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Books

Robert.adlington — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 15:47:43 GMT

2026 (week 30)

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	=== 2026 (week 30) ===		=== 2026 (week 30) ===

			* 34. The Oldest Book in the World: Philosophy in the Age of the Pyramids - Bill Manley
	* 33. Congo, Une Histoire - David Van Reybrouck		* 33. Congo, Une Histoire - David Van Reybrouck
	* 32. [[The Art of Logic]]: How to Make Sense in a World that Doesn't - Eugenia Cheng		* 32. [[The Art of Logic]]: How to Make Sense in a World that Doesn't - Eugenia Cheng

Films

Robert.adlington — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 15:43:20 GMT

2026

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	=== 2026 ===		=== 2026 ===

			* 48. Kind Hearts and Coronets
	* 47. Parasite		* 47. Parasite
	* 46. Arsenic and Old Lace		* 46. Arsenic and Old Lace

Reading

Robert.adlington — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 12:50:19 GMT

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	[[Category:Concepts]]		[[Category:Concepts]]
			Reading is a specific form of perception and one which is exclusive to humans.

			While we may be genetically inclined to be drawn to faces and to listen to speech, there is no similar innate tendency to attend to written material. There is no dedicated brain region, in part because writing is a relatively recent (5-6,000 year old) technology.

			Instead, reading is acquired only through instruction - letters and then words and sentences must be identified and remembered, and these memories need to be drawn on to then recognize and read further writing.

			The [[wikipedia:Visual_word_form_area\|visual word form area]] (VWFA) is a functional region of the left fusiform gyrus and surrounding cortex (right-hand side being part of the fusiform face area) that is hypothesized to be involved in identifying words and letters from lower-level shape images, prior to association with phonology or semantics.

			Writing is a delineated subset of the objects that we encounter in the world. Hofstadter argues in many places, especially [[Ambigrammia]], that the definitions of letters are very blurry, and that the surrounding context allows us to identify letters as parts of words and phrases even when those letters are greatly deformed:<blockquote>"Is that first shape really a "D"? Is the final shape really an "E"? Such questions make it sound as if precise scientific determination is called for, but category membership is blurry and is influenced by context, and the nearby letters (or nearby shapes, to use a more neutral term) form a context in which each of these four shapes is perceived. Even if each shape taken in isolation is a somewhat shaky member of its intended alphabetic category, it's a different ballgame when all four are placed side by side, since now, the shaky alphabetic suggestion made by each one, supplemented by the prior existence of the familiar name "DAVE" results in each questionable part reinforcing all the other questionable parts, and the overall upshot is, mirabile dictu, a strong member of the higher-level "DAVE" category."</blockquote>Reading is a particular form of perception. Your brain is either primed to read by the action of opening a book or turning to a sign, or is surprised to encounter letters and words and switches from its previous context or form of attention, into a reading context.

			For Western readers, reading is a form of perception that moves in a specific, controlled manner, from left to right along the written page and then jumping to the start of the next line.

Reading

Robert.adlington — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 12:21:13 GMT

Created page with " Category:Concepts"

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[[Category:Concepts]]

Perception

Robert.adlington — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 12:20:35 GMT

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	[[Category:Concepts]]		[[Category:Concepts]]
			Perception seems to be an effortless process. When I look out into the garden in front of me, I see the lawn, trees, and my son swinging on a swing.

			When a baby is born and encounters the world for the first time, we must assume that it has very limited organization of what it perceives. Perhaps there is just a sense of more or less light, the smell of the mother, the feel of her skin. But, immediately, we imagine these perceptions begin to be classified and organized. From initial confusion, begins a process of distinguishing objects, initially, perhaps simply as good/agreeable or bad/disagreeable. We know that we are predisposed to pay attention to face-like shapes and by repeatedly seeing the faces of the mother and other family or community members, there begins the process of being able to distinguish them as objects among those available in the world and then to be able to identify them.

			A similar process is happening in the auditory world too. The baby hears sounds and among those sounds are words and among those words are some that are repeated more frequently. Caregivers will point to objects and name them, but there is also a general background of words and other sounds that are being organized and eventually can be identified and even repeated. The child's introduction into the linguistic world comes through imitation of the sounds that it hears and the beginning of mastery of the tongue and throat muscles to reproduce what it hears.

			I still remember clearly when I was staying in Paris and learning French. I would listen to the radio each morning and suddenly, one morning, what had the previous day been an unbroken chain of sound, now became a stream of words. I'm sure that I didn't identify each word beginning and end immediately, but my mind, immersed in these sounds, had somehow found the knack to split the stream into objects that could be identified and understood.

