FI Post: The Choice | Ch1 | Summary and idea tree

Date: 2020-06-27

Copied verbatim from post to FI google group

I’m planning to read The Choice and post here about it. I am particularly looking for feedback on my method, right now. In general (now too), I’m also looking for feedback re my understanding, and any discussion anyone wants re the topics in the book. (Oh, and stream it too, made a new channel, first one: https://youtu.be/5zHzTKTOu8o)

[Method, briefly: for each chapter: read it 2-3 times, make idea tree, post here, next ch; square brackets around paragraph like this are a comment as I was writing the email.]

I think the central idea in chapter 1 of The Choice is:

One’s choice of how to perceive reality (with regards to problems) is (one of?) the most important and impacting choices of one’s life. It is necessary to live a full life. In the chapter it’s called the scientist’s approach.

[Now that I’ve copy/pasted that (from notes), I think I should write more b/c it’s less reasonable to expect someone to go through my more detailed notes, but that one-and-a-bit sentences isn’t detailed enough.]

Broadly, if one wants to live a full life one must make some core decisions, and particularly one decision. That is: problems are soluble, solutions are attainable, and that one CHOOSES to devote the time to understand the problems that come up and how to solve them. (though it’s not expressed in The Choice like this, I think BoI puts the idea simply, so use that language here.) The way to do this is the scientist’s approach: we can know about and prepare for the world in such a way that failures become opportunities to learn, and we can find that energising. Common perceptions of reality have two problems: avoiding using brain power because we think we don’t have it, problems & solutions must be super complex, so we dont have the right tools; and an unwillingness to see reality for what it is, and applying the wrong knowledge in search of the soln. The chapter ends with the conjecture that complex reality is actually simple, and Eli and Efrat agree to analyse a big apparel company to figure it out, next time on The Choice.

An auxiliary point of the chapter was that problems need to be viewed and communicated objectively for other ppl to believe they can work or care about them.

with regards to the screwdriver-screw-nail analogy, I thought the author would have been better to split this up into two discrete problems: the complexity one and the refusal one as I did above, and it was wrong to keep them together, or at least to use the screwdriver one to support that point.

You can find my notes and idea tree (which ended up being the same thing) here: https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/14-qdOgcfwAyEgPBY4O46Ti2Pu_t-9tTZ Check the outline PDF for an easily readable version (maintains tree structure).

My plan is to do the same thing for other chapters in the book. Particularly: listen/read the chapter once, casually. The second time go through and take notes, either constructing the tree as I go or on the 3rd reading. I’ll then post my take on the central idea here, which hopefully is enough for anyone to quickly check if I’m not understanding things; i.e. a problem with the central idea means there are bigger problems elsewhere.

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