My life as a Curious Autodidact

Scott Berkun on how to detect bullshit

Especially in business and technology, jargon and obfuscation hide huge quantities of BS. Inflated language is a technique of intimidation. The bet is that if you don’t understand what they’re talking about, you’ll feel stupid, or distracted, and give in to the appearance of their superior knowledge. This is, of course, entirely bullshit. To withstand BS you have to have an inner core of self-reliance, holding on to your doubts longer than the BS’er holds onto their charade. 

For example:
Our dynamic flow capacity matrix has unprecedented downtime resistance protocols.

If you don’t understand what the hell this means, err on your own side. Don’t assume you’re missing something: assume they are. They’re either hiding something, communicating poorly, or don’t themselves understand what they’re talking about. BS deflating responses include:

• I refuse to accept this proposal until I, or someone I trust, fully understands it.
• Explain this in simpler terms I can understand (repeat if necessary).
• Break this into pieces you can verify, prove, compare, or demonstrate for me.
• Are you trying to say “our network server has a backup power supply?” If so, can you speak plainly next time?

From the wonderful post by Scott Berkun, How to detect bullshit.
Two other books I plan to read by the same author: Making Things Happen & The Myths of Innovation

The Atiyah–Singer index theorem

Scientists describe the world by measuring quantities and forces that vary over time and space. The rules of nature are often expressed by formulas, called differential equations, involving their rates of change. Such formulas may have an “index,” the number of solutions of the formulas minus the number of restrictions that they impose on the values of the quantities being computed. The Atiyah–Singer index theorem calculated this number in terms of the geometry of the surrounding space.

A simple case is illustrated by a famous paradoxical etching of M. C. Escher, “Ascending and Descending,” where the people, going uphill all the time, still manage to circle the castle courtyard. The index theorem would have told them this was impossible.

Citation for the Abel Prize awarded to Sir Michael Francis Atiyah & Isadore M. Singer by the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters in 2004.

For myself, I found that I was fitted for nothing so well as for the study of truth; as having a mind nimble and versatile enough to catch the resemblances of things (which is the chief point) and at the same time steady enough to fix and distinguish their subtler differencies; as being gifted by nature with desire to seek, patience to doubt, fondness to meditate, slowness to assert, readiness to consider, carefulness to dispose and set in order; and as being a man that neither affects what is new nor admires what is old, and that hates every kind of imposture. So I thought my nature had a kind of familiarity and relationship with truth.

Francis Bacon, “Of the Interpretation of Nature” 1603-4

Imitation

Imitation is often thought of as a low-level, cognitively undemanding, even childish form of behavior, but recent work across a variety of sciences argues that imitation is a rare ability that is fundamentally linked to characteristically human forms of intelligence, in particular to language, culture, and the ability to understand other minds. This burgeoning body of  work has important implications for our understanding of ourselves, both individually and socially. Imitation is not just an important factor in human development, it also has a pervasive influence throughout adulthood in ways we are just starting to understand.

From Introduction: The Importance of Imitation pg. 1, in,
Perspectives on Imitation: From Neuroscience to Social Science
Volume 1: Mechanisms of Imitation and Imitation in Animals
edited by Susan Hurley and Nick Chater

Anamnesis

Anamnesis means remembrance or reminiscence, the collection and re-
collection of what has been lost, forgotten, or effaced. It is therefore a 
matter of the very old, of what has made us who we are. But anamnesis is 
also a work that transforms its subject, always producing something new. 
To recollect the old, to produce the new: that is the task of Anamnesis.

From the re.press website.

Beautiful is better than ugly.
Explicit is better than implicit.
Simple is better than complex.
Complex is better than complicated.
Flat is better than nested.
Sparse is better than dense.
Readability counts.
Special cases aren’t special enough to break the rules.
Although practicality beats purity.
Errors should never pass silently.
Unless explicitly silenced.
In the face of ambiguity, refuse the temptation to guess.
There should be one—and preferably only one—obvious way to do it.
Although that way may not be obvious at first unless you’re Dutch.
Now is better than never.
Although never is often better than right now.
If the implementation is hard to explain, it’s a bad idea.
If the implementation is easy to explain, it may be a good idea.
Namespaces are one honking great idea—let’s do more of those!
—Tim Peters, “The Zen of Python”

Where are you now? Who lies beneath your spell tonight?
Whom else from rapture’s road will you expel tonight?

Those “Fabrics of Cashmere—” “to make Me beautiful”—
“Trinket”— to gem– “Me to adorn– How– tell”— tonight?

I beg for haven: Prisons, let open your gates–
A refugee from Belief seeks a cell tonight.

God’s vintage loneliness has turned to vinegar–
All the archangels– their wings frozen– fell tonight.

Lord, cried out the idols, Don’t let us be broken
Only we can convert the infidel tonight.

Mughal ceilings, let your mirrored convexities
multiply me at once under your spell tonight.

He’s freed some fire from ice in pity for Heaven.
He’s left open– for God– the doors of Hell tonight.

In the heart’s veined temple, all statues have been smashed
No priest in saffron’s left to toll its knell tonight

God, limit these punishments, there’s still Judgment Day–
I’m a mere sinner, I’m no infidel tonight.

Executioners near the woman at the window.
Damn you, Elijah, I’ll bless Jezebel tonight.

The hunt is over, and I hear the Call to Prayer
fade into that of the wounded gazelle tonight.

My rivals for your love– you’ve invited them all?
This is mere insult, this is no farewell tonight.

And I, Shahid, only am escaped to tell thee–
God sobs in my arms. Call me Ishmael tonight.
-Agha Shahid Ali