			We can experience this process at a much smaller scale when first learning chess or another game with pieces and positions. Here, of course, the pieces are already identified as separate objects moving in the world of the game but initially we are not able to distinguish between the bishop and the pawn or the king and the queen or to identify a position of check or where a piece is menaced. But after a game or two things become clearer, distinctions can be drawn and each piece is assigned to one or more categories, ranked in order of power and importance etc. When a grandmaster looks at a game in progress even briefly, they can reproduce the positions of all pieces easily because of the depth and quality of their perception - built up over thousands of hours of play.

			But once we have moved beyond the initial identification of objects and on to the effortless recognition of them? What is mature perception?

			Perception is a powerful instance of [[Habit]] - we do not consciously perceive as the baby or the beginning chess player does. We are able to look around, situate ourselves and identify the objects in our surroundings due to the work of learning that we have done in childhood and to the deep habits we have acquired

			X in [[The Mind is Flat]] says: "The mind-as-mirror metaphor can't possibly be right - we need a very different viewpoint, that perception requires inference." and suggest the following principles of the operation of perception (and, by extension, thought):

			* We see only meaningful organizations (or, at least, the most meaningful organization the brain can find): visual chunks, patterns and whole letters, numbers, words, rather than a random scatter of fragments.
			* We see just one meaningful organization at a time.
			* Other sensory information that is not part of this meaningful organization is largely or even entirely ignored, to the point of becoming invisible.The brain is continually churning: despite the unaccustomed lack of new input, the brain is desperately attempting to disengage from the current organization, and to find another. When it cannot, the image entirely disappears.
			* Perceiving is a type of thinking and perhaps the most important type, with all other types of thought being just powerful extensions of perception.

			My image for perception is of many thought traces bubbling or forcing their way to the surface of the mind. Concepts of colors, shapes, borders, biographical memories and scholarly knowledge surge forward to provide meaning to the scene and objects perceived. And this is happening all the time, as your eyes rove over a scene or are watching images on a screen or reading words on a page.

			[[Reading]] is a particular form of perception which is learned and is peculiar to humans. We can imagine how it is learned:

			* Initially writing must be identified as an object amongst those is the world.
			* Individual letters are probably identified first, but possibly short words may be instead. The shapes and sounds of letters are identified
			* Then groups of letters are identified as words where each word has its own sound (generally derived from the sounds of its component letters) and a meaning. Certain words can be associated with physical objects in the world - "That is a cat" - while others have other less concrete meanings
			* Then groups of words are identified as sentences which have a meaning.
			* While making all of these identifications, we are additionally, passively, learning that certain sequences of letters are more common than others (and some are never seen), that certain sequences of words are acceptable, while others are not, and a variety of other grammatical rules, many/most of which also apply to our spoken language

Perception

Robert.adlington — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 13:12:59 GMT

Created page with " Category:Concepts"

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[[Category:Concepts]]

Habit

Robert.adlington — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 13:11:46 GMT

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	** Learning 0 - Is not learning from experience, but rather randomly reacting to stimuli of pleasure or pain		** Learning 0 - Is not learning from experience, but rather randomly reacting to stimuli of pleasure or pain
	** Learning 1 - Is habituation to stimuli so that the individual will retreat from painful stimuli and move towards agreeable one.		** Learning 1 - Is habituation to stimuli so that the individual will retreat from painful stimuli and move towards agreeable one.
	** Learning II - Is the highest form of learning achieved by a majority of human beings. Involves the segmentation of experience into contexts for which the individual has learned behaviors and can perfect those behaviors. He associates this type of learning with a person's character and with a tendency toward dominant or dependent behavior in various contexts.		** Learning II - Is the highest form of learning achieved by a majority of human beings. Involves the segmentation of experience into contexts for which the individual has learned behaviors and can perfect those behaviors. Bateson associates this type of learning with a person's character and with a tendency toward dominant or dependent behavior in various contexts.
	** Learning III		** Learning III - Involves identifying the habits that have been constructed in Learning II, calling them into question and reorganizing them, identifying new or higher patterns or stepping beyond patterns. He says that "The premises of what is commonly called "character" - the definitions of the "self" - save the individual from having to examine the abstract, philosophical, aesthetic, and ethical aspects of many sequences of life. But Learning III will throw these unexamined premises open to question and change"
			** Learning IV - Would involve change in Learning III, and probably does not occur in any adult living organism.

