I love multidisciplinary perspectives. I’m exploring connections between tech, philosophy (epistemology), economics (Austrian), physics (many-worlds interpretation), finance (value investing), history (biographies), culture, linguistics (semiotics), productivity, etc—basically everything related to life.
See what I’m working on right now.
For starters:
- Check my 1,784 Notes—atomic insights (most of them still being rewritten).
- Check my 11 Essays—where I explore the connections between notes.
- Check my 54 People—summaries and quotes from my favorite thinkers (my recent favorite is Sherlock Holmes).
The numbering at the beginning of each note (e.g., 7-1a) is a manually implemented Zettelkasten system. It’s how I keep track of each note in my mental palace, but you can disregard them.
Why all these ‘atomic’ notes instead of blog posts?
- Because there is nothing absolute and necessary in the connections I make between ideas
- Because meaning is often in relation with other things
- Because connecting ideas is a way to create knowledge
Are they really ‘atomic’?
- No, because there is no minimum idea
Some good starting points if you are interested in any of these fields:
- Philosophy (epistemology)
- “What counts cannot be counted” – Einstein
- No theory can exhaust reality
- You have to solve problems, including the problem of what problems to solve
- History
- Tech
- You don’t have to decide—you can let the tech decide.
- Tech and the problem-situation is reflexive.
- Evolution
- 3.8 billion years—life and evolution’s superpower is its time horizon.
- Humans influence everything—explanation of ‘other life-forms’ and their evolution must evoke the influence of human existence.
- Evolution doesn’t care about you—its sample is beyond any human lifetime, let alone your experiences.
- Information
- Perfect replication is impossible.
- Information is in the difference—no difference, no information.
- Semiotics
- Symbols are universal. Being arbitrary and contingent means it can represent anything, and do everything.
- Infinite semiosis: there is no beginning or end to symbols because it is recursive.
- Negotiation
- Look at the whole of conversations, including how things are being said as well as what’s not being said (e.g., taboos)
- Culture
- Culture is an implicit theory for its members—it dictates what to look at and how they reason about the world.
- The question is what’s the brain in, not what’s in the brain
- Be the outsider, but not too outside—stay at the edge.
- Media
- Language
- Productivity
- Constraints in the form of consistent style leave space for creativity and progress
- Replace ‘self-discipline’ with the four laws of habit formation: make it visible; make it attractive; make it easy; make it satisfying
- Life
- Use the Fun Criterion
- Love bad news—always question to falsify your idea and theory. How fast you can invalidate matters as much as how fast you can build them.
Occasionally I share my micro insights on X.