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Tuesday, June 30, 2020

Speedrunning is like football

Speedrunning is like football.


The football players represent (G) my gameplay ideas. The players' brains represent (Ge) my explicit gameplay ideas while the players' bodies represent (Gi) my inexplicit gameplay ideas, i.e my gameplay habits and intuitions.


The coaches represent (L1) my ideas regarding how to learn and improve my gameplay ideas. Their brains represent (L1e) my explicit L1 ideas while their bodies represent (L1i) my inexplicit L1 ideas, i.e. my habits and intuitions regarding how to learn and improve my G ideas.


The head coach represents (L2) my ideas regarding how to learn L1 ideas. His brain represents (L2e) my explicit L1 ideas while his body represents (L2i) my inexplicit L2 ideas, i.e. my habits and intuitions regarding how to learn L1 ideas.


But my speedrunning is more advanced than that because I've been using guidance from FI.[4]


There's a team physician and some other professionals like physical therapists. They represent (P) my psycho-epistemology ideas. [5] Their brains represent (Pe) my explicit psycho-epistemology ideas while their bodies represent (Pi) my inexplicit psycho-epistemology ideas, i.e. my habits and intuitions regarding my sense of life.


The coaches and healthcare professionals can enlist the team's primary philosophy coach who helps them in between games and practice sessions. The primary philosophy coach represents (L3) my ideas about my P, L2, L1, and G ideas. [1]


The primary philosophy coach (and none of the other coaches) has access to the secondary philosophy coaches. The secondary philosophy coaches represent external ideas from other speedrunners and philosophers. [3]



------



# Footnotes:

[1] The guys try not to skip levels. So if L3 is talking to G, that's fine as long as the appropriate L2 and L1 is in the discussion, helping guide it, and making adjustments to themselves anytime L3 and/or G make an adjustment. (I'm unsure about this last sentence. needs more analysis.)

[2] not sure, needs more analysis. maybe only Ge and not Gi. And if so, this logic might apply to L/P.

[3] Every time any of these players or coaches talk to each other, there is potential communication error. Not sure about this. needs more analysis. 

[4] I learned about (philosophical) speedrunning from Fallible IdeasElliot Temple.

[5] Ayn Rand coined the term psycho-epistemology. Here's a link to her writings about it.

SMO: Studying Metro route - session #36

# Summary:

SMO: Studying Metro route #36. I decided to do more untimed trials aimed at improving all my individual gameplay skills that I worked on in the last session and continue until I get a 4-trial cycle average of 2.25 or better. I failed to meet or beat my metric.


# Context:

I've been practicing the boss fight of the SmallAnt SMO Any% speedrunning beginner route, Metro kingdom. I'm still working on consistently beating the boss in 2 cycles using a new metric called 4-trial cycle average. I've also been focussing a lot on my process.


# Goals:

  1. Learning goals:
    1. Improve learning processes:
      1. of creating the speedrunning blog post.
        1. of creating the sections with that.
  2. Activity goals:
    1. Improve gameplay processes:
      1. Do 4 untimed trials aiming at achieve 4-trial cycle average of 2.25.

# Action Plan:
  1. Pre-gameplay phase: 
    1. Document as much as I can document prior to gameplay.
    2. Review the trial analyses from last session.
    3. Keep the following in mind re the Metro boss fight:
      1. During the invulnerable phase, wait until the segments turn purple (indicating that it's now stunned), then slowly shoot the snake for 2 successful shots, then speed up shooting.
      2. During the projectile phase of the 2nd cycle, shoot 2 to 3 projectiles, move away from the rest, and then start shooting the snake segments.
        1. Try to shoot near the head of the snake before the rest. 
      3. Pay attention to the shadows of the projectiles so I can try to avoid the projectiles while not looking at them.
    4. Analyze (and record analysis) the pre-gameplay phase.
  2. Gameplay phase: 
    1. Do 4 untimed trials of the boss fight.
      1. After each trial, 
        1. record the initial analysis made during gameplay.
          1. as I'm writing, also do more analysis of the gameplay (from memory) and record that too.
  3. Post-gameplay phase:
    1. Evaluate whether or not my 4-trial cycle average <= 2.25.
    2. Do analysis of this session's trial runs, also the older one's documented here, and older ones from memory. Look for trends or systemic problems.

# Work:


Here's the trial analysis from last session: 

  • 28-31: 4-trial cycle average = 2.5, which does not match or beat my goal of 2.25.
    • 28: 2 cycle win! No overheating!
      • Interesting thing: I noticed that in the 2nd cycle vulnerable snake shooting phase, I was shooting kinda in the middle of where the snake was crossing itself, which resulted in shooting an area where it was harder to miss because there were more than one snake segment in the general area of aim.
    • 29: 3 cycle win - there was only one snake segment I missed in the 2nd cycle. No overheating.
      • Interesting thing: I noticed for the first time that the projectiles have shadows. That means I can now tell if a projectile is coming at me without looking at it.
    • 30: 3 cycle win - there were 2 sections of 2-segments (4 total segments) I missed in the 2nd cycle. No overheating.
    • 31: 2 cycle win! I overheated once during the invulnerable phase of 1st cycle.

Pre-gameplay analysis:

  • Made some improvements over last session.

Gameplay trial analysis: 

  • 32: 3 cycle win. Similar problem to before, during 2nd cycle, the last snake segment was so high up the building that I had to back up to get it, and it was too late. No overheating.
  • 33: I died in the 2nd cycle. Got hit too many times by projectiles. No overheating.
  • 34: 3 cycle win. I spent too much time shooting projectiles during the 2nd cycle, leaving not enough time to shoot the snake. There was one segment left to get. No overheating.
  • 35: 3 cycle win. Again I missed one segment in the 2nd cycle. I noticed that I sent off one shot when I could have sent 3 quick shots at the last segment. Send 3 would have had a much better chance of hitting the segment. No overheating.

Post-gameplay analysis:

  • 32-35: I'll treat the death as 6 cycles (as an estimate) because it means repeating the boss fight. So my 4-trial cycle average for this session is 3.75.
    • The shadow never came in handy. Or maybe it could have and I didn't notice the shadows.
    • The idea of shooting in the middle where the snake crosses itself seems like a bad idea because it competes with SmallAnt's idea of shooting the snake in a way without changing aim as the snake moves along its path.
    • Unsolved problem that occurred a few times during the past few session: I don't know how to prevent the situation where the last snake segment is high up the building and I fail to get it before the snake goes invulnerable.