	[[:Category:Concepts]]		[[Category:Concepts]]

Habit

Robert.adlington — Wed, 05 Aug 2026 13:51:52 GMT

Created page with "There are various forms of "habitual" behavior that we undertake unconsciously or semi-consciously or are driven to undertake: * Innate or reflexive - We are born with drives and tendencies that enable us to survive: ** bodily behaviors - such as breathing, digesting, evacuating, heart beating, etc ** caregiver bonding - turning toward a touch on the cheek and sucking on objects to feed ** social behaviors - We have a tendency to look for faces, to pay attention to lang..."

New page

There are various forms of "habitual" behavior that we undertake unconsciously or semi-consciously or are driven to undertake:

* Innate or reflexive - We are born with drives and tendencies that enable us to survive:
** bodily behaviors - such as breathing, digesting, evacuating, heart beating, etc
** caregiver bonding - turning toward a touch on the cheek and sucking on objects to feed
** social behaviors - We have a tendency to look for faces, to pay attention to languages, smiling
** more advanced infant learning - sitting, walking, language
* Learned behavior:
** Diet/Exercise
** Religion/Beliefs
** Preferences/Prejudices
* Addictions:
** Caffeine, cigarettes
** Soft and hard drugs
** TV/Cellphones
* Habits are defined as a "routine of behavior that is repeated regularly and tends to occur subconsciously" or as "more or less fixed ways of thinking, willing, or feeling acquired through previous repetition of a mental experience.
* Some studies suggest that more than 40% of human actions are driven by habit.
* For James, "Any sequence of mental action which has been frequently repeated tends to perpetuate itself; so that we find ourselves automatically prompted to think, feel, or do what we have been before accustomed to think, feel, or do, under like circumstances, without any consciously formed purpose, or anticipated of result."
* The process of learning is one of acquiring unconscious habits. Consider learning how to drive a car:
** Initially I have to think about and consciously manage the balance between the clutch and the accelerator, to remember to check the mirror before a maneuver, to check on all sides, to switch to the brake.
** As I learn, more and more of these tasks will become automatic and require less of my conscious attention. Only when something unexpected happens - a car slows suddenly of pulls in front of me - is my conscious attention called to action.
** Now after 35 years of driving, I can say that most of my driving is done at an unconscious level. I think about what my feet or my hands are doing only rarely, and it is difficult to explain what I am doing to my learner driver son - I just do it!
* For Bateson "No organism can afford to be conscious of matters with which it could deal at unconscious levels. This is the economy achieved by habit formation."
* Bateson's theory of learning involves "various habits of punctuating the stream of experience so that it takes on one or another sort of coherence and sense.":
** Learning 0 - Is not learning from experience, but rather randomly reacting to stimuli of pleasure or pain
** Learning 1 - Is habituation to stimuli so that the individual will retreat from painful stimuli and move towards agreeable one.
** Learning II - Is the highest form of learning achieved by a majority of human beings. Involves the segmentation of experience into contexts for which the individual has learned behaviors and can perfect those behaviors. He associates this type of learning with a person's character and with a tendency toward dominant or dependent behavior in various contexts.
** Learning III

[[:Category:Concepts]]

Category:Books

Robert.adlington — Wed, 05 Aug 2026 13:05:04 GMT

2026 (week 30)

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	=== 2026 (week 30) ===		=== 2026 (week 30) ===

			* 33. Congo, Une Histoire - David Van Reybrouck

	* 32. [[The Art of Logic]]: How to Make Sense in a World that Doesn't - Eugenia Cheng		* 32. [[The Art of Logic]]: How to Make Sense in a World that Doesn't - Eugenia Cheng

Books

Robert.adlington — Wed, 05 Aug 2026 09:15:58 GMT

2026 (week 30)

← Older revision		Revision as of 09:15, 5 August 2026
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	=== 2026 (week 30) ===		=== 2026 (week 30) ===

			* 33. Congo, Une Histoire - David Van Reybrouck
	* 32. [[The Art of Logic]]: How to Make Sense in a World that Doesn't - Eugenia Cheng		* 32. [[The Art of Logic]]: How to Make Sense in a World that Doesn't - Eugenia Cheng
	* 31. [[Why Read]] - Will Self		* 31. [[Why Read]] - Will Self

Films

Robert.adlington — Tue, 04 Aug 2026 20:45:19 GMT

2026

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	=== 2026 ===		=== 2026 ===

	* 46. Arsenic and Old Lace 45. Get Out 44. Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure (rewatch)		* 47. Parasite
			* 46. Arsenic and Old Lace
			* 45. Get Out
			* 44. Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure (rewatch)
	* 43. Apex		* 43. Apex
	* 42. 21 Jump Street		* 42. 21 Jump Street

