Show Your Work - 2

So, in the day since I've posted, I've been rethinking my permanent notes,and I don't think what I have will work. I've made something that is not generalizable. I was thinking about it this morning and that's the term I need to focus on. It's not about making an argument at this level- it's about trying to take whatever profound concept I've read about in a book and make it as abstract as I can, but then specify the context that it would still be true. Doing that, then makes it where I am more likely to recognize that abstract thing in some other form.

In reading about other people's choices in implementing this method, there were several people that I didn't agree with their interpretations, which is okay, but I know if I followed their lead I would run into a problem eventually. There were some good ideas suggested, and I will probably consider them. I do think I'm not the only one struggling with permanent notes. I've noticed that several other people have added extra layers or additional notes to make it work. I think that's fine, but it's going to lead to a lot of clutter in the system.

As such, I'm going to rework several things in my notes section. Also, I read a few more chapters of Show Your Work, so I'm going to add that as well.

Oh, on the Internet, I ran accross a few terms that seem to relate to what I'm doing. The first is Learn in Public, which seems to resonate with me. The second is Digital Garden. I think in both cases they are more about learning a topic, for instance Python, so it's more about building a reference device or similar, and not about using a system such as this to enhance thinking.

So, as this year comes to a close, I think on my second try I've come up with my first note. Unfortunately I don't really have the sources behind it to make it fit, but I Have all sorts of other notes I can build off of it. My first note is titled "Humans are Perfect."

That will be fun to riff on for a while. If you think about it, a majority of the books I've been reading stand in stark constrast to that statement, so it should be interesting building a case around that.