Try explaining how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
Topic: How to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
brainstorm
- clean work surface or a plate
- use two knives (not sharp ones) so that you donāt get some peanut butter in the jelly jar and vice versa
- two pieces of bread
- peanut butter, jelly
explanation
Things needed: peanut butter, jelly, a clean kitchen surface or plate, two slices of bread, and two non-sharp knives.
Gather what you need together. Lay the two pieces of bread out on the plate or surface. Using one of the knives, get peanut butter and spread it evenly one of the slices. With the other knife, and the other slice, do the same with the jelly. Itās important to use two knives because you donāt want to cross contaminate the peanut butter and jelly jars. Bring the two pieces of bread together so that the spreads are facing each other. Then you are done. Pack away the jars, put the knives in the dishwasher, and wipe up any crumbs from the bench.
6mins
Haha wow what a fun lesson!
I reviewed your discussion at Introduction to Critical Rationalism
Overall, your posts look good to me. I think youāre making progress, not stuck. I think more practice at that kind of discussion would benefit you. Did you enjoy writing those posts?
If you have questions let me know. Or specific goals that you want criticism or suggestions for.
One area where I noticed room for improvement is (sub-)topic selection. But I doubt thatās what you should focus attention on right now.
One issue you might like to think about is whether omissions, incompleteness or something better being possible implies any errors. Just because thereās the possibility for improvement doesnāt necessarily obviously mean something is mistaken. Thereās room for nuanced consideration there.
I donāt think you dropped the context there. Context dropping means failing to take into account some relevant piece of context that you are or ought to be aware of, e.g. something someone already said earlier in the discussion. I think claims along the lines of āI think, therefore I amā should be introduced into the discussion by someone who thinks theyāre relevant, not treated as premises that everyone should already agree with and always take into account.
I think theyāre all different. Bringing up truth, identity or certainty is different than not doing that.
What about abstract statements?
Thanks! I was going to ask if you would look over that discussion. I appreciate that.
Cool thatās encouraging. I think I did better than I wouldāve guessed I would. I really enjoyed myself. I think it was actually the most fun I have had doing philosophy.
What did you think of how many questions I asked? I was worried I was asking too many and that it may have been pressuring. Like Iāve heard that something debaters can do to control discussions is to ask way more questions that their debate parter. I donāt think my questions were like, big topic changing questions or questions to put someone on the spot. I thought they were almost entirely questions to help me understand what actually_thinking meant.
I suspected that this might be an issue for me too. Figuring out what topic would be the most effective thing to focus on in a discussion seems really important. I can see how TOC has relevant ideas here.
I didnāt worry too much about it this time because I had some ideas and comments and questions and I wanted to focus on just exercising those more local skills. But Iād like to improve at topic selection.
Sure, I will. I think that I agree that they donāt imply errors. Someone having a bad argument for a conclusion doesnāt imply the conclusion is false, for example? Did you notice any specific places where I was making this mistake? Or was I doing something in the ballpark of this somewhere? It could be helpful to reflect on my thinking process at the time of writing the posts now while itās fresh.
I suppose one place this could come up is if Iām asking questions that someone canāt answer well, that doesnāt imply that theyāre wrong.
Yeah I suspected I hadnāt. But I was fuzzy on what that would mean, and it seems we used quite different ways to think. I didnāt want to assume I hadnāt. Do you think my response was appropriate?
That makes sense. Theyāre mean different things because they bring up different things.
Hmm. Well I had to think about this for a second. How can my concept of truth account for abstract things? I didnāt have an answer already. But if consider abstractions part of reality, which I think makes sense, then I think that works?
Itās a more advanced skill to say fewer words, ask fewer questions, and focus on key topics more. Trying to do that now could be counter-productive because it can get in the way of exploring, brainstorming, getting a larger quantity of experience. And combined with any kind of perfectionism or trying not to make mistakes or do a good job, an extra thing to try to get right can make it harder to talk. And if you leave out an important topic that can cause more problems in discussions than including extra topics. And if you arenāt always being super clear, writing more can help communicate anyway with more chances to get your point across and more clues about your thoughts for readers to use. And yes being more focused on a narrow issue can come off more as debate instead of informal discussion.