    # Session analysis:


    This session was at least as good as my last session (so tied for best). If I factor in the time I used, this session beats the last session (cuz less time). Also my goals and action plan were better documented/organized this time than compared to last session, though I'm not sure that that resulted in a better work product.



    # Next steps: 


    Continue working to achieve 4-trial cycle average of 2.25 or better.



    # Footnotes:


    none


    Improving my guide for making blog posts using my latest speedrunning session as a guide

    # Summary:

    I did some work on improving my guide for making blog posts by incorporating what I learned during my last speedrunning session.


    # Context:

    I've been using my work in some fields to help improve my work in other fields. I made another big improvement to my learning processes with my latest speedrunning session. Now I want to explore what I can reuse for other fields, starting with making blog posts. Later I'll work on improving my guides for programming and grammar analysis.


    # Goals:
    • Learning goals:
      • Improve learning processes (i.e. improve templates):
        • of creating the blog post.
        • of creating the blog post sections:
          • summary
          • context
          • goals
          • action plan
          • work
          • session analysis
          • next steps
          • footnotes
    • Activity goals:
      • Explore making a new guide for making blog posts incorporating the learning processes adopted in last speedrunning session.
      • State audience.
      • Don't misrepresent the state of my knowledge of the ideas I'm writing about.
      • Don't plagiarize.

    # Action Plan:
    • Pre-activity phase:
      • State audience clearly enough to use as a model to make predictions about whether or not the audience will understand my statements.
      • Review last speedrunning session.
      • Review latest guide for making blog posts.
    • Activity phase:
      • For each new non-activity idea from the last speedrunning session, consider how it can apply to making blog posts and document that.
    • Post-activity phase:
      • Check that I've not misrepresented the state of my knowledge of the ideas I'm writing about.
        • If fail, create footnotes for corrections.
      • Check that I've not plagiarized. 
        • If fail, create footnotes for corrections.

    # Work:

    Pre-activity phase:
    1. Audience: people familiar with FI.
    2. What new learning things did I implement in my last speedrunning session?
      1. Introduced a new section called summary.
        1. Write as much of this section as possible before performing the activity.
      2. Re the goals section, include meta-goals about learning, not just goals directly about the activity. Here's what I did for that in my last speedrunning session.
        1. Improve learning processes (i.e. improve templates):
          1. of creating the blog post.
          2. of creating the blog post sections:
            1. summary
            2. context
            3. goals
            4. action plan
            5. work
            6. session analysis
            7. next steps
            8. footnotes
      3. Re the action plan and work sections, use this categorization scheme:
        1. Pre-activity phase (aka pre-gameplay phase)
        2. Activity phase (aka gameplay phase)
        3. Post-activity phase (aka post-gameplay phase)
      4. Note: I think all of the above applies to making blog posts (and to programming and grammar analysis).
    3. Now I'll review my current guide for making blog posts (linked above) and try to incorporate the new ideas listed above.
    Activity phase:

    Guide for making blog posts:
      1. Load template
        1. summary
        2. context
        3. goals
          1. learning goals
          2. activity goals
            1. state audience clearly enough to use as a model to make predictions about whether or not the audience will understand my statements
            2. don't misrepresent the state of my knowledge of the ideas I'm writing about
            3. don't plagiarize 
        4. action plan
          1. pre-activity phase
            1. load the following guides:
              1. Guide for making blog posts
              2. Guide for thinking/discussion (my idea tree on discussion methods)
          2. activity phase
          3. post-activity phase
        5. work
          1. pre-activity phase
          2. activity phase
          3. post-activity phase
        6. session analysis
        7. next steps
        8. footnotes
      2. Copy/paste my initial relatively less organized exploration (usually saved in my personal notes).
      3. Document as much as possible before doing step 1.5 (work).
      4. Do step 1.5 (work).
      5. Do step 1.6 (session analysis)
      6. Do step 1.7 (next steps) 
      7. Do step 1.8 (footnotes)
      8. Finish step 1.1 (summary)
    Post-activity phase:
    • Check that I didn't misrepresent the state of my knowledge. 
      • Pass. No footnotes required.
    • Check that I didn't plagiarize. 
      • I don't know how to check this very well. I don't have an organized process for determining this. I think in this case I did not plagiarize but I'm not confident that I could do this for more complicated cases. In this case, I didn't link to anybody else's writing nor did I credit anybody that I got ideas from, but I don't think I need to because I think I didn't write any ideas originated by anyone else except for stuff that is widespread in our culture.
      • Pass. No footnotes required.

    # Session analysis:

    I think I achieved all of my stated goals.


    # Next steps:
    1. Update my guide on making blog posts.
    2. Do the same process for my guide for programming (I saved this as a new personal note as a reminder).
    3. Do the same process for my guide for grammar analysis (I saved this as a new personal note as a reminder).

    # Footnotes:

    none

    Monday, June 29, 2020

    SMO: Studying Metro route - session #35

    # Summary:

    SMO: Studying Metro route #35. I decided to do more untimed trials aimed at improving all my individual gameplay skills that I worked on in the last session and continue until I can consistently beat the boss in 2 cycles. Meta: This is my best speedrunning session to date. I think I spent more time in pre-gameplay phase this session than compared to any previous session. I've been enjoying this time more and more. I've noticed that I've been wanting it to last longer (as opposed to wanting to hurry up to the gameplay phase, which is what I think I was doing previously). I wrote all of the previous text and almost all of the below text before picking up the controller to play. Post-gameplay: Created a new metric just for this boss fight called 4-trial cycle average. Improved the metric from 3.75 last session to 2.5 this session. 


    # Context:

    I've been practicing the boss fight of the SmallAnt SMO Any% speedrunning beginner route, Metro kingdom. I'm still working on consistently beating the boss in 2 cycles. I've also been focussing a lot on my process.


    # Goals:

    1. Improve learning processes (i.e. improve templates):
      1. of creating the blog post.
      2. of creating the blog post sections:
        1. summary
        2. context
        3. goals
        4. action plan
        5. work
        6. session analysis
        7. next steps
        8. footnotes
    2. Improve gameplay processes:
      1. Do 4 untimed trials aiming to consistently beat the boss in 2 cycles.

    # Action Plan:
    1. Pre-gameplay phase: 
      1. Document as much as I can document prior to gameplay.
      2. Review the trial analyses from last session.
      3. Keep the following in mind re the Metro boss fight:
        1. During the invulnerable phase, wait until the segments turn purple (indicating that it's now stunned), then slowly shoot the snake for 2 successful shots, then speed up shooting.
        2. During the projectile phase of the 2nd cycle, shoot 2 to 3 projectiles, move away from the rest, and then start shooting the snake segments.
          1. Try to shoot near the head of the snake before the rest. 
      4. Analyze and record the pre-gameplay phase.
    2. Gameplay phase: 
      1. Do 4 untimed trials of the boss fight.
        1. After each trial, 
          1. record the initial analysis made during gameplay.
            1. as I'm writing, also do more analysis of the gameplay (from memory) and record that too.
    3. Post-gameplay phase:
      1. Do analysis of this session's trial runs, also the older one's documented here, and older ones from memory. Look for trends or systemic problems.

