notebook

Negative Practice

“Sometimes too much so, for, in complex skills like typing, one may learn to consistently type ‘hte’ for ‘the’. The remedy is to reverse the process by consciously practicing the mistake ‘hte’, whereupon contrary to the usual idea of ‘practice makes perfect’, the mistake drops away—a phenomenon called negative practice.”

I’ve never heard of this before. It’s intriguing—does purposefully going after the error really train it out of you?

Excerpt From: Jaynes, Julian. “The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind.” Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (hmhbooks.com), 2000-08-15. Apple Books.

Read more

We Noticed

There are periods of history when the visions of madmen and dope fiends are a better guide to reality than the common-sense interpretation of data available to the so-called normal mind. This is one such period, if you haven’t noticed already. –Robert Anton Wilson

Should Be My Family’s Motto

As a rule we disbelieve all the facts and theories for which we have no use. –William James

Outward Writing Thinking

I’m apparently writing. I ate some food late, and while I was cooking, I was pacing. I was thinking, I was writing. I seem to burning a little brightly right now; that may explain the frustration. I guess. I’m not sure about that, but maybe the burning somehow

Blogapocalypse

It was a long bad day. I was going to write today. It had such promise at the start. Ideas were just bubbling through, and for some reason the wind has shifted. I write all the time, but it’s for me, for my journal. I have to fight to