Frequently asked questions about thinking, epistemology, and cognitive tools. 3434 answers
Individual atoms of knowledge become powerful when linked into a navigable structure.
Concepts are nodes and relationships are edges — together they form a graph.
When A links to B, B should know that A links to it — bidirectional linking reveals hidden patterns.
A densely connected area of your graph represents deep understanding.
Ideas that link separate areas of your knowledge graph are especially valuable.
Ideas that link separate areas of your knowledge graph are especially valuable.
Natural groupings in your knowledge graph show you what you know most about.
Add new nodes and edges daily and the graph becomes increasingly powerful over time.
Add new nodes and edges daily and the graph becomes increasingly powerful over time.
Periodically review and clean your graph — remove dead links and add missing connections.
Your internal contradictions often mark the areas where you are ready to grow. They are not signs of confused thinking — they are indicators that your current meaning-making system has reached the boundary of its capacity and is preparing to reorganize at a higher level of complexity. The.
Your collection of schemas should work together without conflict. Coherence is not agreement — it is the absence of unresolved contradiction, where each schema strengthens rather than undermines the others.
Your collection of schemas should work together without conflict. Coherence is not agreement — it is the absence of unresolved contradiction, where each schema strengthens rather than undermines the others.
Integrating your schemas is also integrating your identity — who you are becomes more coherent.
Good integration preserves the diversity of your schemas while connecting them.
Every agent has a trigger that activates it, a condition that validates it, and an action it takes.
Inventory your existing agents both designed and default to understand what is running.
Each agent should handle one specific situation — multi-purpose agents are fragile.
When an agent fails to fire or produces bad results you learn how to improve it.
Every agent embeds assumptions about the world — the schema it uses must be accurate.
Agents for recurring decision types like buy-versus-build or accept-versus-decline.
Agents for spending saving and investment decisions.
Linking an agent to a specific event like arriving at work or opening your laptop.
Too sensitive and the agent fires too often — too insensitive and it never fires.