- [[notes/Abilene paradox.md|Abilene paradox]]: When a group of people agree to a course of action that none of them actually wants. - [[notes/Abiogenesis.md|Abiogenesis]]: The natural process by which life arises from non‑living matter. - [[notes/Abulia.md|Abulia]]: A cognitive disorder of diminished motivation. - [[notes/Academic inflation.md|Academic inflation]]: The value of a degree only ever decreases from the moment it is conferred. - [[notes/Acedia.md|Acedia]]: A mental state of listlessness or torpor. - [[notes/Adam's Bridge.md|Adam's Bridge]]: A discontinuous and shallow land bridge between India and Sri Lanka. - [[notes/Adjacent possible.md|Adjacent possible]]: The finite set of possible future states of a system given its current state. - [[notes/Adverse childhood experiences.md|Adverse childhood experiences]]: Traumatic events in childhood that can have long‑term effects on health and wellbeing. - [[notes/Ahimsa.md|Ahimsa]]: A key nonviolence principle of Jainism. - [[notes/Akrasia.md|Akrasia]]: A state of acting against one's better judgement through weakness of will or lack of self‑control. - [[notes/Alcubierre drive.md|Alcubierre drive]]: A speculative concept of faster‑than‑light travel by contracting space ahead of a spacecraft and expanding it behind. - [[notes/Alder's razor.md|Alder's razor]]: \- - [[notes/Aleatory probability.md|Aleatory probability]]: Probabilities derived from random processes or games of chance that are inherently unpredictable. - [[notes/Algebraic functions.md|Algebraic functions]]: Functions defined by polynomials and rational expressions where the variable is raised to integer powers. - [[notes/Algorithmic information theory.md|Algorithmic information theory]]: A field that measures the complexity of data or strings in terms of the shortest algorithm capable of producing them. - [[notes/All models are wrong.md|All models are wrong]]: A reminder that scientific and statistical models are simplifications of reality and contain inaccuracies, yet can still be useful. - [[notes/Almost-intransivity.md|Almost-intransivity]]: A situation in decision theory where preferences are nearly, but not completely, non‑transitive across options. - [[notes/Always already.md|Always already]]: Human existence is inherently embedded in a shared world, context, and history before any individual thought. - [[notes/Amara's law.md|Amara's law]]: The tendency to overestimate the progress of a technology in the near-term and and underestimate it in the long-term. - [[notes/Amdahl's law.md|Amdahl's law]]: The overall speed of a system is bottlenecked by its slowest component. - [[notes/Anacoluthon.md|Anacoluthon]]: A rhetorical device involving a sudden break in the grammatical flow of a sentence. - [[notes/Anadiplosis.md|Anadiplosis]]: A rhetorical figure where the last word of one clause or sentence is repeated at the beginning of the next for emphasis. - [[notes/Analysis paralysis.md|Analysis paralysis]]: The state of overthinking or overanalyzing a situation to the point that a decision or action is never taken. - [[notes/Anapodoton.md|Anapodoton]]: A construction in which a main clause is implied but left unsaid, often used in idioms or elliptical expressions. - [[notes/Andy and Bill's law.md|Andy and Bill's law]]: The observation that software speed halves every 18 months due to feature bloat, countering hardware improvements. - [[notes/Anecdata.md|Anecdata]]: Anecdotal evidence presented as if it were data, often unreliable or non‑representative. - [[notes/Anendophasia.md|Anendophasia]]: A condition where a person lacks an inner monologue and experiences little to no internal verbal thought. - [[notes/Angell paradox.md|Angell paradox]]: States sill go to war despite their economic interdependence. - [[notes/Anhedonia.md|Anhedonia]]: The inability to experience pleasure from activities that are typically enjoyable, often associated with depression. - [[notes/Anthropocene.md|Anthropocene]]: The proposed geological epoch marking significant human impact on Earth's ecosystems and geology. - [[notes/Anti-accretion.md|Anti-accretion]]: The idea that, for the first time, matter starts leaving our planet to go into space, as opposed to matter just falling down. - [[notes/Antifragility.md|Antifragility]]: A property of systems that benefit and grow stronger from shocks, stressors, or volatility. - [[notes/Antinomic paradox.md|Antinomic paradox]]: A paradox in which sound reasoning leads to a genuine self-contradiction with no stable truth value. - [[notes/Aphantasia.md|Aphantasia]]: The inability to voluntarily create mental images, resulting in a lack of visual imagination. - [[notes/Apologies.md|Apologies]]: Being apologetic is not the same as being sorry. - [[notes/Apophatic theology.md|Apophatic theology]]: The theological approach to define god by what he is not. - [[notes/Apophenia.md|Apophenia]]: The human tendency to perceive patterns or connections in random or meaningless data. - [[notes/Aposematism.md|Aposematism]]: The use of warning colors, sounds, or signals by animals to deter predators by advertising toxicity or unpalatability. - [[notes/Appeal to novelty.md|Appeal to novelty]]: A fallacy that assumes something is better simply because it is new or modern. - [[notes/Appeal to tradition.md|Appeal to tradition]]: A logical fallacy that argues a practice is correct or superior simply because it has a long history. - [[notes/Aristotelian virtues.md|Aristotelian virtues]]: Aristotle's list of moral and intellectual virtues that are "golden means" between deficiencies and excesses. - [[notes/Armstrong limit.md|Armstrong limit]]: The altitude above which unprotected human blood boils due to low air pressure. - [[notes/Arrow’s impossibility theorem.md|Arrow’s impossibility theorem]]: The theorem that no fair rank‑order voting system can perfectly translate individual preferences into a collective decision. - [[notes/Asimov's laws.md|Asimov's laws]]: A set of three fictional robot laws devised by Isaac Asimov to govern robot behavior. - [[notes/Āśrama.md|Āśrama]]: