Love how you built up to the point from the pre-smartphone times.
I still had an A-Z map in my car until last year when I accidentally left it in my old car.
It occurred to me after I realised I hadn't grabbed it that the maps in the book were maybe 15 or 20 years out of date so lots of new roads and routes wouldn't have even been in it.
I think that's very relevant to advice too, some may be old and out of date, but not completely useless.
It definitely resonated with me from the not niching down to get to newsletterville to just heading "up"! Thank you for the spectacular effort in bringing this to us!
Well said Tommy! Of course in the end it boils down to “try a lot of things “. You put the concept in a very memorable way. I appreciate your work and your wit!
Excellent trip! Yes we must keep moving, even if we’re on top of the mountain rather than a small hill. We are designed to wander, constantly updating our internal map. Although once you do find the mountain it’s nice to return now and then, for the view and the memories of past views.
I like the idea of taking advice as an exploration to find what works for oneself. I think we can also expand what we view as advice in this exploration. A lot of the best useful advice comes to me when someone isn't giving advice. They're just describing a problem they had and saying what they did to solve or half-solve or get around it. It's as if the intention of giving advice can distort the advice to become less useful to others, while simply describing what one did individually makes it more real for another person to implement flexibly for their similar but not exactly the same problems.
The process of optimization changes depending on which model or metaphor you use for intelligence. The brain-as-a-computer metaphor expects an optimized answer in response to some query...a reflexive action...input -> output. It provides a single answer which may or may not be correct. However, if you view intelligence as a dynamical system, then there is no singular optimized solution...there is only a continuous process of closed-loop optimization. That is more like my navigation app which recalculates everytime I miss a turn.
Great analogy Tommy! I did a presentation on the notion of 'strategy' a while back arguing a very similar point; that when we describe any form of abstract ideas, it's like we're using Google Maps Satellite View, but the reality is that every human being operates at Street View. We don't have 360 degree vision of our surroundings, every person might use a different frame of reference to orient themselves, there might be barriers along the way such as a car accident or road works that impede clear travel.
Thus if we try to give directions to someone else and we're tracking their progress via Satellite View, there will be a fundamental mismatch between what we perceive as progress vs what they experience.
>A lot of advice is just people overgeneralizing from what worked for them
This is so darn true.
It is amazing so many people have so little empathy.
Love how you built up to the point from the pre-smartphone times.
I still had an A-Z map in my car until last year when I accidentally left it in my old car.
It occurred to me after I realised I hadn't grabbed it that the maps in the book were maybe 15 or 20 years out of date so lots of new roads and routes wouldn't have even been in it.
I think that's very relevant to advice too, some may be old and out of date, but not completely useless.
Great post
It definitely resonated with me from the not niching down to get to newsletterville to just heading "up"! Thank you for the spectacular effort in bringing this to us!
Well said Tommy! Of course in the end it boils down to “try a lot of things “. You put the concept in a very memorable way. I appreciate your work and your wit!
Excellent trip! Yes we must keep moving, even if we’re on top of the mountain rather than a small hill. We are designed to wander, constantly updating our internal map. Although once you do find the mountain it’s nice to return now and then, for the view and the memories of past views.
This is the type of article that would've been real useful before I took a turn down self-help lane
Great post. Added to my recommendations!
Thank you!
I really enjoyed this essay Tommy. Thanks for posting.
I like the idea of taking advice as an exploration to find what works for oneself. I think we can also expand what we view as advice in this exploration. A lot of the best useful advice comes to me when someone isn't giving advice. They're just describing a problem they had and saying what they did to solve or half-solve or get around it. It's as if the intention of giving advice can distort the advice to become less useful to others, while simply describing what one did individually makes it more real for another person to implement flexibly for their similar but not exactly the same problems.
The process of optimization changes depending on which model or metaphor you use for intelligence. The brain-as-a-computer metaphor expects an optimized answer in response to some query...a reflexive action...input -> output. It provides a single answer which may or may not be correct. However, if you view intelligence as a dynamical system, then there is no singular optimized solution...there is only a continuous process of closed-loop optimization. That is more like my navigation app which recalculates everytime I miss a turn.
For more on metaphors of cognition, see https://tomrearick.substack.com/p/metaphors-we-think-by
Great analogy Tommy! I did a presentation on the notion of 'strategy' a while back arguing a very similar point; that when we describe any form of abstract ideas, it's like we're using Google Maps Satellite View, but the reality is that every human being operates at Street View. We don't have 360 degree vision of our surroundings, every person might use a different frame of reference to orient themselves, there might be barriers along the way such as a car accident or road works that impede clear travel.
Thus if we try to give directions to someone else and we're tracking their progress via Satellite View, there will be a fundamental mismatch between what we perceive as progress vs what they experience.
Thanks for sharing!