This topic came up related to being at the beginning of infinity, being able to make infinite progress, and always making errors.
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Something you might try in the certainty discussion is making less abstract points.
What are the practical consequences, in terms of actions in oneās life and states of mind (both the ones you do and donāt do), that come with your point of view? What are the other people intending to advocate in terms of actions and mind states to have or avoid, and what do they actually disagree with you about as a practical matter? For states of mind I mean simple things like deciding to do X or having an opinion. Maybe mostly focusing on actions would be more concrete.
Speaking generally: Youāre reading a book and you encounter a word with multiple definitions (as is very common). What do you do?
That makes sense.
Iām having a hard time putting into words what I think about this so Iām going to try to freewrite.
freewrite:
When doing tutoring, I want to be working on something i can post about. When Iām thinking of what to do, or doing some research, it feels like if I spend an hour and donāt have a good idea of whether I can use this for an activity, then I just wonāt have something to post about. That makes me anxious about being in that planning/thinking stage. Like I might not have really gotten anywhere. I donāt always write and keep track of my planning/thinking/brainstorming for what to do. I suppose I could try to put more effort into that, like keeping a log of what Iām thinking. I donāt want to post really disorganised stuff though. But maybe thatād be helpful for others to see disorganised stuff? Also, it seems like an extra thing to do which might make planning harder.
But I think this actually comes up in other areas of my life too, not just tutoring. Some things I find myself averse to doing because they require some of these steps where you have to think and plan more before you can begin. Iāve noticed some times when thatās what I dislike about the thing, or that thatās why I procrastinate on the thing.
But for some things I like the thinking and planning part too.
Oh okay. Cool. That sounds good. Iām kind of surprised, actually. I think I assumed or guessed some intentions or opinions of yours: that you want me to be taking more initiative myself and for you to be curating what Iām doing less in general. I think Iāve read that into some of your replies before.
I think I would be happy to try it if you assigned it yeah.
Iāve written a lot more posts on other threads recently. But mainly just in the Introduction to Critical Rationalism topic. That quantity of posts outside of this thread hasnāt happened before. I donāt think there isnāt still an issue of commenting on new forum threads. But I think some progress mightāve been made. I had a lot of fun doing that. I feel a bit more open to just writing and potentially making mistakes. I like what you said about trying to not making things harder by adding extra things to get right. I understand that in relation to some things, but with forum posting thatās been harder to see for whatever reason. Like I want to post good things, and not be making mistakes and being disruptive. But I need way more experience posting to get to that stage, probably. I think I have been a bit perfectionist about it. My goals should be more reasonable.
I often just donāt know what to start a discussion with, or join a discussion with. I feel a bit blank sometimes. Maybe thatās for lack of interest. Occasionally things occur to me to say, and Iāll try writing something and sometimes I post. Other times I have second thoughts about posting responses. I kind of think of my tutoring assignments as being my priority here, and often theyāre taking up my philosophy capacity for the day.
I remember thinking when I wrote this that Iād say just āallā. But then I thought, maybe there is a a perfect instrument? Like maybe a computerised instrument or something idk. I didnāt know so I just said āalmost allā. Maybe I shouldāve just risked being wrong rather than kind of implying I know about a perfect instrument.
No you will have to retune the open string after adjusting the strings anchor point. I said that in the sentence before that quoted text:
Tuning the open string is done by changing the tension on the string, which is done by the tightening or loosening of the tuning pegs (these sit past one of the anchor points at one end of the guitar). But changing the anchor point also changes the pitch of the string. Thatās because the pitch of the string is determined by its tension and its length (the length being the portion that is free to resonate). So at a given tension with a different length the pitch will change.
Why?
Note you can label/explain it and collapse it.