Four traditional stages of life in Hindu philosophy, each 25-year-long. - [[notes/Assembly theory.md|Assembly theory]]: A framework in biology and chemistry describing how complex molecules arise through incremental assembly of smaller units. - [[notes/Astrochicken.md|Astrochicken]]: A hypothetical self‑replicating spacecraft concept designed to explore space through biological and robotic means. - [[notes/Atomic note.md|Atomic note]]: A single, self‑contained unit of knowledge or idea in note‑taking systems, designed to be linked with other notes. - [[notes/Attention.md|Attention]]: The cognitive process of selectively focusing on certain stimuli while ignoring others. - [[notes/Attritional pessimism.md|Attritional pessimism]]: The tendency to decreasingly hope for good things and increasingly hope to avoid bad things. - [[notes/Availability cascade.md|Availability cascade]]: A self‑reinforcing process in which an idea gains plausibility through repeated media coverage and public discourse. - [[notes/Baader-Meinhof phenomenon.md|Baader-Meinhof phenomenon]]: A cognitive bias where, after seeing something new, you start seeing it everywhere. - [[notes/Baker's dozen.md|Baker's dozen]]: A group of thirteen items, traditionally offered by bakers to avoid penalties for selling short weight. - [[notes/Balkanization.md|Balkanization]]: The fragmentation of a region or organisation into smaller, often hostile units due to ethnic or ideological differences. - [[notes/Banach-Tarski paradox.md|Banach-Tarski paradox]]: A geometry theorem stating that a sphere can be split into pieces and reassembled into two identical spheres of the original size. - [[notes/Barnsley’s fern.md|Barnsley’s fern]]: \- - [[notes/Be, Know, Do.md|Be, Know, Do]]: A leadership framework outlining that leaders must embody values (be), have knowledge (know), and take action (do). - [[notes/Beliefs.md|Beliefs]]: Internal convictions or acceptance that certain ideas or statements are true or real. - [[notes/Bell's theorem.md|Bell's theorem]]: A result showing that no local hidden‑variable theory can reproduce all the predictions of quantum mechanics. - [[notes/Berserker hypothesis.md|Berserker hypothesis]]: A speculative explanation to the Fermi paradox that self‑replicating machines (berserkers) roam the galaxy, destroying life. - [[notes/Best practices and lessons learned.md|Best practices and lessons learned]]: Documented methods and experiences that have proven effective and are shared to improve future performance. - [[notes/Betteridge's law.md|Betteridge's law]]: The observation that most headlines that end in a question mark can be answered by the word no. - [[notes/Biochauvinism.md|Biochauvinism]]: A belief that biological life has intrinsic superiority over artificial or synthetic life forms. - [[notes/Biomedicine.md|Biomedicine]]: A branch of medical science that applies biological and physiological principles to clinical practice. - [[notes/Birds and frogs.md|Birds and frogs]]: A metaphor for two types of thinkers: "birds" who see the big picture top-down and "frogs" who focus on ground‑level details. - [[notes/Birkenhead drill.md|Birkenhead drill]]: A maritime protocol where soldiers stand aside to allow women and children to evacuate first during a disaster. - [[notes/Birthday paradox.md|Birthday paradox]]: In a group of just 23 people, there is a ~50% chance that at least two share the same birthday. - [[notes/Black swan.md|Black swan]]: An unpredictable, rare event with severe consequences that often appears obvious in hindsight. - [[notes/Blame.md|Blame]]: The act of assigning responsibility for a fault or wrong, often involving judgement or criticism. - [[notes/Bloom's taxonomy.md|Bloom's taxonomy]]: A hierarchical classification of educational learning objectives ranging from remembering to creating. - [[notes/Boltzmann brain.md|Boltzmann brain]]: The thought experiment that random fluctuations in the universe could spontaneously create self‑aware entities. - [[notes/Bonferroni correction.md|Bonferroni correction]]: A statistical adjustment to control the probability of making false discoveries when conducting multiple comparisons. - [[notes/Boredom escapism.md|Boredom escapism]]: The tendency to seek constant stimulation or distraction to avoid feelings of boredom. - [[notes/Boyer's model of scholarship.md|Boyer's model of scholarship]]: An expanded view of scholarship encompassing discovery, integration, application, and teaching. - [[notes/Braess's paradox.md|Braess's paradox]]: A counterintuitive phenomenon where adding extra capacity to a network can reduce overall performance or increase congestion. - [[notes/Brainwave entrainment.md|Brainwave entrainment]]: The use of rhythmic stimuli to synchronize brainwave frequencies, purportedly influencing mental states. - [[notes/Brandolini's law.md|Brandolini's law]]: The observation that the effort required to refute nonsense is much greater than that needed to produce it. - [[notes/Brooks' law.md|Brooks' law]]: The software engineering principle that adding manpower to a late project makes it later. - [[notes/Buddhist temporal cosmology.md|Buddhist temporal cosmology]]: The Buddhist concept of cyclic time and vast cosmic epochs in which universes arise and dissolve. - [[notes/Butterfly effect.md|Butterfly effect]]: The sensitive dependence on initial conditions in chaotic systems, where small changes can lead to vastly different outcomes. - [[notes/Cabinet of curiosities.md|Cabinet of curiosities]]: Historical collections of notable objects, often eclectic, that were precursors to modern museums. - [[notes/Call me trim tab.md|Call me trim tab]]: A metaphor to illustrate how small, strategic actions can effect significant change, like a tiny trim tab on a ship’s rudder. - [[notes/Camel principle.md|Camel principle]]: The heuristic that adding complexity to a problem can in fact make it easier to solve. - [[notes/Campbell's law.md|Campbell's law]]: The principle that when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure because people game the system. - [[notes/Carbon fascism.md|Carbon fascism]]: Only human subjective experience has any intrinsic value. - [[notes/Carrington Event.md|Carrington Event]]: The massive solar storm of 1859 that caused widespread telegraph disruptions and a benchmark for geomagnetic hazards. - [[notes/Categories (Aristotle).md|Categories (Aristotle)]]: Aristotle’s classification of ten fundamental ways to describe being, such as substance, quantity, and relation. - [[notes/Category mistake.md|Category mistake]]: A logical error where properties or concepts are incorrectly attributed to things of a different logical type. - [[notes/Category theory.md|Category theory]]: A branch of mathematics that studies abstract structures and relationships between them through objects and morphisms. - [[notes/Causality.md|Causality]]: The relationship between causes and effects, where one event brings about another. - [[notes/Caveat emptor.md|Caveat emptor]]: The buyer is responsible for performing due diligence. - [[notes/CCTO.md|CCTO]]: A chess routine to consider checks, captures, threats, and optimization at every move. - [[notes/Chatham House Rule.md|Chatham House Rule]]: A convention that participants may use information from a meeting but must not reveal who said it, encouraging open discussion. - [[notes/Chesterton's fence.md|Chesterton's fence]]: The idea that reforms should not remove existing structures without understanding why they were established in the first place. - [[notes/Chindōgu.md|Chindōgu]]: The satirical art of inventing impractical useful devices. - [[notes/Chronocentrism.md|Chronocentrism]]: The belief that one’s own time period is more important or advanced than past or future eras. - [[notes/Chronological snobbery.md|Chronological snobbery]]: The irrational belief that newer ideas are inherently superior to older ones. - [[notes/Circle of competence.md|Circle of competence]]: A mental model urging people to operate within the areas they understand deeply and recognize their limitations. - [[notes/Clarke's three laws.md|Clarke's three laws]]: Adages about the limits of technology, including that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. - [[notes/Classical dystopia.md|Classical dystopia]]: A literary portrayal of a future society characterized by oppression, surveillance and loss of freedoms. - [[notes/Classical utopia.md|Classical utopia]]: An idealized society depicted as perfectly just and harmonious, often contrasted with dystopia. - [[notes/Cliodynamics.md|Cliodynamics]]: \- - [[notes/Code is law.md|Code is law]]: Computer code can be at least as effective as laws and can even replace them in certain contexts. - [[notes/Cognitive bias.md|Cognitive bias]]: Systematic patterns of deviation from rational judgement that affect decisions and perceptions. - [[notes/Cognitive dissonance.md|Cognitive dissonance]]: The psychological discomfort experienced when holding two conflicting beliefs or behaviors, often resolved by adjusting beliefs. - [[notes/Collaborative problem-solving.md|Collaborative problem-solving]]: The process by which groups work together to identify problems, generate solutions, and implement actions collectively. - [[notes/Collector’s fallacy.md|Collector’s fallacy]]: The tendency to accumulate information without synthesizing or using it. - [[notes/Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.md|Colorless green ideas sleep furiously]]: A grammatically correct yet semantically nonsensical sentence, illustrating the distinction between syntax and meaning. - [[notes/Common sense.md|Common sense]]: Practical judgement concerning everyday matters, based on sound reasoning rather than specialized knowledge. - [[notes/Comparative advantage.md|Comparative advantage]]: The principle that nations or individuals gain by specializing in producing goods where they have the lowest opportunity cost. - [[notes/Compatibilism.md|Compatibilism]]: The philosophical view that free will is compatible with determinism, allowing moral responsibility in a deterministic universe. - [[notes/Competing values framework.md|Competing values framework]]: A model for assessing organizational culture based on dimensions like flexibility, stability, internal focus and external positioning. - [[notes/Complete and perfect information.md|Complete and perfect information]]: Complete and perfect information are concepts in game theory and economics that describe what information is available to participants. - [[notes/Complexity.md|Complexity]]: The degree to which a system's behavior is difficult to predict due to interdependent components and nonlinear interactions. - [[notes/Composition.md|Composition]]: Relationships that can be deduced can also be omitted. - [[notes/Computational irreducibility.md|Computational irreducibility]]: The behavior of some systems cannot be shortcut by simpler calculations, but must be simulated step by step. - [[notes/Condorcet's paradox.md|Condorcet's paradox]]: A voting paradox where collective preferences can become cyclical and non‑transitive even if individual preferences are consistent. - [[notes/Consensus paradox.md|Consensus paradox]]: The situation where requiring unanimity can lead to no decision being made, or the minority blocking the majority. - [[notes/Consequentialism.md|Consequentialism]]: An ethical theory that judges actions solely by their outcomes or consequences. - [[notes/Consilience.md|Consilience]]: The unification of knowledge across disciplines through common principles and explanations. - [[notes/Conspicuous consumption.md|Conspicuous consumption]]: The act of acquiring and displaying luxury goods to signal status and wealth to others. - [[notes/Constructor theory.md|Constructor theory]]: The theory that fundamental laws can be expressed in terms of what physical transformations are possible and impossible. - [[notes/Context switching.md|Context switching]]: \- - [[notes/Conversion (linguistics).md|Conversion (linguistics)]]: The process of creating a new word by changing its grammatical category