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I am peculiar. Do I mean particular? 1 Notebooks, sharpened pencils, old books with marginalia. It’s probably performative. On the other hand, if I knew how to make furniture, I wouldn’t consider the woodshop performative. What I actually believe is that these rituals (What, no burning of sage bundles?!) slow me down to the pace of understanding. Not to a better understanding than anyone else who lives a more normal life. It’s simply my process for converting exterior knowledge into intuition.
I’ve been pasting the word intuition all over the last few days since I came across it on a website devoted to explaining the Partially Observable Markov Decision Process—POMDP to the kids at the skate park—which I have been studying. The website starts this way: “This is a tutorial aimed at trying to build up the intuition behind solution procedures for partially observable Markov decision processes (POMDPs).” I like that idea, “building up intuition.” That’s one of the ways we distinguish between knowledge and understanding. Knowledge flies away. Understanding becomes intuitive.
I spent an hour trying to explain the bond market in writing yesterday. (You’re welcome for the hot, steamy discussion topic for your Friday-night cocktail hour.) But I’m not sure I turned it into intuitive knowledge. (I’ve had to teach myself how the bond market works in one form or another since 1995.) These Notes posts on Substack exist to help me make ideas intuitive—explaining locks in learning—but the process doesn’t stop there. I have to do some number of things some number of times before it becomes truly intuitive. I’m not sure how many more.
Fragile: New information makes sense while the notes are visible.
Usable: You can reconstruct the explanation without them.
Intuitive: You can apply the mechanism to an unfamiliar case and anticipate what happens next.