Attention

Robert.adlington — Tue, 04 Aug 2026 14:24:49 GMT

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-* When I try to think about thinking, the closest I can get is to thinking about attention.
+* When I try to think about thinking, I become aware not of some internal mechanisms that do thinking, but rather of attention. When I try to concentrate on what is happening in my mind, paradoxically, I become more aware of what I am looking at.
-* Only sometimes am I consciously asserting attention
+* I had a girlfriend who liked to ask what I was thinking about. Most of the time I lied for simplicity. One time I told her - "I'm thinking about the color blue, and lightning, and..." I listed maybe 8 or more things that were flitting through my mind.
 [[Category:Concepts]]

Attention

Robert.adlington — Tue, 04 Aug 2026 13:38:19 GMT

Created page with "* When I try to think about thinking, the closest I can get is to thinking about attention. * Only sometimes am I consciously asserting attention Category:Concepts"

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* When I try to think about thinking, the closest I can get is to thinking about attention.
* Only sometimes am I consciously asserting attention

[[Category:Concepts]]

Phenomenology

Robert.adlington — Tue, 04 Aug 2026 13:31:30 GMT

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	[[:Category:Concepts]]		[[Category:Concepts]]

Category:Concepts

Robert.adlington — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 17:13:40 GMT

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 ** AI is not a way out of the postmodern wasteland; it is the concrete canopy built over it. It takes the terrifying, beautiful, chaotic project of human categorization—the messy, emotional, memory-infused art that makes your mind uniquely yours—and turns it over to a predictive text algorithm.
-== Phenomenology ==
 == Heterophenomenology ==

Phenomenology

Robert.adlington — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 17:13:36 GMT

Created page with "We have a form of "privileged access" - a direct, first-person doorway to our own mental contents that no external observer possesses. But even if it feels like we are watching our minds work in real time, our introspective access is severely limited: * We see the output, not the process - Your mind generates the result of a thought, and then invents a plausible-sounding reason after the fact to explain why you thought it. * Your conscious awareness is just the thin, sh..."

New page

We have a form of "privileged access" - a direct, first-person doorway to our own mental contents that no external observer possesses. But even if it feels like we are watching our minds work in real time, our introspective access is severely limited:

* We see the output, not the process - Your mind generates the result of a thought, and then invents a plausible-sounding reason after the fact to explain why you thought it.
* Your conscious awareness is just the thin, shiny surface of a massive cognitive ocean. The actual search algorithm, brain-state modulation, and network firing are completely hidden from you.
* You are the audience for your brain's finalized outputs. You have privileged access to the movie playing on the mental screen, but you are sitting in the audience completely blind to the projector, the editing room, and the director working behind the scenes.

== What it "Feels Like" to Think ==

* I've spent a lot of time thinking about thinking, but it is very hard to say what it feels like to think.
* I try to introspect while doing various activities, physical and intellectual and it is very hard to pin down what is happening in my head.
* At best, I feel I can say that I am trying to give attention to one thing or another, but also that other "things" - other needs or pieces of information - are also working to grab my attention.

== Word Puzzles ==
I do the NYT crossword, Wordle, Spelling Bee, and Connections every day.

=== The NYT Crossword ===

* I have been doing the NYT crossword in the app nearly every day for ten years.
* I have a pretty wide vocabulary and I have lived long enough in America (1 year and then 5 years) and am familiar enough with US culture that I am surprised if I cannot find the right answer to a clue in the course of the day. I normally complete the grid. My average solve time goes from around 6 min on a Monday to 32 min on a Sunday.
* How do I find the answer to a clue?
** I read the clue and either I have the answer or I don't.
** I look at the number of squares and that may trigger an answer
** If any of the letters are present (or become present), then that may trigger an answer
** I work through the grid completing what I can of the across clues and then the down clues. If I don't have an answer I move to the next clue.
** Sometimes, particularly for a proper noun, I might feel like the answer is on the tip of my tongue, but I can't get it. I move on.
** I don't try. I'm not sure what trying would feel like. I either have the answer or I don't have it. I keep running through the remaining clues and slowly they fall into place, thanks to additional available letters.
** My work seems to be simply to direct attention. To the puzzle in the first place, then to one clue after another, then to hold attention for longer over the final clues if they are difficult.
** My mind produces cultural, geographical, historical, and general information as appropriate.
** I don't count the number of boxes and I rarely make a mistake in choosing a word of the correct length