    # Work:


    Here's the analysis from last session: 

    • 24: Took 5 cycles. I had trouble using motion control when the snake segment was at the top of the building -- I switched to direction pad, and also moving back, too late and then still didn't make it to aiming at the snake segment before it started moving again. Also I didn't try to shoot near the head before the rest. Also I overheated because I forgot to wait until the invulnerable snake became stunned before shooting it.
    • 25: Took 4 cycles. Had many of the same problems as above.
    • 26: Took 3 cycles. Got a "perfect" in the 1st cycle and almost got a "perfect" on the 2nd cycle. I thought I got it done as my shot was approaching the last snake segment and hit it, but somehow it didn't count. I overheated twice during shooting the stunned snake.
    • 27: Took 3 cycles. Like last time, got a "perfect" in the 1st cycle and almost got one in the 2nd cycle. And again I was so close to succeeding that I expected my last shot to hit the last snake segment. I didn't overheat at all.

    New analysis about the above trials. I got a 3.75 cycle average. (5+4+3+3)/4=3.75


    Pre-game play analysis:

    • I did significantly better than compared to all previous speedrunning sessions.

    Game play analysis: 

    • 28: 2 cycle win! No overheating!
      • Interesting thing: I noticed that in the 2nd cycle vulnerable snake shooting phase, I was shooting kinda in the middle of where the snake was crossing itself, which resulted in shooting an area where it was harder to miss because there were more than one snake segment in the general area of aim.
    • 29: 3 cycle win - there was only one snake segment I missed in the 2nd cycle. No overheating.
      • Interesting thing: I noticed for the first time that the projectiles have shadows. That means I can now tell if a projectile is coming at me without looking at it.
    • 30: 3 cycle win - there were 2 sections of 2-segments (4 total segments) I missed in the 2nd cycle. No overheating.
    • 31: 2 cycle win! I overheated once during the invulnerable phase of 1st cycle.

    Post-game play analysis:

    • I noticed that I'm shooting lots of projectiles and with more accuracy. So I'm getting better at aiming with motion control. I don't recall using lateral movement or direction pad to assist motion control.
    • I noticed 2 new things that could be helpful for improving my gameplay for this boss fight.


    # Session analysis:


    I've made significant improvements to my learning processes. I spent more time during the pre-gameplay phase in this session than compared to any previous session. I discovered two new gameplay things that could prove helpful later.


    I got 2/4 2-cycle wins, the rest 3-cycle. That's an average of 2.5 cycles.



    # Next steps: 


    Do 4 more untimed trials looking to consistently get 2-cycle wins -- defined as 4 trial cycle average of 2.25. Then do timed trials.

    Following my learning plan - my work for semiweek 4

    Report for semiweek 4. This is the learning plan I followed.


    Sunday, June 28, 2020

    Connecting concepts: paths-forward and FI learning plan

    # Context:

    I thought of a connection between paths forward and FI learning plan.

    I thought of this because minutes earlier I had made a series of connections between my ideas leading to one that said "Another big source of material [to make new connectionsis other people’s material, FI email list, FI discord, curi blog, and other material posted to FI like books by Goldratt." I think that's when I thought of paths forward. I don't have a link yet because I haven't made a blog post yet -- it's only in my personal notes at this point.


    # Goals:
    • explore the connection between paths forward and FI learning plan.
      • don't misrepresent the state of my knowledge regarding the ideas (i.e. don't lie or be ambiguous such as to easily result in misleading people about the standards to which I know what I know).
      • don't misrepresent the originator of the ideas (i.e. don't plagiarize).

    # Action Plan:
    • record what I already explored in my personal notes
    • load guides
      • which ones?
        • process of creating blog posts. [2] 
        • discussion methods idea tree. 
    • explore the ideas more

    # Work:

    I'm referencing the following guides:

    Following is the initial exploration that I had written in my personal notes: It's a list of notes I took quickly without spending any conscious effort to make it understandable to anyone but me: [1]

    connect paths-forward to FI learning plan

    strength of path forward comes in degrees:
    - weakest path forward example
    - strongest path forward example (known to me)

    new idea: new sheet that logs other people's criticisms/suggestions/questions/etc.
      • and a form that allows people to add stuff to my list.
        • maybe this is too much. I could instead tell people to talk to me [[[where?]]]
          • and I could automate the task of importing a post from [place defined above] so that it enters my sheet and notifies me about it with an email.
            • the system would alert me that there's a new post and prompt me to run the importToLog function. 
      • where would the sheet be? in my learning plan log, or a new spreadsheet? 
        • I guess a new spreadsheet. 
          • bonus: then I could learn how to automate tasks that involve more than 1 spreadsheet.
    Now I'll try to expand on this stuff. 

    What is an example of the weakest path forward? I did a search in the paths forward essay (linked above) and didn't find the word "weak". So I started skimming and I found "bad path forward" and "good path forward". I skimmed some more looking for something I vaguely remember about the degree of strength of a good path forward (my paraphrase). I haven't found it yet. Maybe it's in another essay or blog post about paths forward. 

    I think it's useful to think of a path forward as having a degree of strength. And I think it makes sense to talk about one or more thresholds. I think that's what Elliot was doing when he defined "bad path forward" vs "good path forward". I think the degree of strength of a path forward beyond a threshold makes the path forward "good", or else "bad".

    I think another useful threshold can factor in one's knowledge. For example, I've been implementing a learning plan that I created guided by (among other things) the FI learning plan blog post linked above and Elliot's suggestions/criticisms in his FI emails engaging with my semiweekly summary posts about my work on my learning plan. I used Elliot's suggestions/criticisms to improve my process of making my semiweekly summary posts, which effectively strengthened the paths forward for my ideas. 

    This means that I now make paths forward for my ideas that meet the standard of my current state of knowledge (summarized in the blog post linked in last paragraph).

    Disclaimer: I have not checked these ideas with FI. This blog post is partly intended to do that.


    # Analysis:
    • I think I did some good work exploring the connection between paths forward and FI learning plan.
    • I think I correctly stated the state of my knowledge of the ideas I explained.
    • I think I correctly credited the originator regarding the ideas I used.

