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 connections] is 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:

• The two links above
• Creating my process of creating blog posts
• My idea tree on discussion methods version 1.6

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.)