Some ground rules for debate

For some reason, you've gotten into a debate with me about philosophy, software, psychology, history, life, the universe, and everything. Awesome!

Before we go any further, let's lay down a few ground rules to help ensure that we don't waste each other's time.

Rule 1: cogito ergo sum

If we debate long enough, it's possible that we'll become unhinged from reality and start to question everything. Perhaps the world is not what it seems. Maybe our senses are lying to us. What if this is all a dream? What if you're a figment of my imagination or I'm a figment of yours?

If we get to this point, we need to stop immediately, and back up.

All arguments boil down to just a single truth:

I think, therefore I am. - René Descartes

Unfortunately, this is not a particularly useful result. If we're going to have a debate, we need more than that.

I am, therefore I think

Even though I can't prove it, I'm going to assume that there is some sort of real world out there; that there isn't a robot deity keeping my brain trapped in a computer simulation; that my senses aren't lying to me all the time. I'm going to assume that the world is, more or less, what it seems, and our role is merely to do our best to adapt to it.

If we can't agree to these axioms, then we shouldn't waste any more time debating. If "I think, therefore I am" is the only thing you're willing to believe, then we won't make it very far anyway. After all, if everything is a lie, what could we possibly gain from a debate?

Rule 2: theories and models

Although I'll rely on some axioms as the basis for my reality, most of my claims will come from theories. I put this word in italics because it needs some explanation.

Outside of a scientific context, the word theory often means that something is uncertain or unproven. For example, people like to criticize the theory of evolution by saying "it's only a theory." 

This is an unfortunate mix-up because, in science, theory means something different. A theory is an explanation based on observation and experimentation that can be used to describe and predict something. 

In other words, a theory is a tool that you use. It is a model of reality that can be used to make predictions; whether or not the theory corresponds to some underlying truth about that reality is (almost) irrelevant.

In fact, I'll go one step further: 

All models are wrong, but some are useful. - George E.P. Box

Yep, all theories are wrong. And that's OK. For example, we know that the theory of gravity is wrong (see: general relativity); we know that Newton's laws of motion are wrong (see: special relativity); in fact, most of classical physics is wrong (see: quantum mechanics); there is a whole wiki page of superseded scientific theories. Nevertheless, all of these theories have been and continue to be incredibly useful, providing the essential tools for building airplanes, bridges, computers, spaceships, and understanding the universe.

The goal of a theory isn't to be right; after all, you can never really be right, as per rule 1. The goal of a theory is to be useful. The important question is not "is this theory correct" but rather, "does this theory let us make predictions about the world better than other theories"?

For example, the theory of evolution by natural selection lets us make some good predictions about how plant and animal species came to be and what will happen to them in the future. It may be only a theory, but it's a very useful one. On the other hand, intelligent design doesn't match our observations, isn't useful for making predictions, and therefore not a theory.

So, when you and I debate, it's not worth debating axioms, so all we can really do is debate theories. And we won't debate them based on the merit of whether they are true or not, but whether they are more useful than other theories.

Rule 3: the most important question

One final step before we can have a debate: you need to ask yourself a question. It's arguably the most important question in all of science, reason, and debate:

What would convince you that you're wrong?

Be honest. What facts, evidence, or events would convince you that your current stance in the debate is wrong? This question is the very basis of the scientific method.

If there is not a single thing in the world that could convince you that you're wrong, then your stance isn't a theory, but an article of faith. And faith cannot be debated.

What would convince an evolutionary scientist that the theory of evolution is totally wrong? That is, what would show that the theory of evolution is not a useful model? I can think of a few examples: discovering evidence that the earth was just a few thousand years old; observing a new species magically materialize with no connection to any other species; finding evidence that the entire fossil record is an elaborate hoax by the liberal media.

What would convince someone who believes in intelligent design that they are wrong? As far as I know, nothing. Apparently, numerous observations of natural selection in progress, mounds of data showing the earth is over 4 billion years old, an extensive fossil record, and countless examples of unintelligent design are not enough. This is yet another reason intelligent design is not a scientific theory and should not be taught as one in schools.

As long as a debate is about faith instead of theory, it is largely pointless, since there is nothing that can change either party's mind. This is why it's so painful to debate topics like abortion, conspiracy theories, politics, and religion.