    # Next steps:

    Prioritize this post on my next semiweekly summary post.


    # Footnotes:

    [1] note to audience: I wrote part of the summary for this blog post -- the one that goes in my semiweekly summary posts -- right after having written the initial exploration. I wrote the rest of it after finishing the blog post.

    [2] note to self: new connection: this step is analogous to getting my ideas to testable condition. define testable -- can successfully get external criticism and I can successfully determine success/fail on the ensuing discussion about the external criticism. not sure. explore more. make a blog post dedicated just to this. (I saved this to a personal note as a reminder.)

    SMO: Studying Metro route - session #34

    # Context:

    I've been practicing the boss fight of the speedrunning beginner route for the Metro kingdom. I have not started doing timed runs yet because I'm working on individual problems I'm having with the boss fight. In the last session I decided that my next step is to do 4 more untimed trials aiming to consistently beat the boss in 2 cycles.


    # Goals:

    1. Do 4 untimed trials aiming to consistently beat the boss in 2 cycles.

    # Action Plan:
    1. Keep the following in mind re the Metro boss fight:
      1. During the projectile phase, shoot 2 to 3 projectiles, move away from the rest, and then start shooting the snake segments.
        1. Try to shoot near the head of the snake before the rest.
      2. During the invulnerable phase, wait until the segments turn purple (indicating that it's now stunned), then slowly shoot the snake for 2 successful shots, then speed up shooting. 
    2. Do 4 untimed trials of the boss fight.
      1. After each trial, analyze and document my analysis.


    # Work:


    Trial 24-27 analysis: 

    • 24: Took 5 cycles. I had trouble using motion control when the snake segment was at the top of the building -- I switched to direction pad, and also moving back, too late and then still didn't make it to aiming at the snake segment before it started moving again. Also I didn't try to shoot near the head before the rest. Also I overheated because I forgot to wait until the invulnerable snake became stunned before shooting it.
    • 25: Took 4 cycles. Had many of the same problems as above.
    • 26: Took 3 cycles. Got a "perfect" in the 1st cycle and almost got a "perfect" on the 2nd cycle. I thought I got it done as my shot was approaching the last snake segment and hit it, but somehow it didn't count. I overheated twice during shooting the stunned snake.
    • 27: Took 3 cycles. Like last time, got a "perfect" in the 1st cycle and almost got one in the 2nd cycle. And again I was so close to succeeding that I expected my last shot to hit the last snake segment. I didn't overheat at all.

    # Session analysis:


    I got visibly better at the boss fight. I didn't get any 2 cycle wins but I was close twice and I'm now doing better at focussing on the details than compared to last session.



    # Next steps: 


    Continue doing untimed runs until I can consistently beat the boss in 2 cycles. 

    Saturday, June 27, 2020

    SMO: Studying Metro route - session #33

    # Context:

    I've been practicing the boss fight of the Metro route. I have not started doing timed runs yet because I'm working on individual problems I'm having with the boss fight. The last problem I noticed (from last session) is that I overheated while trying to shoot the snake during its invulnerable phase. And in the last session I decided that my next step is to rewatch the smallant guide looking for tips on this.


    # Goals:

    1. Get tips from smallant guide on how to shoot the snake during its invulnerable phase.
    2. Test out what I learned.

    # Action Plan:
    1. Watch smallant guide
      1. record tips re snake invulnerable phase.
    2. Test out what I learned on 4 untimed trials of the boss fight.
    3. Compare and contrast the tips with my trials.


    # Work:


    Smallant says something like *if you shot all the snake segments, then...*. This doesn't make sense to me because the invulnerable phase happens regardless of whether or not I shot all the snake segments, and so how I treat the invulnerable phase should not depend on whether or not I shot all the snake segments immediately preceding the invulnerable phase.


    I noticed that he said to wait until the snake becomes stunned (which is when the snake segments turn purple from black), then shoot it. I have not been doing that. I'll try to do that and see if that's better. Maybe when I overheated in my last session, it's because I started shooting before the snake became stunned. 


    I also thought of another idea to prevent overheating. Just shoot a bit slower so that I don't have 3 bullets in the air at the same time, at least initially for the first 3 hits. I thought of this because in smallant's video, he starts out shooting the invulnerable snake slowly for the first 3 hits, then speeds up after that. 


    Now I'll do 4 trials, while trying to keep the above in mind, and doing and documenting some analysis after each trial.


    Trials 20, 21, 22, 23 analysis: 

    • 20: I shot the invulnerable snake slowly initially, then fast. And I didn't overheat. I failed to shoot all the segments in the first cycle, but succeeded in the last. I got hit by projectiles too much (but didn't die, and I accidentally got a heart, which I think allowed me to survive).
    • 21: No overheating. Finished in 2 cycles. Got hit less by projectiles because I successfully shot more of them before shooting snake segments.
    • 22: No overheating. Finished in 4 cycles. Got hit less by projectiles but I did poorly at getting all the snake segments per cycle. One thing is I'm not (and have never been) trying to shoot near the head before the rest of the body.
    • 23: I overheated while shooting the invulnerable snake. I did everything else as well as I have done in the past.

    # Analysis:


    I think this is the best speedrunning session I've done so far in all of my speedrunning history. I'm now doing better at following *the spirit of* my documented process rather than following *the letter of* it.



    # Next steps: 


    Do 4 more untimed trials in next session purposed for practicing the same things and trying to consistently beat the boss in 2 cycles. 

    Process for grammar analysis

    # Context:

    I've been trying to learn how to do grammar analysis. I've also made it a goal to make my process for grammar analysis. I think I'm ready to do that now. But for now I'll only think about simple sentences (sentences with only one clause).


    # Goals:
    • Make a process/algorithm for doing grammar analysis for one-clause sentences.

    # Work:

    So here's my process for grammar analysis of a one-clause sentence.
    1. Load my latest guides:
      1. For making blog posts
      2. For doing grammar analysis
    2. Outline the sentence with angle brackets, curly brackets, and square brackets as explained in the first link above.
      1. If the outline is too complex, make additional versions with some details omitted. 
      2. Decide what the main verb(s) is/are. Consider more than one option.
        1. Make an outline (that can be dropped into MindNode tree-making software) for each option.
          1. Compare and contrast the options and try to find one that beats the others on all metrics (criticisms) OR two equivalent options.
            1. Consider the meaning of the sentence.
            2. Consider which tree is easier to understand.
            3. If failed to find one option that beats all others or failed to conclude that two options are equivalent, then
              1. If this is the first time here, then go back to step 2.2 and repeat.
              2. If this is my second time here, then 
                1. Find other FI people's grammar analyses of the same sentence and compare and contrast their analyses to mine.
                  1. If found any, go back through all the steps from step 2.2 to redo all my thinking, incorporating the new ideas.
              3. Else, break out of this loop and seek external criticism (showing all the above work).