I sometimes try to give people options and choices because I have limited information about whatās going on in their mind. For example, I donāt know why you didnāt follow up on Milton Friedman and Maximizing Profits - #90 by Elliot So Iām not in a good position to know if assigning that would be a good idea or not without asking a question(s) about it first. Why didnāt you post more there? Is there a problem? Do you have any objection, hesitation, doubts, intuitive concerns, etc., about doing that more as an assignment? Is it maybe too hard/big? Are you more interested in something else?
Assignment: Go write comments on 10 links. One sentence comments are fine. This should take under an hour and you should comment on most links you look at, not skip a bunch from being unsure what to say. I think the main reason to skip a link after looking at it would be that you see itās long. Skimming through for links to short stuff is fine.
@Eternity You might like this assignment too.
Thatās kinda funny to me because I think the main thing disrupting discussions at this forum is people being hesitant to talk much. There just arenāt enough discussions. You may not have thought about what the constraint(s) here is and taken that into account.
Posting in any thread is fine. You donāt have to prioritize tutoring assignments. If I think thereās a problem with not doing enough tutoring activities, Iāll say something.
If youāre blank but wanted to say something, you can say that: you want to talk about this but donāt know what to say. Then you may receive questions or suggestions. In general, itās a good idea to spend a literal five minutes on it, measured with a clock, before deciding youāre blank, including some written brainstorming. If youāve already done that, you can say so so that people donāt suggest it.
PS How did Duolingo go? Any thoughts on Spanish or practice methods? Did you stop yet? Are you very interested in learning more Spanish or not really? Itās fine either way; I donāt know whether to make any further recommendations about it.
Thinking about why itās good to post a lot and get lots of criticism has helped me in writing and posting more (though I can still definitely post more than currently). The kind of stuff I wrote about in Write How You Speak.
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I think because itād be largely unhelpful, for others? Iām not sure actually I didnāt think too much about it.
downsides of posting disorganised stuff brainstorm:
put less effort into my posts
not contributing much
embarrassing
can seem like iām expecting people to help me
want to look like iām doing a good job
upsides:
gives people a window into my organisation
might get some feedback
more evidence of what i might be thinking
Good question. I think basically I got stuck on it being too hard/big. I am interested in it, and thinking about it now, I think just got stuck on it being a kinda big project. I didnāt consider trying to break it down and ask for help to work through it. Maybe I was considering it to be extra-tutoring stuff. Iād actually be interested in that.
I had started working on a post mortem. As a test of posting some less organised/finalised stuff, here is what I had at the time:
MFDMM Post Mortem Start
Elliot said:
Make sense? @Eternity too. If so, the next thing to consider may be revisiting Multi-Factor Decision Making Math to evaluate what you didnāt understand previously, and if/why you thought you did understand that, and post mortem whatās going on there. Then continue with the Friedman article.
So what to do:
- evaluate what I didnāt understand previously
- if/why I thought I did understand it
- post mortem whatās going on there
When writing that last post, I had an inkling that this was related to what was in the MFDM article. But I didnāt then go and read it. I donāt know why. I think partly I had spent too long on it already and I wanted to post something.
The maximising problem:
From the article:
How can we mathematically combine multiple factors to get an overall evaluation that lets us rank the options to decide which is best?
I can see that the article presents approximately the same problem. When weāre looking for what maximises x and y, weāre looking for an overall evaluation of the three options based on the factors x and y.
From the article:
We can also determine the best option if an option is the best for every factor. That option is strictly better. But in many cases, including our example, no option is strictly best.
There was no option in the maximising problem that was strictly the best for every factor. I chose option 1 though, thinking that it āmaximisedā x and y.
Bold added:
This shows how unit conversion matters (you couldnāt combine them without doing a conversion first) and how your goals matter. Instead of ranking [pounds of bacon and number of apples] by calories, you could rank by carbohydrates, fat, protein or a nutrient like vitamin C. Which ranking(s) matter to you, and are suitable for making your decision, depends on your goals. However, often you care about multiple things, e.g. both calories and carbohydrates. No single ranking will take into account your goals about both calories and carbohydrates unless you find a way to convert calories and carbohydrates into the same dimension.