Therefore, I propose that we only have a debate if both of us can identify, at least to ourselves, that there is at least one piece of evidence that could convince us that we're wrong.

Alright, let's do this

Made it this far?

Good.

Because I'm ready to put on a clinic.

Worth watching: why are we happy?

No time for a full blog post today, so much like my last "worth watching" post, I'll leave you with another video that is well worth your time. In this one, Dan Gilbert asks, why are we happy?

Obsessed with lists: how I organize my life

A little while back, I wrote about my obsession with the apocalypse. Today, I'm going to talk about a slightly different obsession: lists. To be honest, not many people see this side of me. However, it's a big part of who I am and how I get things done, and perhaps by sharing it, it'll help others. Or perhaps you'll realize I'm an OCD maniac and end up avoiding me in the hallways.

Write down everything

I have long since accepted the fact that my memory is fallible and limited, so I tend to write down just about everything. Paper and digital media tend to be much more reliable and easier to search than my mind. As you'll see in the rest of this blog post, I keep lists for everything you can think of, from my agenda for the day, to the groceries I need to buy, to the books I want to read.

A big part of making this an effective system is developing the discipline to (a) write down everything, as soon as possible and (b) strong search/organization skills so I can then find the relevant information in my many lists. When I get it right, I can very quickly access data from all aspects of my life in a matter of seconds.

Tools of the trade

One of the things I struggle with is picking the right tools for my many lists. I've tried a huge variety with varying degrees of success and am continuously on the lookout for better options - if you know of any, please let me know in the comments. I've found that with note & list tools, there are a number of trade-offs to consider: speed, searchability, accessibility, price, support for sharing, and tuning for specific tasks. The rest of this blog post will be a list - go figure - of some of the tools that I currently use and their pros and cons.

Pen and Paper

Even though I'm a die-hard technologist, I find that pen and paper is still the best choice in certain circumstances. In particular, for my daily agenda, note taking, and shopping lists, I have not found a single digital device that can compare in terms of speed & efficiency. I had high hopes the iPad would finally replace my notebook, but I found typing to be too clunky (especially since I diagram and doodle a lot), finger drawing too imprecise, and the whole device just a little too heavy, both physically and in terms of UI. Perhaps a stylus and a well tuned app would do the trick, but I haven't seen it yet.

Pros:

• Lightning fast
• Good for writing and drawing

Cons

• Not searchable
• Hard to organize: post-it notes, tabs, and bookmarks are fairly clunky
• Not easily sharable
• Easily lost
• Not always available ("doh, I left it at the office!")

Use cases:

• Daily agenda: a short list of items I plan on getting done for the day.
• Note taking: I have not found anything that can match pen and paper when taking notes while listening to a live speaker or presentation.
• Grocery list: another short list that I put together in a hurry and then dispose of.

Google Docs 

http://docs.google.com

Text documents, spreadsheets, presentations and drawings in the cloud. For free. This is my weapon of choice for the VAST majority of things that don't need quite the speed of pen & paper. I keep so much info in Google Docs at this point that I'd be in a lot of trouble if anything ever happened to the service.


Pros:

• Accessible everywhere you have the internet - even editable on a smartphone!
• Searchable
• Easy to organize using tags/folders
• Easy to share and collaborate

 Cons:

• Not quite as fast as pen and paper, especially for quick sketches

Use cases:

• Packing lists: I create a new list for each trip I take, no matter how short or long. Creating a new one is a snap nowadays, as I just copy & paste from a few existing ones and tweak as necessary.
• Travel TODO's: I keep a list of all the places I want to travel and slowly check things off as I get them done.
• Idea list: all the ideas I come up with for side projects and hackdays go into a google doc. I have over 200 ideas written down now, many of which I've actually built, such as Resume Builder.
• Writing list: a list of things I want to write about, either in my blog or the occasional short story in my spare time.
• What I did at work: every project I do at work gets added to this list. Very useful when the annual review process rolls around, as I can just grab the list and put it straight into my self-evaluation. Also handy for updating my LinkedIn profile.
• Project TODO lists: for each long-term project, I keep a list of tasks that I need to get done. For example, I have one for the LinkedIn Engineering Blog so I can keep track of posts I need to put up and another one for the Intern Hackday site to make sure to add the necessary features as the competition draws closer.
• Long term notes: if I have notes that I need to reference for more than a few days, pen & paper no longer suffice. I transfer them into a google doc, paying the penalty of time, but gaining the assurance that I'll always be able to find the notes when I need them.
• Workout schedule: I take workouts from the Crossfit mainsite, Crossfit Football and Crossfit Endurance and plug them into a schedule that's customized for the extra strength training I do and the equipment I'll have available that day (ie, whether I'll be at Crossfit Sunnyvale or just doing something on a football field).
• Recipes: every time I learn to cook something new and complicated, I write it down. Most recently, I learned to make borscht!
• Travel itineraries: for planning and organizing trips.
• Car information: last time I had an oil change, inspections, VIN, license plate number, year, etc.

