Scree

noun : an accumulation of loose stones or rocky debris lying on a slope or at the base of a hill or cliff.

Reasons and persons →

Published July 21, 2022  ·  All posts on Jul 21  ·  

You’ve probably heard this scenario before. It originally comes from Derek Parfit’s 1984 book Reasons and Persons, where he actually answers the question. (Though you may not like the answer.) To answer it, he has to go though a set of even weirder scenarios. Here’s most of them, edited aggressively.

~ “Dynomight” from, Reasons and Persons: The case against the self

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This article turns a number of complicated thought experiments into a disorienting dash through a hall of mirrors. I’ve not read Parfit’s book, but I’ve encountered these sorts of thought experiments before. On one hand I’m drawn to thinking about them because I feel I should be able to have some foundational, (although not necessarily simple,) principles that I can use to answer them. Which is a working definition of, “I want to be rational.” Until I start really digging into the experiments and things get really complicated. Why, it’s as if being a limited-in-resources mind forced to interact with in an intractably complex world, may not be something with a clear, correct, let alone singular, solution.

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Always a good reminder →

Published July 20, 2022  ·  All posts on Jul 20

We often turn it into something bad: I suck for not being disciplined, I suck for not being able to focus, I’m not strong enough, etc etc. But it’s just a part of being human — we all have fear, uncertainty, doubt, resistance built into our survival instincts.

~ Leo Babauta from, Working with Your Inner Resistance – Zen Habits Website

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My “I suck” dialog has different vocabulary, and I have a penchant for petulance. Nonetheless, it’s always a good reminder to be aware of it. I can sabotage myself, without fail, by setting expectations—any expectations—for anything I’m working on. The only way I can stay balanced on the narrow, mountaintop spine of rock that is sanity is to pay attention to the next steps. There’s not really much option about where the path along the ridge leads. In recent months I’ve been tinkering on a new project creating something I’ve been curious to try for a long time. It’s interesting, but not particularly difficult work. It’s definitely creative, and I’ve repeatedly found interesting little twists in the path. Am I going somewhere in particular with the project? …not really. I have ideas of what might be farther along the path, but that’s more an interesting additional possibility, rather than the reason for doing the work.

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Pet peeve #7 →

Published July 19, 2022  ·  All posts on Jul 19  ·  ,

Web pages which neglect to include two of the most important pieces of information: Who and When. Yes, all web pages. Thou shalt always list the author. (“Anonymous” is a legitimate answer to, “who?’) Thou shalt always list at least a general composition/publication date. Online, it is already difficult to place things into context. Having a Who and When gives that many more clues to place things into context.

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Take a seat →

Published July 18, 2022  ·  All posts on Jul 18

A simple way to start moving your body more is to swap your sedentary seat for “active sitting.” How much of your body’s work are you giving to the chair? If the back of the chair disappeared, what would happen? Would you collapse backwards? If yes, then the chair-back is doing the work of your core musculature. And obviously, if the bottom of a chair dropped out we’d fall straight down because the chair is also doing the work of the legs.

~ Katy Bowman from, 53 Ways to Take A Seat – Nutritious Movement

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This is a terrific example of Bowman’s way of looking into human movement. A huge amount of what I do involves computers. Even though have all the various physical types of computer, sedentary is still sedentary. Short of abandoning my entire lifestyle, the best I can do is to change things frequently through my day and this delightful little article has “a few” variations.

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Babble →

Published July 17, 2022  ·  All posts on Jul 17  ·  

Consider sketching on a page, where various ideas or points are connected by drawing arrows or shapes or groupings. When sketching, you aren’t quite sure how to structure your thoughts before you start. And sketching is, in some way, the act of figuring this out. There is something highly nonlinear about this process where your thoughts backtrack to previous ideas and test the strength of old conclusions.

~ Gytis Daujotas from, Iterating fast: voice dictation as a form of babble — LessWrong

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Before I begin, I want to point to these general thoughts about Babble, and to this very interesting series of articles advancing the idea that the antagonistic algorithms Babble and Prune can at least partly model how the mind works.

I’m thinking that one way to have what I’d call a “really good conversation” is when the participants are babbling together. Baby babble is generally incomprehensible, or at least not comprehensible overall. Baby babble has many comprehensible words, but rarely a comprehensible sentence. In conversations which I’d call “good”, the babble has comprehensible sentences, and often comprehensible paragraphs, but may not be comprehensible overall. We’re babbling, and pruning, to see where we end up.

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Expectations with Jam Mayer →

Published July 16, 2022  ·  All posts on Jul 16

How do different communication mediums influence engagement and interaction in personal and professional settings?

Exploring the interplay between technology, generational habits, and learning styles shapes the dynamics of modern communication.

There is a little bit of a disconnect because there’s that expectation from a generation that says you have to show yourself on video, but the digital natives… don’t care.

~ Jam Mayer (4:33)

The conversation explores the nuanced ways communication mediums affect engagement. It contrasts the experience of in-person training with digital formats, highlighting the energy and connection possible in face-to-face settings versus the challenges posed by video calls. Generational differences in behavior and expectations are examined, with older generations often emphasizing visible engagement and digital natives demonstrating a more relaxed approach.

The discussion goes into the dynamics of online communities, particularly challenges in making platforms user-friendly for diverse engagement styles. Jam and Craig address the difficulty of translating podcast audiences into other forms of interaction and consider strategies for creators to adapt content for various mediums, ensuring accessibility for their audience’s preferences.