without altering its form, such as noun to verb. - [[notes/Convexity.md|Convexity]]: Situations where the potential upside of an action or investment vastly outweighs the downside. - [[notes/Convivial austerity.md|Convivial austerity]]: The voluntary self-limitation in consumption and technological scale. - [[notes/Conviviality.md|Conviviality]]: The use of tools to enhance autonomy, creativity, and mutual dependence in society. - [[notes/Conway's law.md|Conway's law]]: The observation that the design of a system mirrors the communication structures of the organisation that builds it. - [[notes/Coolidge effect.md|Coolidge effect]]: \- - [[notes/Copernican principle.md|Copernican principle]]: The idea that Earth and its observers are not in a privileged position in the universe; observers are typical rather than special. - [[notes/Credence probability.md|Credence probability]]: An individual’s subjective degree of belief in the truth of a proposition, often expressed as a probability. - [[notes/Critical brain hypothesis.md|Critical brain hypothesis]]: A theory that neural networks operate near a critical point between order and chaos, optimizing information processing. - [[notes/Critical dystopia.md|Critical dystopia]]: A dystopian narrative that includes utopian elements or critiques of the dystopia, inviting readers to imagine alternative futures. - [[notes/Critical utopia.md|Critical utopia]]: A utopian work that acknowledges flaws and tensions in its imagined society while still offering hope for improvement. - [[notes/Crocker's rule.md|Crocker's rule]]: The principle that no offense should be taken if someone intentionally asks direct questions to obtain information in good faith. - [[notes/Culture industry.md|Culture industry]]: Popular culture is akin to a factory producing standardized cultural goods, manipulating mass society into passivity. - [[notes/Curse of knowledge.md|Curse of knowledge]]: A cognitive bias where experts struggle to imagine what it is like not to know something, hindering effective communication. - [[notes/Cute aggression.md|Cute aggression]]: The paradoxical urge to squeeze or bite something extremely cute, as a mechanism to regulate overwhelming positive emotions. - [[notes/Cyberpunk.md|Cyberpunk]]: A literary genre featuring high tech and low societal conditions, with themes of cybernetics, dystopia, and megacorporations. - [[notes/Daly rules.md|Daly rules]]: Ecological guidelines for sustainable development, including using renewable resources at or below their regeneration rate. - [[notes/Dark forest hypothesis.md|Dark forest hypothesis]]: An explanation of the Fermi paradox that intelligent civilizations stay silent to avoid detection and destruction by others. - [[notes/Darkness.md|Darkness]]: \- - [[notes/Data dredging.md|Data dredging]]: The misuse of data analysis to find spurious patterns by performing numerous statistical tests without prior hypotheses. - [[notes/De Docta Ignorantia.md|De Docta Ignorantia]]: A philosophical treatise that explores the limits of human knowledge. - [[notes/Dead internet theory.md|Dead internet theory]]: A conspiracy theory claiming much of the internet’s content is generated by bots rather than humans. - [[notes/Declinism.md|Declinism]]: The belief that society or civilisation is in decline, often romanticising the past and fearing the future. - [[notes/Demand (economics).md|Demand (economics)]]: The quantity of a good or service that consumers are willing and able to purchase at various prices. - [[notes/Desire path.md|Desire path]]: A trail created by repeated human or animal use, representing the preferred route rather than the officially designed path. - [[notes/Destiny.md|Destiny]]: A predetermined course of events often perceived as inevitable or beyond human control. - [[notes/Determinism.md|Determinism]]: The philosophical position that all events are determined by preceding causes and natural laws, leaving no room for randomness. - [[notes/Dialectics.md|Dialectics]]: A process of back-and-forth reasoning that contrasts with rhetoric. - [[notes/Dianoia.md|Dianoia]]: Greek for discursive thinking. - [[notes/Dieu reconnaîtra les siens.md|Dieu reconnaîtra les siens]]: An example of religious absolutism used to justify indiscriminate violence. - [[notes/Diffusion of innovations.md|Diffusion of innovations]]: A theory describing how new ideas, technologies or products spread through societies over time. - [[notes/Digital garden.md|Digital garden]]: An informal, continually evolving collection of notes and ideas published online that encourages exploration and connection. - [[notes/DIKW pyramid.md|DIKW pyramid]]: A hierarchy illustrating the relationships between Data, Information, Knowledge and Wisdom. - [[notes/Dioxygen difluoride.md|Dioxygen difluoride]]: A highly unstable, extremely reactive chemical compound (O2F2) known for its violent oxidation properties. - [[notes/Distributive bargaining.md|Distributive bargaining]]: A negotiation strategy in which parties compete to divide a fixed resource, typically resulting in a win‑lose outcome. - [[notes/Do ut des.md|Do ut des]]: Latin for "I give so that you may give", referring to reciprocal exchange or mutual benefit. - [[notes/Documentality.md|Documentality]]: A philosophical theory that social reality is created and maintained through documents, records and inscriptions. - [[notes/Dogfooding.md|Dogfooding]]: The practice of using one’s own products to test and demonstrate confidence in them. - [[notes/Dollar auction.md|Dollar auction]]: An auction game showing escalation of commitment, where bidders spend more than an item's value to avoid losing prior bids. - [[notes/Domino effect.md|Domino effect]]: A cumulative chain reaction where one event sets off a sequence of similar events, often used to describe cascading failures. - [[notes/Doomscrolling.md|Doomscrolling]]: The compulsive habit of consuming large quantities of negative news online, often leading to increased anxiety or depression. - [[notes/Dopamine.md|Dopamine]]: \- - [[notes/Double