Springpad

http://www.springpadit.com

Technically a "note app", but it also supports storing a huge variety of items: bookmarks, tasks, events, wines, movies, products and more. There is an HTML5 web interface, iPhone app and browser plugins for both Firefox and Chrome.

Pros:

• Great interface for capturing webpages (bookmarks), as the browser plugins can scrape the page you are viewing, grab a thumbnail, the URL, title and description all from one click. 
• Supports tags for effective organization
• Accessible on a wide variety of devices

Cons:

• Agonizingly slow. Because of this, I'm slowly migrating off of SpringPad and really only use it for bookmarks now.
• Buggy: the Firefox plugin sometimes randomly vanishes from the browser. Text entry and auto complete are both clunky.

Use cases:

• Storing bookmarks: I bookmark anything I might want later - primarily software tools and guides - and tag it. For example, the 3 web development tools and 3 more web development tools blog posts were created by just going into SpringPad, clicking "bookmarks" and selecting my "Web Developer" tag.

Google tasks

http://mail.google.com/mail/help/tasks/

Very simple task tracking application. I primarily use it because it's integrated into gmail, so I see it all the time.

Pros:

• Simple and easy to use
• Integrated into gmail, gcal and iPhone

Cons:

• Clunky UI
• No reminders

Use cases:

• Unimportant or on-going tasks: since its in gmail, I know that anything I put in here will get seen very often. I often put on-going tasks in here so I get reminded of them daily.

Living Social

http://books.livingsocial.com

Most people know LivingSocial as a daily deal site. However, before they got into deals, they had a great app for tracking books, movies, tv shows, video games and more. You could add books/movies/shows/games to your "collection" as something you had read/watched/played (along with a rating and review) or something that you wanted to read/watch/play. The ability to track all of these types of media in one place attracted me to the service and I used it fairly heavily: I had 260 books, 500 movies and 60 tv shows in my collection.

Unfortunately, ever since their daily deals business got big, they stopped developing features for the "media" site, didn't fix bugs, and didn't respond to requests. Today, I found out they are shutting the whole service down - if you use it, make sure to export your data before it's gone. I'm pretty disappointed by this and will now have to find a new place to track all the different types of media I interact with.

Pros:

• Huge database with images and descriptions
• Decently sized user-base, including quite a few of my facebook friends
• Decent UI for adding items to your collection, tagging them and rating/reviewing them
• One place for all types of media

Cons:

• The service is now dead.

Use cases:

• Media tracking: books, movies, tv shows, video games

GoodReads

http://www.goodreads.com/

A service built specifically to help you build a collection of books, both those you've already read (and optionally reviewed) as well as those you want to read. I actually used goodreads a few years ago, but switched to LivingSocial because they also had movies, tv shows, video games, etc. Now that LivingSocial is dead, I might go back to goodreads.

Pros:

• Huge database of books
• Lots of authors seem to use the site
• Good reviews and ratings from the memberbase
• UI well tuned for tracking books

Cons:

• Not too many of my friends are using it
• Only tracks books

Use cases:

• Tracking books: reviews, to-read lists

Google calendar

https://www.google.com/calendar

Not exactly a list, but I couldn't talk about keeping my life organized without mentioning Google Calendar. In the same way that gmail is vastly superior to every email client ever built by Microsoft or Apple, Google Calendar is head and shoulders above Exchange, Outlook, iCal, etc. All my other calendars feed into it. My phone is synced to it. My life revolves around it.

Pros:

• Clean, easy to use UI
• Very flexible reminders/alerts
• Accessible from any browser and my iPhone

Cons:

• We still use exchange at work for some reason

Use cases:

• Scheduling: if it's not on my calendar, it's not happening.

