It seems people on HN have discovered commoncog.com/blog/the-menta; I think they would do better if they read
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Replying to
I must’ve read this b4 cause I’m a fan. But reading this for the 2nd (or more?) time, I’ve a new mental representation didn’t have b4
Sometimes read other people explicit models, we have a 💡but other times we don’t
My wild suggestion is it’s a bit like magnetizing iron /1
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Magnetizing iron requires stroking rod several times to get the internal arrows aligned
When an explicit model takes hold on a person, the person has almost all the internal arrows aligned just b4 reading it. The model was simply the last “stroke” to make it all aligned
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Might explain why sometimes reading the same thing at different stages in life yields different insights
Might also explain the common refrain “when the student is ready, the teacher appears”
And in case I was unclear, I also agree expertise != explicit models alone
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This wild suggestion courtesy of the William thurston story in the FAQ
Great story maybe all educators should describe the models they use even if they are not “textbook” accurate
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Replying to
Forgot to respond to this yesterday; I like what you've pointed out. I think someone on HN also said that there is value in explicitly stating a mental model of a domain, to help with orientation.
But that has nothing to do with the FS approach, so my criticism still stands.
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Replying to
Yes I think we're both in agreement that
1. mental model (MM) alone is not the expertise
2. not all MMs can be 100% effable
3. MMs when eff'd rgdless how effable can be useful sometimes
Digression: Am i missing out by not going to HN more frequently? I simply follow HN here
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I timebox both quite a bit. For Twitter, I often use it in a browser, which is an atrocious UI. And I wrote a scraper for HN years ago that is less addictive, that I still use today: hn.elijames.org
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