Understand understanding

Back to work on the The 5 Acts Book - The Do-It Newsletter #33

Apr 08, 2023

Hello everyone,

This week I happily dove back into writing on the 5 Acts book. I'm working on the structure and distributing my raw insights into different chapters. It's all in one big public Google Doc in case you'd like to follow along and leave some suggestions:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1W_eedwG9tYW0XC3CwwMtiL6hWpnLn6q3y6ZNw_MbXq8/edit?usp=sharing

These are the latest insights and reflections on the various aspects of the writing journey:

🎨 Form & Structure

Did the e-mail subject “Understanding understanding” intrigue you? Do you think it's a good (sub) title for The 5 Acts book? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Usually, when I pick back up on writing, I'm unhappy with the previous structure and change it immediately. However, I'm pleased this time and believe it makes for a straightforward and practical narrative.

📝 Writing process

Last year I felt comfortable writing. I didn't realize that that was mainly due to my weekly writing routine. Now it feels like I've got to warm up again.

We've seen a neat little tool called ChatGPT quietly emerge.
Although most of you have probably used it a lot, I am still relatively new to it, and I've been pleasantly surprised by how useful it is for:
- Giving book (source) recommendations based on other books and topics I provide it.
- Summarizing or collecting takeaways from blog posts, books, and scientific articles. Of course, you can't take these as-is, but it saves a lot of time if you forget something and quickly want to be reminded about key ideas.
- “Steel-manning ideas” ( opposite of straw-manning). Ask for counterarguments and alternative views, and ChatGPT will provide a great starting point.

📚 Contents & substance

The work of Michael Levin (and his team) was the most mind-blowing content I came across. Until now, I understood that the medium of knowledge embodiment went from genes (DNA) to memes (Electrical charges in neurons). But as it turns out, there's an intermediary form of knowledge inside organisms in the form of an electrical charge. The gene expression changes drastically by changing the electrical charge near a developing embryo.
- Another fascinating aspect of his work is how our internal systems function and how coordinated actions emerge from an individual agency instead of top-down hierarchical control. The fact that this conclusion arises in Innovation, social science, knowledge theory, and computer science is an exciting sign that it might be one of reality's fundamental principles.
Our current versions of capitalism and markets fall short in many ways, and we still need innovation regarding private property rights to enforce scarcity. The Hold-out problem and the Monopoly problem are the main types of issues. Our objectively best-governing system, the liberal democracy, likewise includes many similar flaws. Our social technology needs more work, but it seems like this is acted upon far less than the specific problems within the systems. Presumably, this is because experimentation on systems is so challenging.
Typically people think in terms of emergent properties or first-principles. Emergent properties thinkers will analyze what is happening and deduce knowledge from that. First-principle thinkers will focus on the preceding actions that enable what they see to happen. Which one are you? And what about your favorite authors? I find this a far more useful categorization to understand people than the typical “beta vs. alpha” dichotomy.

Interesting finds of the week:

🤍 Appreciated:

MenubarX with ChatGPT (Free version - Mac only)

Previously I shared how I enjoy using MenubarX for my music player (Youtube music). But now I've found a second excellent use case; an always-on ChatGPT window.

🔗 Link to the app

📖 Read:

The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith (Shortform Summary)

The Wealth of Nations is one of the top-reads to understand the world around us. Sadly, it's a monster of a book. I'm not saying you shouldn't read it, but if the size and old-fashioned writing style intimidate you, I recommend reading a summary at least. ChatGPT can spit one out for you, but I prefer Shortform because they include thorough explanations and link insights to other (contrarian) ideas.

🔗 Link to Shortform → The world’s best book guides. You’ll receive 5 days of unlimited and unrestricted access and an additional 20% discount on the annual subscription.

🔊 Listened to:

The Fabric of Reality - David Deutsch - Audible book

The Fabric of Reality isn't an easy read, but it's hugely information dense. It rigorously describes the current most fundamental theories that govern reality. If I could absorb the knowledge of only one book, it would be The Fabric of Reality or The Beginning of Infinity by David Deutsch.

🔗 Link to the audible book

🌊 Re-surfaced:

Radical Markets by Eric A. Posner and Eric Glen Weyl

I love reading about system-level innovations because they have the potential for massive improvement. This book doesn't just break down the problems with Democracy and Capitalism but proposes nuanced and practical suggestions for improving them.