    # Analysis:

    I think I made a ton of improvement compared to my previous disorganized process of doing grammar analysis.


    # Next steps:

    Continue practicing grammar analysis of one-clause sentences, and improving my process with each practice iteration.

    Grammar: analyze "He was eating and talking."

    # Context:

    I chose to analyze this sentence because I already know it is not straightforward. I encountered this sentence while doing my finding verbs series. 


    # Goals:
    • Outline the sentence in various ways and pick the best one, or decide that the top options are equivalent.

    # Action Plan:

    # Work:

    So the sentence I'm working on is: He was eating and talking.

    I'm not sure whether to treat the main verb as "was" or "eating"/"talking". Now that I say that, I think I'm saying vague nonsense. What is a "main verb"? I'm not even sure that that is a grammar concept. So I googled it and actually "main verb" is a grammar concept according to a bunch of stuff on the internet. I searched through FI's grammar article for "main verb" and I didn't find it. My guess is that Elliot didn't think "main verb" is a useful concept compared to the rest of the concepts he used for his grammar article. So for now I'll treat "main verb" as a real thing that I think I understand.

    One way to outline the sentence is this (treating "was" as the main verb):

    <He> <was> <eating and talking>.
    • Which is of the form: <Subject> <linking verb> <complement>.
      • This means that eating and talking are nouns made from verbs (i.e. present participles).
    I could also outline it like this:
    • Verb(linking): was
      • Subject: He
      • Complement: eating and talking
        • Conjunction: and
          • noun(present participle): eating
          • noun(present participle): talking
    Now I'll try to outline the sentence treating "was" as the helper verb for the main verbs "eating" and "talking". (Note: I already have a hunch that this doesn't make sense because in this scheme there are two main verbs and I think I should only have one. Not sure about this though. I will revisit this.)

    <He> <was> <eating and talking>. (same as above)
    • Which is of the form: <Subject> <helper verb> <verb phrase>.
      • This means that "eating" and "talking" are verbs and "was" is a helper verb for those verbs.
    I could also outline it like this:
    • Verb phrase: eating and talking
      • Conjunction: and
        • Verb 1: eating
        • Verb 2: talking
      • Helper verb: was
      • Subject: He
    I don't like this outline because it puts analysis of the verb phrase on the same level as the helper verb and the subject. I thought to change the outline so that they are not at the same level, but I don't know how to do that while making the idea tree look right. I thought maybe I should add a node called "Analysis of verb phrase" and then put the "Conjunction: and" node and its children as a child of the new node, like so:
    • Verb phrase: eating and talking
      • Subject: He
      • Helper verb: was
      • (Analysis of verb phrase)
        • Conjunction: and
          • Verb 1: eating
          • Verb 2: talking
    If I were to judge which grammar interpretation is best, given what I've already written, I'd pick the first one because it doesn't require a weird extra node called "Analysis of verb phrase".

    Now I'm thinking I should analyze simpler equivalent sentences: "He was eating." and "He ate."
    • He was eating.
      • Verb: Eating
        • Subject: He
        • Helper verb: was
    • He ate.
      • Verb: ate
        • Subject: He
    And the other variation for "He was eating":
    • He was eating.
      • Verb(linking): was
        • Subject: He
        • Complement: eating
    I guess that since "He was eating" is equivalent in meaning to "He ate", I should use the same type of grammar analysis for "He was eating" as "He ate" (where "eating"/"ate" is treated as the main verb, which leaves "was" as a helper verb.
     
    So using that logic, my first analysis is the best one:
    • Verb(linking): was
      • Subject: He
      • Complement: eating and talking
        • Conjunction: and
          • noun(present participle): eating
          • noun(present participle): talking
    This also agrees with my earlier reasoning: "If I were to judge which grammar interpretation is best, given what I've already written, I'd pick the first one because it doesn't require a weird extra node called "Analysis of verb phrase"."


    # Analysis:

    I think I did well. I arrived at a grammar interpretation that survived all my criticism and beat all the other interpretations I thought of.


    # Next steps:

    Prioritize this post for external criticism. Also do more grammar analyses of sentences like this one.

    Friday, June 26, 2020

    SMO: Studying Metro route - session #32

    # Context:

    I've been practicing the boss fight of the Metro route.


    # Goal:


    Improve aiming with motion controls so that I'm remembering to use it in every case that it's needed while also trying to shoot some projectiles before shooting snake segments.



    # Activity:


    I'll do untimed practice trials of the Metro boss fight focussed on making the use of motion controls habitual, and on hitting some of the projectiles before shooting the snake. I'll do 3 trials before doing analysis.



    # Work/Analysis:


    Reread my notes from previous session.


    Trials 17, 18, 19 analysis: 17 - took 3 cycles to beat the boss. bad use of motion control in some cases, but at least I'm constantly using it. 18 - took 2 cycles. much better at motion control. also used lateral movement in one case to slightly adjust my aim to the left and successfully shot the snake segment I intended to shoot. 19 - took 2 cycles. I did even better than in 18. 

    • Reread my notes from last session and compare and contrast it against my trials 17, 18, 19.
      • Problem: I routinely miss shooting the snake in it's invulnerable state. what I remember from the smallant guide is that you just shoot quickly, as if the assumption is that all the shots will hit the snake. anyway I overheated at one point during this part so this is something I want to improve on.
        • Brainstorm solutions: rewatch the smallant guide to see what he did. I recall the idea of shooting at the head in this part of the fight. I haven't been paying attention to that.


      # Next steps: 


      Rewatch smallant guide looking for tips for the part of the fight where the snake is invulnerable. 

      Creating an algorithm for organizing my work for my semiweekly blog posts

      # Context:

      I recently received suggestions re organizing my work for my semiweekly blog posts and I did some brainstorming on that. Then I posted my 3rd semiweekly blog post and I organized my work using what I wrote as a loose guide to do the organizing. Now I want to write an algorithm for what I did, and I want to improve it.


      # Goal:

      Write goals and algorithm for how I organize my work for my semiweekly blog posts.


      # Action Plan:
      1. Write the goals for organizing my work for my semiweekly blog posts.
      2. Write the algorithm.
        1. Factor in Elliot's latest suggestion.

