This blog is a collection of ideas and concepts I find useful for navigating the world. Ideas and concepts are living tools; they can be used to find solutions and combined to create new ones.
I believe that learning ideas and concepts is more important than memorizing facts. The recollection of facts has been revolutionized by technology to a point where knowing how to use this technology and understanding the reliability of your sources are more important than knowing the facts themselves, as facts are nearly infinite and readily available with a few clicks if you know where to look.
Ideas are more flexible than facts. If someone was born in 1999, they simply cannot physically exist in 1997. However, interesting concepts like the placebo effect, the Matthew principle, confirmation bias, opportunity cost, and the Pareto Principle can apply in many different ways, with various nuances, exceptions, limitations, and variations.
Ideas can be true or false; concepts can also be true or false, but some are just more or less useful.
In other words, concepts are not absolute. The placebo effect, for example, can be measured; it applies to some situations/diseases, but not others; it can work wonders for headaches but have limited effect on a broken finger; it has limitations (it cannot grow you a new hand); it can vary from person to person.
Some concepts will instantly give you a bit of peace of mind in specific circumstances. Knowing that imposter syndrome is common can ease your mind if you feel you're not up to a task, and understanding analysis paralysis will show you why you feel like you can't make the best choice. As always, consider the limitations: sometimes, there is a better choice, or you really need the help of an expert to solve a problem (see the Dunning-Kruger effect).
Unlike most facts, concepts that seem contradictory can both be useful. The mention of the Dunning-Kruger Effect and imposter syndrome in the paragraph above is an example.
Concepts and ideas can also apply across different fields. The birth date of Napoleon may be relevant only to history, but game theory can apply across multiple fields.
Even concepts that are mostly wrong or obsolete are useful - they let you know where other people are coming from, or how modern ideas came to be - and future developments may prove there is some truth to them after all (for example, Lamarckism is mostly debunked, but modern study of epigenetics etc. could give it some limited validity, according to Wikipedia). Of course, when you learn such concepts you must also learn WHY they are false.
Concepts can be learned and named for easy access. If you have a cool idea without a name, maybe we can name it to facilitate recollection and discussion. Learned concepts become your toolbox for understanding new ideas and facing reality. You can also use them to communicate more efficiently with other people that are familiar with these ideas.
Some concepts are more useful than others. While this is hard to measure, technology can help here too; for example, we could theoretically count the number of times a concept is discussed or referenced online, putting the most common concepts as "fundamental" to the understanding of all online discussion.
Most of the ideas discussed here are not new. Often, I'm discussing things I've seen somewhere else. In all cases, I'll share my sources so you can explore them in depth. Sometimes, I will explore (and name) my own concepts. In these cases, I'm quite sure somebody, somewhere may have discussed it before - so please let me know in the comments.
The main concepts that I want to communicate in this post are simply:
- Learning ideas concepts is useful to understand the world.
- These concepts often have names and hierarchy, with some being more important than others.
- This blog will discuss concepts that are useful for your understanding, plus other related subjects.
I'll use some help from AI to proofread and improve my blog posts. If you ever use AI, it is important to learn its limits and dangers; this is a subject we may tackle somewhere down the road.
For now, I'll leave a small list of useful concepts, with links to Wikipedia. If you ever use Wikipedia, it is important to learn its limits and dangers; this is a subject we may tackle somewhere down the road. For now, I think these links are useful.
I suggest you read these even if you are already familiar with the concepts. It will certainly deepen your understanding of these subjects.
Please let me know if there are any interesting/important concepts we could add to this list!
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