pendulum.md|Double pendulum]]: A dynamical system of two linked pendulums that exhibits chaotic motion due to sensitivity to initial conditions. - [[notes/Doublespeak.md|Doublespeak]]: Language that deliberately obscures, disguises or distorts meaning to mislead or manipulate. - [[notes/Doughnut economics.md|Doughnut economics]]: A framework for sustainable development that balances human wellbeing with ecological limits within a "safe and just" space. - [[notes/Downs–Thomson paradox.md|Downs–Thomson paradox]]: The idea that improving road capacity can worsen overall travel times if public transport remains slow, encouraging more driving. - [[notes/Dramaturgy (sociology).md|Dramaturgy (sociology)]]: A metaphor comparing social interaction to theatrical performance, where individuals manage impressions on others. - [[notes/Drapetomania.md|Drapetomania]]: An obsolete pseudoscientific diagnosis once used to pathologize the desire of enslaved Africans to escape captivity. - [[notes/Dual process model of coping.md|Dual process model of coping]]: A psychological model describing how people switch between focusing on loss and engaging with restoration during grief. - [[notes/Dunbar's number.md|Dunbar's number]]: A theoretical limit on the number of stable social relationships humans can maintain, often around 150. - [[notes/Dunning-Kruger effect.md|Dunning-Kruger effect]]: A cognitive bias where people with low ability overestimate their competence while experts underestimate theirs. - [[notes/Dutch disease.md|Dutch disease]]: A condition where a boom in one sector, such as natural resources, harms other sectors by causing currency appreciation. - [[notes/Dysaesthesia aethiopica.md|Dysaesthesia aethiopica]]: A racist and discredited pseudomedical term from the 19th century used to stereotype enslaved Africans as lazy. - [[notes/Dysgenics.md|Dysgenics]]: The hypothesis that genetic quality of a population declines over time due to selective pressures or trends. - [[notes/Easterlin paradox.md|Easterlin paradox]]: The observation that beyond a certain income level, increases in average income do not necessarily increase average happiness. - [[notes/Egg of Columbus.md|Egg of Columbus]]: A parable showing how a problem seems simple or obvious after someone has shown how to solve it. - [[notes/Egregore.md|Egregore]]: A collective group mind or thought‑form created by the shared beliefs and emotions of a community. - [[notes/Einstellung effect.md|Einstellung effect]]: The tendency to solve problems using familiar methods even when better solutions exist. - [[notes/Elite overproduction.md|Elite overproduction]]: A theory positing that political instability arises when too many aspirants compete for a limited number of elite positions. - [[notes/Emergence.md|Emergence]]: The arising of novel properties or behaviors in complex systems that are not present in the individual components. - [[notes/Emotive conjugation.md|Emotive conjugation]]: The phenomenon where different words or phrases with similar denotations evoke different emotional reactions due to connotation. - [[notes/Enkrateia.md|Enkrateia]]: The virtue of self‑control or mastery over one’s passions and impulses, central in ancient Greek ethics. - [[notes/Enshittification.md|Enshittification]]: A slang term describing how digital platforms degrade over time by prioritising monetisation and ads at the expense of users. - [[notes/Equanimity.md|Equanimity]]: Mental calmness and composure, especially in difficult situations. - [[notes/Ergodic literature.md|Ergodic literature]]: Narrative works that require non‑trivial effort from the reader to navigate the text, such as nonlinear or interactive fiction. - [[notes/Ergodic theory.md|Ergodic theory]]: A branch of mathematics that studies the statistical behaviour of dynamical systems over long periods of time. - [[notes/Ergodicity.md|Ergodicity]]: A property of a system where time averages and ensemble averages coincide; often contrasted with path‑dependent processes. - [[notes/Erin Meyer model.md|Erin Meyer model]]: A framework for understanding cultural differences along dimensions such as communication, feedback and decision‑making. - [[notes/Eschatology.md|Eschatology]]: The part of theology and philosophy concerned with the end of the world or ultimate destiny of humanity. - [[notes/Escher sentence.md|Escher sentence]]: A sentence that is grammatically well‑formed but semantically impossible or paradoxical. - [[notes/Ethereum properties.md|Ethereum properties]]: Characteristics of the Ethereum blockchain such as smart contracts, decentralized applications and a proof‑of‑stake consensus. - [[notes/Ethnic bioweapon.md|Ethnic bioweapon]]: A hypothetical biological weapon engineered to target specific genetic or ethnic groups. - [[notes/Eudaimonia.md|Eudaimonia]]: A Greek concept of human flourishing or living well through virtue and the fulfilment of one’s potential. - [[notes/Eulerian path.md|Eulerian path]]: A trail in a graph that visits every edge exactly once. - [[notes/Eustress.md|Eustress]]: Positive stress that motivates or enhances performance rather than causing harm or anxiety. - [[notes/Eutrapelia.md|Eutrapelia]]: An Aristotelian virtue of just the right amount of wittiness in conversation. - [[notes/Evaporative cooling of group beliefs.md|Evaporative cooling of group beliefs]]: A process where moderate members leave an extremist group, increasing its extremism by "cooling off" moderate voices. - [[notes/Evolution.md|Evolution]]: \- - [[notes/Exaptation.md|Exaptation]]: The evolutionary process by which a trait evolves for one function and is later co‑opted for another. - [[notes/Exobrain.md|Exobrain]]: The idea of extending cognitive processes outside the biological brain through tools, notes or technology. - [[notes/Expansion of the moral circle.md|Expansion of the moral circle]]: The process by which ethical concern is extended beyond immediate kin to larger groups, species or generations. - [[notes/Exponential growth bias.md|Exponential growth bias]]: The tendency to