      # Work:

      So this is what I did for semiweek 3. The goal was to help create engagement between me and my audience -- I wanted my audience to know which of my posts I most wanted help with. The algorithm was as follows:
      1. Place the blog posts in categories:
        1. Create categories.
          1. I made the following categorization scheme:
            1. Philosophy, Self-evaluation, Thoughts re my Learning Plan
            2. Programming (only)
            3. Speedrunning (only)
        2. Include all the blog posts made during said semiweek within these categories in chronological order.
      2. Prioritize the blog posts for external help.
        1. Figure out which blog posts I most want help with.
          1. Write the priority level in front of the description of the blog post in caps, like PRIORITY 1, PRIORITY 2, PRIORITY 3.
      Now I want to add something that accounts for blog posts made prior to said semiweek (per Elliot's suggestion in his FI email linked in the Action Plan above).

      Wait, maybe that doesn't make sense because there's another way I should consider. Instead of including old blog posts that I still want help with, I could write new blog posts for each of those describing the current state of the problem, why I'm stuck, what I've tried to get unstuck, why those attempts failed, etc etc. 

      Now I'm thinking that I need to keep track of this kind of stuff so that I don't end up in the situation where a blog post needed attention and I didn't give it attention (in the form of a new blog post). 

      I'm not sure that's necessary though because if it's important to me, won't I remember it? Nah, I don't want to trust my memory. Fuck that. I've often been in the situation where I remember something that I thought was important a long time ago and wanted to remember daily but failed to remember it anyway until something external reminded me. That's not organized enough. I want a better method.

      Maybe it would be good to create a new column in my Log sheet called Status where I place a 0 indicating that the blog post is not solved yet or a 1 indicating that it's solved. This way I'd easily be able to find those blog posts by doing a filter for Status = 0, which will show me only the blog posts with that status. And I could be writing this status at the moment that I write the summary for the blog post, which is right after I write the blog post.

      Yeah I like that a lot. It's easy to do at the time of making blog posts and it's easy to check which blog posts that I've identified as still needing work.

      I've updated my Log sheet with the Status column.


      # Analysis:

      This was good. I wrote my algorithm for organizing my work for my semiweekly blog posts and while doing that I noticed that I don't need to change it to account for Elliot's idea of including past blog posts (made before the semiweek in question) because I could solve that problem a different way.


      # Next steps:
      1. Prioritize this blog post for my next semiweekly blog post.
      2. Improve my algorithm for writing blog posts that incorporates the new process involving the Status column.
      3. Write a 0 in my Log sheet in the Status column for the row representing this blog post.

      Thursday, June 25, 2020

      Grammar: studying Anne's trees on "Assuming you're an adult..."

      # Context:

      I've been trying to do grammar work that matches my self-evaluation skills re grammar. I was working on finding verbs for the last 3 grammar sessions. It was not easy for me -- I was looking up definitions and having trouble in cases where there seemed to be a helper verb and an action verb. 

      For this session I decided to use other people's work as a guide to help me learn grammar.


      # Goal:

      Study Anne's tree on the sentence, "Assuming you're an adult, there are some things you're already good at judging."


      # Action Plan:

      Review the tree and document my thoughts.


      # Work:

      I see that the subordinate clause "Assuming you're an adult" was placed as a child of the main clause. That makes sense. 

      I see there is a relative clause. I don't know what that is, so I researched that. I found this article explaining the following:

      > A relative clause—also called an adjective or adjectival clause—will meet three requirements.
      >
      > - First, it will contain a subject and verb.
      > - Next, it will begin with a relative pronoun [who, whom, whose, that, or which] or a relative adverb [when, where, or why].
      > - Finally, it will function as an adjective, answering the questions What kind? How many? or Which one?
      >
      > The relative clause will follow one of these two patterns:
      >
      > - Relative Pronoun or Adverb + Subject + Verb
      >
      > - Relative Pronoun as Subject + Verb

      In this case, the relative pronoun is an implied "that".

      I read something else saying that a relative clause is a type of subordinate clause. That makes sense, but now I'm thinking about what the other types of subordinate clauses are. I did some research on the types of subordinate clauses and that cleared things up a little bit.

      I notice that there's a "...then" at the end of the "Assuming" node. I think she means that "then" is an implied word. So the sentence with the implied words is: "Assuming you're an adult, [then] there are some things [that] you're already good at judging."


      # Analysis:

      I don't have a good grasp on recognizing subordinate clauses nor recognizing the different types of subordinate clauses.


      # Next steps:

      Continue doing my finding verbs series and continue studying trees and other grammar work by other FI people.

      SMO: Studying Metro route - session #31

      # Context:

      Practicing the boss fight of the Metro route.


      # Goal:


      Improve aiming with motion controls so that I'm remembering to use it in every case that it's needed.



      # Activity:


      I'll do untimed practice trials of the Metro boss fight focussed on making the use of motion controls habitual, and on hitting some of the projectiles before shooting the snake.



      # Work/Analysis:


      Reread my notes from previous session.


      Trial 16 analysis: I did better overall than last session in focussing on both the projectiles (shooting them and avoiding them) and in using motion control to aim at snake segments (I was doing motion control the entire time, assisted with direction pad sometimes). In the first cycle I shot all the snake segments. In the 2nd cycle I did not shoot all of them before it went invulnerable.

      • Reread my notes from last session and compare and contrast it against my trial 16.
        • Problem: In the 2nd cycle, the last few snake segments were very high up the building, and so I reached the edge of my motion control aim perimeter. I resorted to using direction pad but it was too late before the snake went invulnerable.
          • Brainstorm solutions: Remember to quickly switch to direction pad if motion control aim reaches limit. Also try to remember that this is going to happen when the snake segments are very high up the building


        # Next steps: 


        Continue practicing this boss fight while focussed on motion control and killing/avoiding projectiles, and on supplementing motion control with direction pad in cases where motion control reaches its limit. Keep doing this until I'm able to consistently beat the boss with only 2 cycles of projectiles.

        Following my learning plan - my work for semiweek 3

        Report for semiweek 3. This is the learning plan I followed.


        Wednesday, June 24, 2020

        Connecting concepts: state audience and testable condition

        I noticed a connection between two ideas that I want to explore. I noticed this a few days ago, and used it a few times, but I didn't think of the idea of talking about it yet. 

        The first idea is about stating the audience for a piece of writing. 

        The second idea is about getting a programming function to testable condition so that I can test it.

        How are these ideas connected?

        When writing a blog post, comment, discussion message, or whatever, it's important to have a clear enough understanding of the intended audience such that the model (of the audience) is in testable condition. What does that mean? It means that the audience model should be clear enough such that I can use it to check if my audience would fail to understand my statements. If the audience model is not clear enough, then I can't use it to check if my audience would fail to understand my statements.

