Thesis and Essay Writing

Appeal to precision and depth

In Eco's book on thesis writing you get this strong feeling that what you've written in the past was probably trash. This is especially the case if you come from a technical background. In some domains of technology, there seems to be less method. It usually occurs in the early days. For example, in deep learning some major contributions have come from undergraduates. Early internet companies were started by younger people, when novelty was more necessary. Galileo built his telescope more by trial and error than from relying on the mathematics of optics. In some domains, there are fewer conventions, and so more gets done. So to think that you can’t just pick some complicated or large idea, and work on it, seems alien to someone habituated into the silicon valley ethos of anything goes.

Eco’s book gives you the impression that you can't possibly miss an author in a bibliography. You can't possibly think of doing something so large and non-specific for a thesis. Eco seems to be essentially socratic in this sense. A healthy scepticism. He addresses the idea of epistemic ambition. A young person with some drive might come up with something so large and get angry when the thesis advisor says it’s too broad. Whereas more advanced authors have the possibility to attempt this. He leaves open the possibility, but regards the specificity of the topic, more as a method of the evaluator than the student. It is easier to show that you are competent in some specificity. It is then easier to evaluate this competence. But something broad, while perhaps getting at something groundbreaking, exposes gaps. You might have left out some idea on purpose or by neglect. But how is the evaluator to really know? The anti-tlibrary giveth and the anti-library taketh away.

Now contrast that with Paul Feyerabend's book ‘Against Method’. In it he makes the point that the imposition of rules or ‘method’ in science (Methodology of science) is what prevents scientific progress. To be clear, science itself does not exist, but is just part of knowledge in general. Because so much of our progress and indeed well-being comes from advances in knowledge, then we are less well off, because of demanding that we use methods. This is his anarchism. It can entail spending more time thinking about how to improve or interweave some seemingly mythical idea. It seems to apply to writing and research too. Take many ideas, some with myth-like status. They are lazy or quick thoughts. One approach is to rule out these ideas, as they conflict with some method. But you can also keep and nurture them. Expand the ideas. They contain truths which are being ruled out because of some arbitrary distinction, because you like rules.

Peer review seems to be the lightest occasion where this shows its head. An excessive method that all ideas that are ‘science’ must pass through. So as a result, science seems to have come rigid, low in risk taking, dogmatic and low in openness. The people who are scientists seem to also have taken such a path. Before, strange religious views or views of the universe were common among Physicists. Now they seem to lack depth, finding comfort in the method.

Right okay, we see this is the problem that seems to be peer reviewed for example (Not going digging for references, fairly sure they're there tho). So what do? On one hand I get almost offended when I see people do the equivalent of dog shit in writing. Low effort thinking which had maybe a couple of drafts if any and wasn't really making any effort to read into the matter more than a book or two. I also get mad at myself because I don't put the effort into doing deep work for long periods of time. I will get bored quickly(probably).

I think I grew up to like precision and depth. It's probably why I was more oriented to Catholicism. It's probably why I left too. But this appeal to precision can be damaging. We don't want to say something dumb. I always had the fear of saying dumb shit growing up. Being dumb was humiliating in my family (They werent all that smart, but being dumb was always discouraged). I like the security of not saying anything. Maybe it's the right strategy in the long run. It's the Warren Buffett, Nassim Taleb, don't fucking dare do something stupid or you'll fucking die(Hyperbole). But the stakes are low. Really low. All you have to lose is your life.

Feynman should have been a Jesuit

I like Paul Feyerabend. He reminds me of the people I grew up with. Contrast his ideas about the methods of science with his opinions on the new generations of science. He seemed to think that Feynman was super smart but lacking any philosophical sophistication. It's not a critique of method, but of style. Let's say that Feynman was smarter than Einstein. Great, but Einstein had more style/class/A E S T H E T I C S. He had metaphysics in his palm. My impression of Paul Feyerabend is that Popper's critical dualism influences his thinking on knowledge. Popper never rules out religion, and so it’s held as being a completely proper thing to hold. So long as it’s understood as being more like inspiration than law. Well then drop the distinction in some sense and metaphysical ideas begin to blossom. Feynman generated his creativity from natural observations. He liked the idea of psychedelics but was too afraid to try them. He misunderstood Jesuits and they misunderstood him. But he perhaps only arrived at the idea that significant inspiration can come from curiosity in the natural sense. But my thinking is that much of the inspiration for science and other forms of knowledge (if there is that distinction) comes from these metaphysical domains. To reject them you narrow yourself too easily. The greater the exposure, the more interesting the insights into the world. (ps. I actually really like Feynman)

~$ echo Eco

The enforcement of precision can be a useful thing. But I think it's better to see these methods in the Christian sense and not in the Islamic sense. Christianity gives you this world view, a way to act, love your neighbour, don't kick pigeons etc. Islam tells you. Something in the same sense as love for your neighbour. But not in the same manner. Perhaps in Islam, God is Arbitrary, he is the way he is and if he changes, well the so be it, he’s God. In Christianity he is rational. He doesn’t just do things without reason. You can understand the rules, and the rules might seem to be imposing on your liberty. But you are free to break the rules. To understand writing (or science) in this way is to say that you might be best to read a lot more books, to keep the antilibrary, to be rigorous and thorough. But if you feel that you want to do your own thing, by all means just don't go hurting anyone(simplification??👀). You can drop a lot of clarity in writing, which is probably indicative of being without clarity of thought. So maybe work with it. We know what's rigourous and we know what isn't. Why not lean on that? This is where you can perhaps adopt the strategy that works with freedom and rigour.

Note taking systems and the barbell approach

I approach note taking with a barbell strategy. For sure, read lots. Read more than lots. But don't let a lack of reading in a subject get in the way of taking notes and jotting down thoughts. Read the book, get some understanding. Interpret, misinterpret, falsify and support. If you have some creativity it can really shine in this low filter zone. Using notes in this way you get lots of material to draw upon in a more rigorous manner later.

More serious writing should draw on the less serious notes. These are like metaphysical inspiration. You can concentrate on examining your notes, and going back and forth between making more notes. Probing a note might give you insight into how it was poorly thought out. You might notice a pattern between the notes. Connections are made more fluidly with more sporadic notes and so rigorous writing is likely to come out being boring and unoriginal. Which is perhaps worse than saying nothing at all.