19 Comments
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Kyle Shepard's avatar

Writing for mastery is an interesting topic that I’m sure you’ve been personally exploring for years/decades. Writing about writing for mastery seems like an excellent pursuit of benefit to interested readers like myself and your continued evolution as one of the best writers on this platform 👊🏻

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Andrew Perlot's avatar

Thank you!

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Cj TruHeart's avatar

Yes, to being the author of my own humanity.

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John Gonter's avatar

Thank you for this post. I'm reminded that I started teaching outdoor skills because I thought I had knowledge to share. I discovered how much I didn't know. When I'm in front of a class, LLMs, Google and the internet are non-starters. I had to learn to say "I don't know" or to prepare for my classes with the anticipation that practical questions would come. Every year I find my students have less and less hands-on eyes-open experience with the subject matter. My curiosity and memory continue to improve because of this.

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Andrew Perlot's avatar

Great example!

The real interesting question is, when presented with this useful indication of ignorance, what will we do with it?

We can't know everything, of course. The field of knowledge is too vast.

So I feel like the best approach is something like this:

(https://open.substack.com/pub/andrewperlot/p/how-to-have-worthwhile-opinions-in?r=1xulhu&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false)

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John Gonter's avatar

That is an inspiring post as well, thanks. I have changed my mind and softened many positions I held tightly in recent years. Somehow at about age 50 [a decade ago] I realized that my hardline beliefs were: wrong, partially wrong or inflexible enough to cause problems. I learned to re-assess and often change my views. I was fortunate at one point in my career to have a boss who would say "...before you present me with solutions, try to think about each issue/problem from different viewpoints, 90 and 180 degrees from yours. You'll have better solutions and waste less of my time" That laid the foundation for me to challenge my own perceived "mastery" and to learn avoid decision bias and myopia. Ask me about breakfast sandwiches though and I'll respond as if I think I am a master, LOL.

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SB Wright 🇦🇺's avatar

It's worth checking out Dr Lynne Kelly’s work on memory

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Andrew Perlot's avatar

I read one of her books on aboriginal memory systems a few years back. Good stuff.

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SB Wright 🇦🇺's avatar

Yes, that's the one.

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Charles Corbit's avatar

Great essay that I plan to read again when my brain is fresh (it’s been a long day).

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Michael Woudenberg's avatar

I've hit on a very similar grouping with what I call systems thinking.

1. Insatiable curiosity

2. The humility to know we don't know everything

3. Intentional reframing to look at ideas / problems from different perspectives.

It wraps together in to the idea of Learn, Unlearn, Relearn.

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Andrew Perlot's avatar

Ya. there are some very interesting studies suggesting that curiosity is our best protection against bias. I'm going to write more about it.

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Jane Turner's avatar

You are know one of my main sources of knowledge when I’m looking for new ways to support my students’ learning :-)

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Andrew Perlot's avatar

So glad to hear. Thanks!

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Barry Lederman, “normie”'s avatar

Was it a mistake to add Intelligence to Artificial?

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Andrew Perlot's avatar

Time will tell.

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David Fideler's avatar

A good one, Andrew.

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Andrew Perlot's avatar

Thanks, David!

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