        For example, consider this blog post. Who is my intended audience? Me and some FI veterans that might read this blog post. I have a clear picture of my own skills and enough of a clear picture of the FI veterans such that I can tell if my statements (in this blog post) would fail to be understood by the audience.

        Connecting concepts: breaking up stuff into parts and indirection

        I noticed a connection between two ideas: (1) breaking up a project into parts and (2) indirection.

        One way to deal with complex projects is to break it up into subprojects. Each subproject is simpler and easier to deal with than the parent project.

        This process can be done with the subprojects too. So each subproject can be a parent project to many child projects. Each child project is easier to deal with than its parent project.

        Indirection means redirecting your efforts to child projects because their parent project is too hard (for you given your current skill) to deal with as one non-broken-up project.

        Avoiding indirection means avoiding breaking up complex projects into simpler subprojects.

        Connecting concepts: references as guides and installing code libraries

        While blogging about some programming work, I noticed a connection between two things.

        The first thing is the concept of installing code libraries. Sometimes a programmer wants to use some existing functions and one way to do that is to install the relevant code library, giving him access to use its functions in his programming project.

        The second thing is the concept of using references as a guide to doing some intellectual activity. I use many guides while doing my intellectual activities. Here's a guide I use for making blog posts.

        How do they connect?

        Keeping a guide in mind while doing an intellectual activity is analogous to installing a code library for a programming project.

        Compare and contrast my intellectual activities

        While thinking about this FI email by Elliot Temple, I decided to dedicate a blog post towards it. He said: "Summarize how the time period went." So I want to explore that. And I want to expand it to the entire period (including my past speedrunning and grammar sessions going back maybe a year).

        My main goal has been to learn rationality. Part of that means to improve my self-evaluation methods, in general and specifically for individual activities.

        Two of my activities have been speedrunning and grammar. My speedrunning sessions have been very helpful towards my main goal while my grammar sessions have not been of much help. (My latest grammar sessions have helped a little bit with my self-evaluation of grammar, but I don't think I've been able to generalize those ideas much for any activity.)

        Then I recently started programming. I started programming only because I wanted to automate some repetitive tasks and because I find that kind of stuff very very very fun. But then very quickly I realized that this is helping me learn self-evaluation methods, not just for programming but for all activities. And I think my programming work has been more productive overall than compared to my speedrunning work, with respect to making progress towards my main goal (and the subgoal of developing my self-evaluation methods).

        Why is my programming helping so much? I have some theories. 

        First, programming is similar to speedrunning in the sense that it's very easy to know when you're wrong (assuming you already know how to do empirical tests in programming, which I do some). As for grammar, it's much more difficult to know when you're wrong.

        Second, programming is similar to speedrunning in the sense that there's tons of helpful content already written on the internet. It is true that there's lots of content re grammar, but because it's much harder to know when you're wrong, much of that content is either wrong or confused or doesn't explain things well, making it non-ideal for my main goal (with my current skill level).

        Third (and this hasn't taken effect yet), programming is similar to speedrunning in the sense that the philosophy community I'm involved with can make informed comments about my work (because many of them are programmers). My philosophy community can also help with critical discussions re grammar, but that type of discussion is much harder for me to understand given the complexity of the content (compared to speedrunning or programming).

        So that sets programming and speedrunning on an equal playing field (for me, not claiming anything about other people, for example people who don't already know some programming).

        Fourth, I'm able to do programming for many hours a day (on one particular day I spent ~7 hours) while I get bored speedrunning after just a few trials (which might take 20 minutes). So I'm putting a lot more time and thought into programming than I am into speedrunning.


        I have another insight, differentiating between programming and speedrunning. Programming does not require fast reactions while speedrunning does. I think this is a pro and a con. One of my subgoals is to integrate my habits with my explicit policies, and another is to improve my skills at integrating my habits with my explicit policies. I think programming helps with this some but I'm guessing that speedrunning is better for this because it requires more focus on my habitual thinking and body movements. 

        Tuesday, June 23, 2020

        Brainstorming ideas for organizing my semiweekly summaries of my blog posts

        # Context:

        After reading this FI email with recommendations for organizing my semiweekly summaries of my blog posts, I made edits to my process. But then I thought I need to put in a lot more effort, which is the purpose of this post. I thought of this while driving and I wrote down some ideas into a new personal note as soon as I stopped driving. I included that personal note at the bottom of this email.


        # Goals: 
        • Brainstorm a bunch of ideas on how to organize my semiweekly summaries of my blog posts.
          • Including ideas about the purpose(s) of organizing them.

        # Action Plan:
        • Brainstorm list of ideas (starting with the purpose(s) of organization):
          • use the following as guides:
            • personal note (listed at the end of this post)
            • Process for making blog posts
            • skim through my blog posts and try to come up with categorization schemes

        # Work:
        • Question: For what purpose(s) should I organize my blog posts in my semiweekly summary posts?
          • Helps me engage with my audience.
            • Helps them know what I'm looking for.
          • what else? (I'm looking for ideas from other people)
        • Question: What ways of organizing my blog posts would help my audience engage with me
          • Question: What sorts of engagement am I looking for?
            • I want recommendations and criticism in general. Specifically I'm looking for these types:
              • Criticism/questions designed to help me understand that I'm overreaching/failing to self-evaluate, and recommendations on what to do instead.
              • Criticism/questions designed to help me understanding that I plagiarized somebody's intellectual work, and recommendations on what to do instead.
              • Criticism/questions designed to help me improve my programming work, and recommendations on what to do instead.
                • links to existing explanations and examples
                • your custom explanations and examples
              • Criticism/questions designed to help guide me towards new programming ideas/functionality that you think might work towards my programming goals, and recommendations to that effect.
                • Criticism/questions designed to help guide me towards new programming goals and recommendations to that effect.
              • Criticism/questions/recommendations designed to help guide me towards improvements to my connecting concepts series.
              • Criticism/questions/recommendations designed to help guide me towards improvements to this blog post.

        # Analysis:
        • I think I did great. I brainstormed a lot of ideas. This is a great start.

        # Next steps:
        • Make this blog post the most important one on the next semiweek blog post. (I saved this to my personal notes as a reminder.)

        # Personal note:

        Make blog post brainstorming organization of my semi week summary blog posts 


        Use elliots ideas from his FI email as a guide 


        What’s the purpose of elliots recommendations? 


        Produce guide for audience on how to engage with my posts 


        What else?


        Type of criticism 


        Overreaching/self-evaluation 


        Plagiarism 


        Recommendations on my programming work. Links. Explanations. Other possible pursuits that you think I might like and why. 