underestimate exponential growth and focus on linear trends when forecasting. - [[notes/Extended mind thesis.md|Extended mind thesis]]: The philosophical view that the mind can include external tools, environments or other people as part of cognition. - [[notes/Externality neglect.md|Externality neglect]]: The failure to account for indirect effects of an action on third parties, leading to suboptimal decisions. - [[notes/Extropianism.md|Extropianism]]: A philosophy advocating for the proactive use of technology to improve the human condition and overcome biological limitations. - [[notes/Falkland’s law.md|Falkland’s law]]: The maxim that if it is not necessary to make a decision, it is necessary not to decide, advocating restraint. - [[notes/False awakening.md|False awakening]]: A vivid dream in which the dreamer believes they have woken up, often followed by realising they are still dreaming. - [[notes/False summit.md|False summit]]: When a goal is further away than it seems. - [[notes/Falsidical paradox.md|Falsidical paradox]]: A paradox in which reasoning appears sound but actually contains a hidden fallacy. - [[notes/Farcaster.md|Farcaster]]: A term for long‑distance teleportation in science fiction, and a social network in the Web3 ecosystem. - [[notes/Faster-than-light.md|Faster-than-light]]: The hypothetical motion or communication that exceeds the speed of light, often involving speculative physics. - [[notes/Faustian bargain.md|Faustian bargain]]: An agreement in which a person sacrifices moral integrity or long‑term wellbeing for short‑term gain or power. - [[notes/Feigenbaum constant.md|Feigenbaum constant]]: A mathematical constant (~4.669) that characterizes the period‑doubling route to chaos in some dynamical systems. - [[notes/Fermi problem.md|Fermi problem]]: A rough estimation problem that seeks approximate answers using limited data and logical assumptions. - [[notes/Fernweh.md|Fernweh]]: German for an aching desire to travel to distant places. - [[notes/Feynman point.md|Feynman point]]: \- - [[notes/Feynman technique.md|Feynman technique]]: A learning method where you explain a concept in simple language as if teaching it, revealing gaps in understanding. - [[notes/Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.md|Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus]]: Latin for "Let justice be done, though the world perish", expressing absolute commitment to justice regardless of consequences. - [[notes/Fine-structure constant.md|Fine-structure constant]]: A dimensionless fundamental physical constant (~1/137) that characterises the strength of electromagnetic interactions. - [[notes/First-order logic.md|First-order logic]]: A formal system that allows quantification over individual variables, widely used in mathematics and computer science. - [[notes/Fitness landscape.md|Fitness landscape]]: A representation of how fit different genotypes or strategies are, often visualized as a landscape of peaks and valleys. - [[notes/Flexibility.md|Flexibility]]: The ability to adapt to new circumstances, change plans or adjust strategies without losing effectiveness. - [[notes/Flow.md|Flow]]: A mental state of complete absorption and enjoyment in an activity where challenges match one’s skills. - [[notes/Flynn effect.md|Flynn effect]]: The observed rise over time in standardized intelligence test scores across many populations. - [[notes/For want of a nail.md|For want of a nail]]: A proverb illustrating how small actions or omissions can have large, unforeseen consequences. - [[notes/Forgetting curve.md|Forgetting curve]]: A depiction of how memory retention declines over time without reinforcement. - [[notes/Forking paths problem.md|Forking paths problem]]: Narrative branching in literature. - [[notes/Four Horsemen.md|Four Horsemen]]: Four toxic communication patterns that strongly predict relationship breakdown and divorce - [[notes/Four-frame model.md|Four-frame model]]: An organizational theory that analyzes companies through structural, human resource, political and symbolic frames. - [[notes/Fourth place.md|Fourth place]]: An evolution of the sociological concept of a third place that combines the first, second, and third places in all three possible ways. - [[notes/Fourth world.md|Fourth world]]: When first-world countries decay past third-world conditions. - [[notes/Friedman doctrine.md|Friedman doctrine]]: The idea that a company’s sole social responsibility is to increase profits for its shareholders. - [[notes/Functional Information.md|Functional Information]]: In assembly theory, a measure of the complexity of a molecule based on how many steps are required to assemble it. - [[notes/Fundamental moral unit.md|Fundamental moral unit]]: The fundamental unit of moral worth in an ethical framework. - [[notes/Futarchy.md|Futarchy]]: A proposed form of governance where policies are chosen based on prediction markets forecasting their outcomes. - [[notes/Futurarchic compass.md|Futurarchic compass]]: A strategic tool for mapping possible futures along axes of desirability and probability to aid decision‑making. - [[notes/Gaia hypothesis.md|Gaia hypothesis]]: \- - [[notes/Gall’s Law.md|Gall’s Law]]: The systems design adage that a complex system that works evolved from a simple system that worked. - [[notes/Galton board analogy.md|Galton board analogy]]: A visual representation of the central limit theorem where balls bounce through pegs to form a bell‑shaped distribution. - [[notes/Gaze aversion.md|Gaze aversion]]: The act of deliberately looking away during conversation or thinking, which can serve communicative or cognitive functions. - [[notes/Gedanken.md|Gedanken]]: German for a thought experiment. - [[notes/Gedogen.md|Gedogen]]: A pragmatic legal stance on not enforcing certain laws. - [[notes/Gell-Mann effect.md|Gell-Mann effect]]: The observation that newspapers often misreport topics we know about, implying they likely misreport other topics too. - [[notes/Gettier problem.md|Gettier problem]]: In epistemology, cases showing that justified true