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Christian Anderson: Exploration, Influences, and Creating →

Published July 16, 2022  ·  All posts on Jul 16  ·  

Christian Anderson: Exploration, influences, and creating

How do personal exploration, creativity, and cultural influences shape movement practices and artistic endeavors?

Christian Anderson is a parkour coach, athlete, teacher, martial artist, and movement artist. He created his own parkour teaching program, pursues weapons training, and is an artist in other mediums, including drawing, music, videos, and blade-smithing. Christian earned his bachelors in Landscape architecture at North Carolina A&T University.

You don’t have to tell a kid to play, to jump to climb. There’s a lot of innate understanding of movement that I think children have, to be completely honest.

~ Christian Anderson (28:59)

Christian Anderson’s unique interests are wide-ranging; from martial arts and weapons training, to parkour, to art, to creating his own weapons and training set-ups. Christian shares his inspirations and process for learning and creating. He discusses teaching, landscape architecture, and his specific influences and role models. Christian unpacks his personal martial arts, weapons, and movement practices, and how all of them are creatively interconnected.

The conversation explores how personal creativity, cultural influences, and movement intersect in both art and physical practices. Topics range from martial arts and weapon-making to how imagination facilitates movement, particularly in children. The discussion highlights the importance of personal space creation, whether for training or as a sanctuary, and how integrating these elements into daily life fosters growth.

There is a deep appreciation for cultural artifacts, such as samurai films and ninjutsu, which serve as both inspiration and a means to connect with broader traditions. Additionally, the dialogue touches on the challenges of prioritizing projects, maintaining focus, and overcoming impostor syndrome, illustrating the complexity of creative expression and personal exploration.

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One reason why I journal →

Published July 16, 2022  ·  All posts on Jul 16  ·  ,

When we conjure up what it will be like to start a new practice, form a new habit, knock an item off a bucket list, we see the fun but not the work. We see an image in which all the drudgery has been edited out, and only the montage of rewards left in.

~ Brett McKay from, «https://www.artofmanliness.com/character/advice/sunday-firesides-do-you-like-the-idea-more-than-the-reality/»

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Great points from McKay. I often enjoy inverting problems like the one he’s describing. Let’s say I thought a lot about the idea and the reality and decided far in the past to start something—for example, a daily podcast of me reading quotes. Then the inversion of the problem McKay is writing about would be to figure out, in the present, if my current experience of the reality matches what I expected the reality to be, back when I made the decision. Because, if I don’t do that, how do I get better at making the idea/reality choice McKay is discussing?

This is one reason I journal. For every project (and much more) in the last decade I’ve journaled about it. An idea begins to appear repeatedly in my journal entries. Sometimes it grows into my laying out the expected reality—the work this is going to require, the physical and emotional costs, the expected outcome(s), the rewards, etc.. Then I regularly reread my old journal entries and see how much of an idiot I was. ;)

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Emergence with Corey Schlosser-Hall →

Published July 15, 2022  ·  All posts on Jul 15

How does podcasting facilitate personal growth and the exchange of insights?

Podcasting invites both hosts and listeners into transformative spaces of thought.

Doing this work can be playful… and giving others the opportunity to listen in when insight happens is a pretty cool thing.

~ Corey Schlosser-Hall (19:11)

The conversation explores the multifaceted nature of podcasting, particularly its potential to create and share insights. Corey reflects on his podcast “On the Verge,” which captures moments of inspiration before they manifest into tangible outcomes. Craig and Corey discuss how meaningful exchanges in conversational formats provide fertile ground for reflection and personal growth.

They also examine the concept of “emergence” in communication, debating whether conversations simply elicit pre-existing knowledge or foster the creation of new ideas. They agree that podcasting serves as a unique medium for these emergent moments, with its challenges and rewards—including the variety of approaches it enables, from intimate dialogues to larger production endeavors.

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It’s subtle but critically important →

Published July 15, 2022  ·  All posts on Jul 15  ·  

It’s broadly agreed these days that consciousness poses a very serious challenge for contemporary science. What I’m trying to work out at the moment is why science has such difficulty with consciousness. We can trace this problem back to its root, at the start of the scientific revolution.

~ Philip Goff from, A Post-Galilean Paradigm | Edge.org

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I once had a mathematics professor make a comment that it’s fascinating that mathematics is able to explain reality. I double-clutched at the time. And every single time I think about the point he was making, I still pause and my mind reels. If one is looking at—for example—classical mechanics, and one studies the ballistic equations, one can go along nicely using forces and trigonometry, and understand golf balls and baseballs in flight. Soon you realize your mathematics is only an approximation. So you dive into fluid mechanics, which requires serious calculus, and you then understand why golf balls have dimples and why the stitching on baseballs is strictly specified in the rules. All along the way, mathematics models reality perfectly!

But why? So you keep peeling. The math and physics gets more and more complicated—stochastic processes, randomness, quantum mechanics, wave-particle theory, etc.—as each layer answers another “why”… but it’s … is “cyclical” the right word? No matter how far you go, you can always ask “why” again, for the most complex and most accurate system you model and explain.

Down there at the bottom, that’s where Galileo declared there was a distinction between physical reality, and consciousness and the soul. We’ve had hundreds of years of progress via science on what Galileo divided off as “physical reality.” (And that progress is a Very Good Thing.) But as this article explores, is there actually a distinction? What if making that distinction is a mistake?

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