanation or problem solving.
- I’ve started reading ‘How to Solve It’ and I think it would be useful to at least try and absorb some of the lessons in it. I think it’s just a general notion of having some heuristics for problem solving to clarify things when faced with them, so not just mathematics, for instance. Could I try and incorporate it into my study this week somehow?
- My mental of the world has shifted, or at least calcified into the notion of Moloch in the SA sense. This is
especially after reading Evolution of Cooperation . I’m starting
to see the games that are being referred to and the different incentive structures.
- The age of average blog post (see Excerpts) where there is evidence of ‘convergence’ in a lot of areas that rely on feedback from a large base of actors (people/consumers).
- Competitive stability for a strategy. SA talks about this too in Meditations on Moloch. That each business has a DNA and it tries to replicate this in the market. It’s survival of this meme, strategy of their business.
- Starbucks has the branding, franchising etc. so it does well and propagates itself. It also propagates that idea as something that does well so other business encoded that into what they do.
- Axelrod talks about this in terms of TIT for TAT being a collectively stable strategy, it has certain features that combat ‘invasion’ by other strategies. So not only might you have a successful strategy that invades a native population of strategies but it, in theory, lasts long enough in the population of other strategies.
- I’ve generally lived in fear of my calendar this week. Especially the extra curricular stuff, really think I’m slacking so hopefully this week I can do better.
- This week has also been eye-opening in terms of the power of Chat GPT. I’ve been trying to educate myself slightly on AI safety. It makes me nervous but also excited about what will come down the line.
Actions from last week.
- Meditate every day. Finish the basics on Harris’ app. Done.
- Finish ‘Thinking Strategically’. Not done.
- Anki card for probability theory. Not done.
- Notes on cog science, particularly identifying what I feel is interesting about it. Not done.
Actions
I really have a chance this week to catch up on some of this extra curricular stuff. Id also like to understand that I’m pushing myself and not set myself up for failure so good sleep and eating properly is important! Also, college does have to take priority.
- Could I try and use Polya techniques for the Biofuels lab report as I’m sure multiple problems will pop up.
- History of Rome. Could use this for examples of games and also just to learn latin!!!
- Notes on Axelrod book.
- Astronomy reading.
- Notes on ancient philosophy book.
- Try and improve note taking workflow as I go.
Excerpts
21/03/23 17:11:12
@daily @star-trek
I’ve been enjoying watching TNG recently. The idea of problem solving, I think that’s maybe what’s original about star trek. Beverly, with the scientific method, Jordie with good questions for the model…
22/03/23 18:52:42
@daily
Thought I’d keep some form of log re: the arm.
Feeling fine today, I don’t notice it when I’m still. It’s probably more swollen now in the forearm and hand than it’s ever been. I’m hoping this is due to the more movement its getting. If it’s not gone in a week or so then it’s probably a sign. I do have some discomfort during the day with it, like it’s tired or something. Hopefully I’m not putting it under too much strain. Tomorrow should be fairly relaxed anyways.
I’ve been watching a lot of TNG recently. There’s probably not much to most of the episodes. I enjoy it though. A lot of it is kind of just problems with the crew but it’s engaging. Its a world Id like to live in to I suppose.
23/03/23 18:02:51
@daily
Is it right to be scared right now? In terms of banking crisis and disassociating from the dollar?
The problem is even determining things for the detachment from the dollar, where to start, what causation is, whats falsifiable etc.
Is the hero in star trek sometimes the scientific method?
31/03/23 20:09:39
I read this https://www.alexmurrell.co.uk/articles/the-age-of-average
The notion of homogeneity in our consumer culture. I’m a sucker for the optimisation and converging on utility argument here. For instance, cars and movie posters have similarity in keeping what people gravitate towards. You slowly converge to this kind of hodge podge of your market. In the car case, this market is global so all cars, globally look the same.
Because I’ve been reading Axelrod I can’t help but put an evolutionary tint on this. That an idea or product is ‘conditioned’ by the market. For movies, do you take the risk on the new project or go with the sure bet. If you look at it in a cost sense. The cost of taking the risk just isn’t high enough or requires some explicit altruism in a sense.
Disruptive things here are those strategies that are optimal in this pool of strategies like Maynard Smith’s stuff.
There’s also an interesting interaction between consumer and producer here though. If you take the case of movies. People are becoming somewhat homogeneous. This wouldn’t be the case if we all wanted different things, so in some sense we’re just converging on some collective unconscious thing right? Although this is something that might be controlled at the same time, not sure.