belief may still fail to count as knowledge. - [[notes/Gibbard–Satterthwaite theorem.md|Gibbard–Satterthwaite theorem]]: A result in social choice theory showing that every non‑dictatorial voting system with three or more choices can be manipulated. - [[notes/Gish gallop.md|Gish gallop]]: A rhetorical technique that overwhelms opponents with a rapid series of arguments, making it hard to refute each point. - [[notes/Global village.md|Global village]]: Electronic media collapse space and time barriers and shrink the world. - [[notes/GLOBE project.md|GLOBE project]]: A large-scale study examining how culture influences leadership and organisational practices across countries. - [[notes/Goodhart’s law.md|Goodhart’s law]]: When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure because people optimize for it. - [[notes/Goomba fallacy.md|Goomba fallacy]]: When someone observes contradictory opinions within an online community and assumes they are held by the same people. - [[notes/Goon time.md|Goon time]]: Time spent on mindless activities. - [[notes/Gottman ratio.md|Gottman ratio]]: The finding that stable relationships tend to have at least five positive interactions for every negative one. - [[notes/Great Acceleration.md|Great Acceleration]]: The dramatic increase in human population, consumption, and technological change that impacts Earth’s systems. - [[notes/Great Filter.md|Great Filter]]: A theoretical barrier that prevents civilizations from advancing to interstellar colonization, used to explain the Fermi paradox. - [[notes/Great resignation.md|Great resignation]]: A trend where large numbers of employees voluntarily leave their jobs. - [[notes/Grimdark.md|Grimdark]]: A genre of speculative fiction characterized by bleak settings, moral ambiguity and pervasive violence. - [[notes/Grok.md|Grok]]: English for to deeply and intuitively understand something - [[notes/Gross leader strategy.md|Gross leader strategy]]: A combination of predatory business practices to gain market share. - [[notes/Group selection.md|Group selection]]: An evolutionary hypothesis that natural selection can act at the level of groups as well as individuals. - [[notes/Half-life of knowledge.md|Half-life of knowledge]]: The time it takes for half of the knowledge in a field to become obsolete due to new discoveries and changes. - [[notes/Hamiltonian path.md|Hamiltonian path]]: A path in a graph that visits each vertex exactly once. - [[notes/Handicap principle.md|Handicap principle]]: The idea in evolutionary biology that costly traits can signal genetic fitness because only the fittest can afford them. - [[notes/Hang on tightly, let go lightly.md|Hang on tightly, let go lightly]]: A principle of dedication and flexibility: commit fully when appropriate, but be willing to release attachment when necessary. - [[notes/Hara hachi bun me.md|Hara hachi bun me]]: A Japanese proverb advising people to eat until they are 80% full to promote health and longevity. - [[notes/Harberger tax.md|Harberger tax]]: A property tax there owners self-assess their asset's valuation and must be willing to sell at that price. - [[notes/Hatsuyume.md|Hatsuyume]]: The first dream one has in the new year. - [[notes/Hawthorne effect.md|Hawthorne effect]]: The phenomenon where people alter their behaviour because they know they are being observed. - [[notes/Heavenbanning.md|Heavenbanning]]: A moderation practice of shadowbanning a user and having sycophantic bots engage with that user. - [[notes/Hessdalen lights.md|Hessdalen lights]]: Unexplained nocturnal lights observed in Norway’s Hessdalen valley, sparking various scientific and paranormal theories. - [[notes/Heteronym.md|Heteronym]]: Words spelled identically but with different pronunciations and meanings, such as ‘lead’ (to guide) and ‘lead’ (metal). - [[notes/Hickam's dictum.md|Hickam's dictum]]: A principle in medicine stating that patients can have multiple simultaneous diseases. - [[notes/Hindsight bias.md|Hindsight bias]]: The tendency to see events as having been predictable after they have already occurred. - [[notes/Historian's fallacy.md|Historian's fallacy]]: The error of judging past decisions by using current knowledge rather than the information available at the time. - [[notes/HIV origins.md|HIV origins]]: Scientific investigation into how the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) crossed from primates into humans. - [[notes/Hock principle.md|Hock principle]]: An insight that simple rules lead to complex and intelligent behavior, whereas complicated rules yield simple, stupid behavior. - [[notes/Hofstadter’s butterfly.md|Hofstadter’s butterfly]]: A fractal pattern that emerges in the energy levels of electrons in a lattice under a magnetic field, illustrating quantum chaos. - [[notes/Hofstadter's law.md|Hofstadter's law]]: The observation that tasks always take longer than expected, even when accounting for Hofstadter’s law itself. - [[notes/Homograph.md|Homograph]]: Words that are spelled the same but have different meanings, regardless of pronunciation. - [[notes/Homonym.md|Homonym]]: Words that share the same spelling and pronunciation but have different meanings. - [[notes/Hopepunk.md|Hopepunk]]: A literary and artistic genre that emphasizes optimism, resilience and radical kindness in the face of adversity. - [[notes/Hormesis.md|Hormesis]]: A dose–response phenomenon where a low dose of a harmful agent can have beneficial effects. - [[notes/Horseshoe theory.md|Horseshoe theory]]: The idea that the political far left and far right resemble each other more than either resembles the political centre. - [[notes/Hourglass cosmology.md|Hourglass cosmology]]: \- - [[notes/Howler.md|Howler]]: A mathematical fallacy where a correct result is derived by incorrect lines of reasoning. - [[notes/Huang's law.md|Huang's law]]: \- - [[notes/Humanist manifesto.md|Humanist manifesto]]: A series of declarations promoting secular humanism, ethics and human rights. - [[notes/Hygiene hypothesis.md|Hygiene hypothesis]]: The idea that a lack of exposure to