        Criticism of my connecting concepts series 


        SMO: Studying Metro route - session #30

        # Goal:


        Improve aiming with motion controls so that I'm remembering to use it in every case that it's needed.



        # Activity:


        I'll do untimed practice trials of the Metro boss fight focussed on making the use of motion controls habitual.



        # Instructions and analysis:


        Reread my notes from previous session.


        Trial 14 analysis: I did better overall than last session in focussing on both the projectiles (shooting them and avoiding them) and in using motion control to aim at snake segments. In the first cycle I shot all the snake segments. In the 2nd cycle I did not shoot all of them before it went invulnerable.

        • Reread my notes from last session and compare and contrast it against my trial 14.
          • Problem: I'm still bad at aiming with motion control. I noticed myself trying to do motion control even though I've already reached the edge of where my aim can go with motion control. So I in these cases I should be using the direction pad to assist in aiming.
            • Brainstorm solutions: Practice using direction paid to assist motion control aiming.

          Trial 15 analysis: I did worse time wise than compared to last trial. I shot all the snake segments in the first cycle but in the 2nd cycle I didn't kill all the segments twice (I needed a 3rd time). 

          • Reread my notes from last session and compare and contrast it against my trial 15.
          • Problem: I'm still bad at using the direction pad and motion controls together.
            • Brainstorm solutions: Keep practicing using both together.


          # Decide next steps: 

          1. Continue practicing this boss fight while focussed on motion control and killing/avoiding projectiles. Keep doing this until I'm able to consistently beat the boss with only 2 cycles of projectiles.

          Connecting concepts: indirection and programming

          # Goal:
          1. Connect the concept of indirection with my programming process. Why? So that I can make the indirection concept habitual for me such that I apply it universally to all my activities, not just programming.
          2. Content: avoid misrepresenting the ideas.
          3. Credit: avoid plagiarizing.

          # Action Plan:

          Brainstorm some ideas about how my programming process incorporates the indirection concept and connect that to any kind of problem (not just programming problems).


          # Work:
          • What is indirection
            • Indirection is a concept related to problem-solving. If you're stuck on a problem, indirection helps you get unstuck. It helps you solve that problem.
              • How does this apply to programming? When I'm programming new functionality (a problem) and get stuck, indirection helps me get unstuck. 
            • What's the process which incorporates indirection?
              • Say you're working on a problem and you get stuck -- e.g. making new programming functionality. Try to look for other problems you could solve that would help you learn something that would make the original problem easier to solve -- for example, learn about how to switch sheets in google sheets, or learn how to use the alert function for the purpose of testing. Then pick one of those problems and work to solve it. On success, then pick another subproblem and work to solve it. Repeat this process until you've solved all the subproblems, then go back to working on the original problem. If you're still stuck on the original problem, repeat this process of looking for subproblems and solving and then go back to working on the original problem. Repeat this process until the original problem is solved.

          # Analysis:
          1. I think I did well exploring the ideas I wanted to explore. I explained how I used indirection in my programming process. And I explained how that applies to all problems, not just programming problems.
          2. I think I did not misrepresent any ideas. I claimed that this session is just for brainstorming, so I'm not making claims that my ideas have survived external criticism nor were my statements ambiguous about that.
          3. I think I did fine re giving credit. I linked a blog post about indirection, which gives credit to that author.

          # Next steps:

          Consider incorporating the problem-solving process I described above into my (not yet created) programming guide. (I saved this to my already created personal note about making my programming guide.) 

          Monday, June 22, 2020

          Connecting concepts: testable condition and ideas

          # Goals: 

          1. I want to brainstorm about how the idea of designing a programming function so that it's in testable condition applies to philosophy.
          2. Audience: me and FI veterans. 
          3. Content: avoid misrepresentation of the ideas.
          4. Credit: avoid plagiarism.

          # Content:


          First some context. Yesterday I was programming and at the end of my session I decided next steps, which was to continue designing my function until it's in testable condition so that I could test it. And after writing that blog post realized that this logic applies to philosophy.


          So when I was making my function, I ended the session leaving the function in a state where I hadn't tested it and I couldn't test it yet. I was still designing it using only my philosophical/non-empirical criticisms as tests. And I wanted to get it to the state where I could do empirical tests. 


          How does this relate to philosophy? 

          • If I have a new idea, I should try to get it into a state where it is worthy of submitting for external criticism before submitting it for external criticism. 
          • If I have a new idea, I shouldn't believe it yet until it has crossed some thresholds. The first threshold is: is it ready for external criticism?
            • What if it's personal and I don't want external criticism? Then at least recognize that your belief is to the standard of your own criticism and not to the standard of other people's criticism. 
          • If I have a new idea, don't declare it good/right or otherwise present yourself that way, even if it's just ambiguous from the point of view of most people in your culture, until it has been exposed to external criticism and survived.
            • What if it was exposed but nobody replied? Maybe people found mistakes but weren't interested in discussing it with you. What if it was exposed and people replied? Maybe it didn't survive and you think it did.
              • So what to do in this case? Make your judgement about whether or not it survived criticism. Provide analysis. This exposes your judgement about the status of your idea so that others can criticize your judgement.
                • What if you don't understand what they said? That means you're overreaching and unable to self-evaluate your idea. I recommend working with easier stuff, and iteratively work with harder stuff with small increments in difficulty, until you've sufficiently improved your self-evaluation skills.


          # Analysis:

          1. I think I did well connecting the testable condition idea to philosophy. I made a bunch of connections that I hadn't thought of before writing this blog post.
          2. I think I did well writing this blog post for my audience, me and FI veterans. I think it's understandable to the audience.
          3. I presented my blog post as being in brainstorming phrase, so I think I did well communicating the state of my ideas. I expect there to be substantive mistakes that other people can find.
          4. I'm not sure that I'm not plagiarizing. I didn't quote or cite anything. I'm not sure I should have either. I didn't claim that I invented any of the ideas in my blog post. So I'm not taking credit for the ideas. But I also didn't claim that somebody else invented the ideas, so I'm not giving credit either.
            1. What could I do to figure out whether or not I should give credit?
            2. What could I do to give credit?

          # Problems/solutions:

          1. Problem: What could I do to figure out whether or not I should give credit?
            1. Solution: Write blog post purposed for seeking out external criticism about it. 
          2. What could I do to give credit?
            1. Solution: (same as above, same blog post)


          # Next steps: 

          • Make a blog post purposed for seeking out external criticism about the above problems. (I saved this to my personal notes as a reminder to make the blog post.)