Luca Dellanna Profile picture
Sep 24, 2020 11 tweets 2 min read Read on X
ON ALTERNATION

Often, the best approach is not A or B, but an alternation of A and B.

For example, action and reflection. Or study and application.

It’s not about balance, but about making hypotheses and verifying them.

Thread (1/N)
For example, the human cortex 🧠 is based on the principle of *alternating* two operations: expansion and compression of information.

Only one operation would not be able to achieve any meaningful result.

Instead,
3/ Instead, the cortex alternates these two steps:
- It expands information across all possible hypotheses, relevant or irrelevant.
- It compresses information, by eliminating the hypotheses that are proved wrong by sensorial stimuli and/or experience.

This “brainstorm” is 💯
4/ In appearance, it is a very inefficient process.

It zigs & zags instead of taking a straight route.
It creates data points that that have a high chance of being discarded.

And yet, the human brain is the most efficient computing device we know of.

All thanks to alternation.
5/ (More details on the process in my paper “Techniques for the emergence of meaning in ML” on Luca-Dellanna.com
6/ In general, I’m under the impression that people and companies plateau in their development when they stop alternating.
7/ This is not only about action and reflection, but often about many alternative processes of similar effectiveness.

Alternation is a great way to create tentative data points and validate or invalidate them.

Short-term inefficient, long-term effective.
8/ As another example issued out of neurology, our cortex is not divided in one big area for thought and one big area for action.

Rather, every point in its surface performs both operations related to thought and action (In referring to L2/3 & L5, for those who know).

This…
9/ …This is another form of alternation: it provides a much faster feedback from thought to action back to though (fast feedback loops are effectively alternation)
10/ In sum:
- development is limited by feedback loops.
- alternation is a great way to get fast feedback loops.
11/ Learning is iteration.

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More from @DellAnnaLuca

Jun 2
I recently got a small grant (courtesy of Kanro, Vitalik Buterin's foundation) to produce some educational materials regarding the pandemic response.

These 10 one-pagers are the first batch of educational materials.

Any feedback?

1/10 Image
Some more background about the one-pagers. They are meant for people who are already onboard with the need to properly react to an eventual future pandemic but don't have the vocabulary or examples to explain to others what they can do and why.

2/10 Image
A simple model to understand indoor infection risk

3/10 Image
Read 10 tweets
Apr 20
What do I think an educated society means?

Nothing about graduation rates (literacy rates, yes).

Instead:
– Knowing what matters for society to work well
– Being able to find a value-adding role in society
– Having learned that personal improvement is achievable

Not banal

1/6
1) Knowing what matters for society to work well

Things such as:
– What brings prosperity?
– What did countries that were wealthy and democratic do (or didn't do) that caused them to become poor or totalitarian

Seems banal, but…

2/6
…we only discuss how good it's to be prosperous or democratic without discussing how to get there or how not to fall back to the default state (poverty / absence of rights)

3/6
Read 6 tweets
Apr 8
BEYOND THE CHECKLIST

A problem of many organizations is that they are aware of the needs of employees (impact, recognition, growth, fair salary, etc) but fulfill them as they would with a checklist: let's do this superficially, checked, done.

Some examples (& solutions) ↓

1/8
Example #1: recognition.

Many companies and managers know that employees want recognition.

But they fulfill this need in a very superficial way. With a small internal award, a certificate, etc. Top red flag: it's HR-driven and/or feels cringe.

2/8
The alternative:
– make it personal: it should come from the boss or the boss' boss.
– make it congruent: a moment of recognition followed by a year of no recognition feels (and likely is) fake.

3/8
Read 8 tweets
Oct 5, 2023
Whenever we desire an outcome but not the actions that would make us achieve it, we end up with inaction, busywork, shortcuts, excuses, and, ultimately, frustration.

(a thread of highlights from the first chapter of my book "The Control Heuristic")

1/14 Image
You probably do not have a decision-making problem, but an action-taking one

2/14 Image
Decision-making is not the same as action-taking.
The cortex is mostly responsible for taking decisions, and the ~basal ganglia determines whether we act on our decisions.

3/14 Image
Read 14 tweets
Jun 9, 2023
TIPS FOR EFFECTIVE DELEGATION

1) Minimize the chance of misunderstandings:

Explain:
– what's too little
– what's too much
– common mistakes
2) Explain why you need it done.

Not who asked for it. What it is for. What happens if it's not done. (And what happens if it's not done well enough.)

Tasks whose rationale isn't explained relevantly are done badly and/or at higher emotional cost
3) Pre-empt inaction and failure.

Ask them and yourself:
– Why might they not take action?
– Why might they take action and yet fail?
Read 7 tweets
Jun 9, 2023
Footnotes are my favorite feature of my book Ergodicity (from which the screenshot below is taken).

In fact, there’s plenty of bolded text in the footnotes.

A few examples in this thread. Image
Image
Image
Read 6 tweets

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