614 Matching Annotations
  1. Jun 2018
  2. Sep 2017
    1. Indeed, as noted earlier, one well-known thought-enhancement technology is written language itself and perhaps use of language more generally. As Levy writes, “speech does not merely allow us to articulate thoughts that we would have had in any case. Instead, it allows us to externalize our thoughts and thereby treat them as objects for contemplation and manipulation. Externalized thoughts can be worked over, criticized, and improved.”21:38-39

      This is an interesting concept, particularly with regards to writing, because many people, myself included, think as they write. I often times do not even really know what I think about a topic until I start writing about it. Essays, for example, are usually difficult to start, but I end up figuring out what my argument is by the end because the process of writing itself has allowed me to think through the subject in a way normal biological cognition would not normally allow me to.

  3. Mar 2017
    1. for two high school teachers to occupy a structurally equivalent position, both teachers must teach the same set of students

      This reminds me of my middle school. Rather than each class period having different students, we had one classroom with the same students and we would just switch teachers each period. They all taught the same students. It's nice to have a personal example of structural equivalence

  4. Feb 2017
  5. Nov 2016
    1. Every theorem of mathematics, every significant result of science, is a challenge to our imagination as interface designers. Can we find ways of expressing these principles in an interface? What new objects and new operations does a principle suggest? What a priori surprising relationship between those objects and operations are revealed by the principle? Can we find interfaces which vividly reveal those relationships, preferably in a way that is unique to the phenomenon being studied?
    2. Speech, writing, math notation, various kinds of graphs, and musical notation are all examples of cognitive technologies. They are tools that help us think, and they can become part of the way we think -- and change the way we think.

      Computer interfaces can be cognitive technologies. To whatever degree an interface reflects a set of ideas or methods of working, mastering the interface provides mastery of those ideas or methods.

      Experts often have ways of thinking that they rarely share with others, for various reasons. Sometimes they aren't fully aware of their thought processes. The thoughts may be difficult to convey in speech or print. The thoughts may seem sloppy compared to traditional formal explanations.

      These thought processes often involve:

      • minimal canonical examples - simple models
      • heuristics for rapid reasoning about what might work

      Nielsen considers turning such thought processes into (computer) interfaces. "Every theorem of mathematics, every significant result of science, is a challenge to our imagination as interface designers. Can we find ways of expressing these principles in an interface? What new objects and operations does a principle suggest?"

  6. Oct 2016
    1. When you begin to listen inside of yourself, you hear the chaos of your own thinking and begin to feel your discomfort. If you are patient and observe these things without running from them, you will pass through them because they cannot keep you from what lies beyond. What keeps people from being free is not their external circumstances. It is their own mind and their own thoughts. They are prisoners to their thoughts. They cannot stop watching their thoughts. It is as if you were watching a movie on a screen and you could never tear yourself away. The screen then becomes ever more real to you, for you have no contrast. You have no experience to remind you that it is just a movie you are watching. As a result, it has greater and greater impact upon you, and you are become a more captive audience with every moment. These things which make you suffer, cause you pain and drive your behavior are only thoughts. They are vaporous things. They have no substance. But for you to look beyond, you must not be afraid of what lies beyond them, for what lies beyond them is a wellspring of tremendous love. What lies beyond them are your true Teachers.
  7. Oct 2015
  8. Feb 2014