=== Wordle ===

* Wordle is a simple game - just find the five-letter word of the day. Get a green square when the letter is correct and in the right place. Get a yellow square when the letter is correct but in the wrong place. Get the word in up to six tries.
* I've been doing it daily for nearly five years and have a 99% solve rate. I start with "TEARS".
* The challenge with Wordle is to find words that fit with the letters you have already guessed. I almost never deliberately guess a word that could not work with my existing clues.
* Wordle does not let you guess a word unless it is in its dictionary. The solving experience thus begins with some 12,000 possible english 5-letter words (of which, apparently, some 2,300 are identified as valid solutions) but rapidly filters out possible words due to the clues from previous attempts
* I spend a lot of time looking at the previous guesses and the blank line waiting for my next guess. Unlike the crossword, there is no "next clue" to go to. You are stuck until you find a valid word to enter.
* Here I feel that there is some conscious thought that goes into solving. I know that certain sequences of letters go more commonly together than others and so I am trying to find words that fit the clues I have into these sequences. I have to find a valid answer to enter and I force my mind to propose words based on the restrictions provided by previous clues
* Probably in about half the cases the solve is quick - say in under 3 minutes. In maybe 95% of cases I can solve in under 6 minutes. I suspect that I get frustrated at about this point and will turn to another puzzle and come back after that. Often a fresh perspective then makes the solve very quick. In very rare situations I am still stuck and have to come back later in the day. Only at this point will I consider entering a word I know is wrong in order to unlock further clues. I've never not entered six guesses and have failed 100/1,683 days.

=== Connections ===

* Based on/ripped off from Victoria Coren-Mitchell's "Only Connect" show, Connections makes you group sixteen words or phrases into four groups of four. There are yellow, green, blue, and purple sets in increasing level of difficulty of connection.
* I've been doing it for just over two years and have a 91% win rate.
* I start by looking at all sixteen squares and often one or more sets will suggest themselves.

* On the day I'm writing this, the solution was (in the order in which I got them):
** Yellow: "Road Less Traveled" - Alley, Backstreet, Byway, Lane
** Purple: "Starting with Synonyms for 'Pester'" - Bug Fix, Nag Champa, Needless, Tea Set
** Blue: "'Y' is the Only Vowel" - Fly By, Myrrh, Nsync, Rhythm
** Green: "Shades of Green" - Forest, Hunter, Mint, Sage
* This is by far (for me) the hardest of the daily NYT word puzzles, because of the varying natures of the connections you are required to identify. The connection can be of meaning, some property of the word or phrase, some sub-component of it or some second order connection, such as the greens above.
* Here again, my main work seems to be directly attention, choosing a word to examine, until a context, a membership of some category suggests itself. Then by turning to other words, seeing if they also have potential membership of the same category.
* This is a different challenge because here you're not providing answers, but rather organizing answers to four unknown questions.

=== Spelling Bee ===

* Generate as many words as possible from the seven letters provided - each letter can be used multliple times in a single word. Your words must have four or more letters and must include the central letter. The more words you find, the more you move up the ranks, with "Amazing" and "Genius" being the top two official ranks and "Queen Bee" reserved for anyone finding every word listed as valid for a given day. Each day there is one or more "pangrams", ie words using all the letters
* I've been doing this for nearly three years and 97% of my days are ranked as "Amazing" or "Genius". I've never gotten "Queen Bee".
* Here it just seems to be a case of "seeing" the words. Maybe 30% of the time I start off by "seeing" the pangram first. Commonly I'll reel off the first 10 or 20 words without effort.
* Then it tends to be a case of choosing a letter as a starting letter and working from there or thinking about common sequences of letters.
* If "ED" or "ING" or "S" are available, then any word found can be extended with one or all of them.
* Other than that it tends to be a case of simply directly attention to a letter and then letting that attention flow to potential next letters and so on.

[[:Category:Concepts]]

Films

Robert.adlington — Sun, 02 Aug 2026 20:27:51 GMT

Films to Watch

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	[https://www.cinealcazar.fr/fichier/programme.pdf Cinema Alcazar Program]		[https://www.cinealcazar.fr/fichier/programme.pdf Cinema Alcazar Program]

			* Wicker: https://youtu.be/HP0BWBWn14I?si=E5oThE4uNiED28b3
			* morvern Callar
			* Do the right thing
			* run Lola Run
	* Mind trips		* Mind trips
	** Triangle		** Triangle
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	=== 2026 ===		=== 2026 ===

	* 44. Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure (rewatch)		* 46. Arsenic and Old Lace 45. Get Out 44. Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure (rewatch)
	* 43. Apex		* 43. Apex
	* 42. 21 Jump Street		* 42. 21 Jump Street