A physical analogy for the creative thought process

As a software engineer, I tend to be very methodical in my thinking. I approach every problem by breaking it down into discrete pieces, analyzing each one in a logical fashion, and following a series of coherent steps to a solution. It's easy for me to picture my conscious, problem-solving mind as a some sort of geared device, a Rube Goldberg machine, or even a computer applying an algorithm.

But what about creative thinking? What about moments of inspiration? You’re sitting on the can and WHAM, out of nowhere, an idea hits you. There was no conscious thought process, no gears turning, nothing visible happening. It's as if creativity happens behind a curtain and when the process completes, your unconscious hands you an answer. What physical analogy could explain what happens behind this "curtain"?

When it comes to creativity, the analogy of gears and machines seems largely unsatisfying, failing to provide an explanation for both (a) the random and unpredictable aspects of creative thinking, such as how answers and ideas can just appear at any time or place and (b) the more deterministic trends, such as some people consistently being more creative than others and some situations fostering more creativity than others. Rather appropriately, a possible solution to this problem came to me in a moment of inspiration: seemingly out of nowhere, I started to think about coin flips, index cards and an interesting analogy came to mind.

Creative thinking as a deck of index cards

Imagine that you have a deck of index cards and that each card has a word or phrase on it. These cards represent the ideas and thoughts that are floating in your head. The creative thought process can then be seen as:

1. Shuffle the index cards.
2. Drop them on the floor. 
3. Scan over the cards and see what sentences have formed from the random arrangement of words.

 Most of the time, the random permutations of words will be meaningless. You just have to pick up the cards and return to step 1. However, every now and then, a meaningful sentence or thought will emerge. Sometimes this will be a full solution to a problem - the "aha!" moment; other times, this will be a mere stepping stone from which you gather enough info to add or remove index cards from your deck before returning to step 1.

What I like about this analogy

1. It cleanly explains the unpredictability of the creative thought process without resorting to any magical or divine reasoning. Sometimes the cards fall the way you want, sometimes they don't.
2. The particular choice of cards in your deck and the way you adjust them with each iteration is a great model for why your creativity may "click" for some problems and not for others. For example, consider "linguistic equations" or "DITLOIDS" style puzzles (warning: these links are highly addictive). Most people are able to solve a few very quickly, but get stuck on the rest for a long time. This could be seen as the natural outcome of which index cards you pull into your deck as you read each problem. For example, when you see the number 26, there are very few concepts - and consequently index cards - that you would associate with that number. The size of the deck is small and it only takes a few trials before a meaningful answer emerges. On the other hand, a number like 3 has MANY possibilities, resulting in many more cards in the deck and consequently many more iterations before you stumble upon the proper permutation. 
3. We can also explain why, even when faced with the same types of problems, you creativity may fluctuate by considering the possibility that not all the possible "index cards" of your mind are equally accessible. Depending on what you've been doing and thinking about, some words/phrases will be top of mind and readily pulled into your deck; other cards will represent concepts you haven't considered in a long time, stashed in the deep recesses of your memory, and will rarely get pulled into a deck.
4. I've always find that increased constraints lead to increased creativity. If I'm trying to solve too big or vague of a problem, I actually find it harder to come up with ideas than when faced with a smaller and more clearly defined problem. Again, the card analogy works here: broad and vague problems would be pulling in cards from all over your mind. These would represent totally unrelated thoughts and ideas and result in permutations that are completely meaningless. On the other hand, more constrained problems would result in pulling in cards that are closely related and consequently, much more likely to form coherent thoughts when they land next to each other.
5. Finally, the index card system has several tuning points that could account for the creativity differences between people. This could result from varying values in the total number of cards available, the number of iterations per unit time the person can do, the ability to scan cards after each iteration and recognize that a permutation has meaning or value, the skill of picking which cards to put into the deck initially and the ability to adjust the cards in the deck after each iteration.

Vegas?

If this analogy were true, it would suggest that the brain uses a Las Vegas Algorithm for creative thinking. This may also help explain why brainstorming sessions can be an effective way to get creativity going: they are a conscious way to pull in ideas and try all sorts of permutations until, hopefully, a useful one emerges. Einstein may have refused the idea that God would play dice, but perhaps, behind the curtain of our unconscious, we are just playing cards.