After reading the MFDM article, I realised one of my confusions with this problem was that I didnāt know if y and x were or werenāt of the same dimension. They werenāt defined. But now I realise in math itās just standard to assume x and y are of a different dimension; they are unlike terms after all. Iām not sure why this happened.
I think it might have something to do with my intuition here:
I think what didnāt āseem rightā to me was that I knew on one hand that you canāt add like terms, but on the other hand that depends on what x and y are in a real-world situation, and whether they are in the same dimension. Maybe I was somehow blurring the two problems together (the mathematical one and the real world one) and getting myself confused.
I think also that I hadnāt learned the ideas from the article well because my main goal when I read it last (which I think is the only time I had read it fully) was to find math I didnāt understand, so that Elliot could know where to focus my math tutoring. So Iām not totally surprised that I didnāt make the connection to this problem. I hadnāt fully engaged with the articleās ideas and so hadnāt practised with the ideas and how they relate to decision making.
I shouldāve followed up on my suspicion that the MFDM article was relevant, and I shouldāve realised that was an option when I got stuck.
Last I read this article was in April '24 near the very start of my tutoring. My goal when reading it was to look for math that I didnāt understand.
Freewriting
If you want to compare two things, you need some way that they can be converted into the same thing first.
Take apples and oranges. Which one is better? To answer that we need to compare them. But to compare them we need to know which aspect of them to compare. We could compare their weight, their sugar content, vitamin content, calories.
This is similar to combining them. They are different things, so in what respects can we combine them?
Which aspect of them should we compare?
Well it depends on your goal. If we want to compare them to each other, we need to know what to compare them in terms of. It could be weight, calories, sugar content, price. So we need
It seems more complete and less disorganised than I remember, actually. In addition to it being too big, I think I was disorganised about writing it and left too much time between attempts to work on it and I kinda lost my train of thought. I can see how those would be related. Also, I remember at the time working on stuff across a few threads like with the debate too. I think I was working on too many things at once?
Why unhelpful?
I think people like stuff to engage with that is less perfect or intimidating, and like examples of posting stuff that is less impressive which makes it feel easier for them to post their own flawed stuff, and also people like a more active forum.
Lots of people have disorganized thoughts and struggle to organize them. They may find it easier to organize some of your thoughts than their own (since they arenāt already stuck on your problems) or to find some parts of your thoughts that make sense to them. If two people share disorganized thoughts, they could potentially both help each other and point out some improvements with the other personās thoughts.
What does extra-tutoring mean?
Breaking down bigger projects is one of the main skills involved with doing bigger projects.
Yes x and y represent different dimensions in general. But also, where did x and y come from? They symbolically represented and generalized stuff from the economics discussion. So what were the actual factors originally being talked about?
x = profits
y = great product/service
z = great place to work
Iām guessing you already know whether those are the same dimension or different dimensions.
Typo? Did you mean to write āunlike termsā? If itās not a typo you may be confused.
I just wrote a bunch of forum posts at once. Iām not trying much to spread them out for you or @Eternity. Tutoring is self-paced. You should save things to a todo list and not work on too many things at once (based on whatever too many is for you). You may also want to use the forumās built-in bookmarking feature.
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I think youāre right actually. I recognise these things in how I think about others posts too.
Oh like: outside of/beyond/additional to. Like extra-curricular.
Oh I did meant unlike terms yeah thanks
I did about 3 weeks straight with a handful single missed days. I enjoyed it mostly but started getting a little bored. I started focusing on practising other things.
It was cool learning another language knowing english grammar. I think if I had tried to learn another language before knowing much about grammar it wouldāve been harder. I quickly spotted some things like about how verbs were different depending on the clausesā subject. I could easily keep track of what the prepositions and conjunctions were. It allowed me to translate things and notice patterns in a more explicit way.
I think for now Iām not going to pursue Spanish or learning a language more. Itās related to grammar but otherwise itās a bit indirect for me. I have more fun when Iām practising something as part of a project that Iāll more directly use.
There is some audio related training Iāve been working on which involves short quiz style practice like duolingo. I could post about that?