microbes in early childhood can increase susceptibility to some diseases. - [[notes/Hyperbolic discounting.md|Hyperbolic discounting]]: The tendency to prefer smaller, sooner rewards over larger, later ones, with discount rates declining over time. - [[notes/Hyperinflation and sovereign debt.md|Hyperinflation and sovereign debt]]: The economic phenomenon where a government’s excessive debt leads to runaway inflation and currency devaluation. - [[notes/Hyperobjects.md|Hyperobjects]]: Objects so massively distributed in time and space that they defy normal perception, like climate change. - [[notes/Hypertext.md|Hypertext]]: A system of linking digital documents through clickable references, forming the basis of the World Wide Web. - [[notes/Idea compass.md|Idea compass]]: A conceptual tool that helps navigate between ideas. - [[notes/Ideaverse.md|Ideaverse]]: A conceptual space of all possible ideas and memes, akin to an ecosystem of thoughts. - [[notes/Igon value problem.md|Igon value problem]]: Situations where experts draw sweeping conclusions from small or dubious data sets, misusing statistics. - [[notes/IKEA effect.md|IKEA effect]]: The cognitive bias where people value things they have partly created more than equivalent items made by others. - [[notes/Ikigai.md|Ikigai]]: Japanese for the intersection of what one loves, is good at, can be paid for, and what the world needs. - [[notes/Illusory superiority.md|Illusory superiority]]: A cognitive bias by which more than half of normally-distributed individuals in a sample rate themselves as above average. - [[notes/Immortality.md|Immortality]]: The indefinite extension of life, whether through biological, technological or spiritual means. - [[notes/Immunity to Change.md|Immunity to Change]]: A personal development framework that uncovers hidden competing commitments that block desired behavioural change. - [[notes/Influencers.md|Influencers]]: Individuals who leverage social media platforms to affect consumer behavior and public opinion through large followings. - [[notes/Inspection paradox.md|Inspection paradox]]: A probability paradox where sampling tends to overrepresent classes with larger sizes or longer durations. - [[notes/Integrative bargaining.md|Integrative bargaining]]: A negotiation approach aiming for mutual gains by addressing underlying interests rather than dividing fixed resources. - [[notes/Interpretations of quantum mechanics.md|Interpretations of quantum mechanics]]: Various theoretical frameworks that explain the mathematical formalism and predictions of quantum mechanics. - [[notes/Intransitivity.md|Intransitivity]]: The failure of a relation to be transitive, so that if A is related to B and B to C, A may not be related to C. - [[notes/Inuit souls.md|Inuit souls]]: \- - [[notes/Inversion.md|Inversion]]: A problem-solving technique where you consider the opposite or reverse scenario to gain insight or avoid pitfalls. - [[notes/Inverted totalitarianism.md|Inverted totalitarianism]]: A system where corporate power and political apathy undermine democratic principles without overt dictatorship. - [[notes/Invisible hand.md|Invisible hand]]: A metaphor for the self‑regulating behavior of markets where individuals’ pursuit of self‑interest can benefit society. - [[notes/Iron law of oligarchy.md|Iron law of oligarchy]]: Robert Michels’s thesis that organisations inevitably become dominated by a small elite, regardless of their democratic ideals. - [[notes/Ironics.md|Ironics]]: Expressions or concepts that combine irony and cynicism to critique prevailing norms or beliefs. - [[notes/Irresistible force paradox.md|Irresistible force paradox]]: A philosophical paradox asking what happens if an unstoppable force meets an immovable object. - [[notes/Jakob's law.md|Jakob's law]]: The user experience design principle that a website should follow common design conventions. - [[notes/Jesus nut.md|Jesus nut]]: The main rotor's retaining nut on some helicopters; its failure can lead to catastrophic rotor detachment. - [[notes/Jevons paradox.md|Jevons paradox]]: The phenomenon where increased efficiency in resource use leads to greater overall consumption of that resource. - [[notes/Johari window.md|Johari window]]: A model of interpersonal communication illustrating the different areas of self‑knowledge and public perception. - [[notes/Jus sanguinis.md|Jus sanguinis]]: Citizenship being determined by parentage. - [[notes/Jus soli.md|Jus soli]]: Citizenship being determined by place of birth. - [[notes/Just culture.md|Just culture]]: A culture that balances accountability and learning by distinguishing between honest mistakes and reckless behavior. - [[notes/Just-world fallacy.md|Just-world fallacy]]: The cognitive bias that assumes people get what they deserve and deserve what they get, leading to victim‑blaming. - [[notes/Justified true belief.md|Justified true belief]]: A classical definition of knowledge requiring a belief to be justified, true and held by the knower. - [[notes/Kaprekar's constant.md|Kaprekar's constant]]: The number 6174, which arises as the fixed point of an iterative process of rearranging and subtracting digits in base 10. - [[notes/Kármán line.md|Kármán line]]: An arbitrary altitude of 100 km above sea level used to define the boundary between Earth’s atmosphere and outer space. - [[notes/Kessler syndrome.md|Kessler syndrome]]: A scenario where collisions between space debris create a cascade of fragments that can render orbits unusable. - [[notes/Khinchin's constant.md|Khinchin's constant]]: A mathematical constant (≈2.685) that appears in the geometric mean of the partial quotients of continued fractions. - [[notes/Kidlin's law.md|Kidlin's law]]: The principle that if you write down a problem clearly, you are halfway to solving it. - [[notes/Kierkegaard’s leap of faith.md|Kierkegaard’s leap of faith]]: The act of believing in something without rational proof, embracing paradox and uncertainty. - [[notes/Kindchenschema.md|Kindchenschema]]: The set of juvenile features (large eyes, round head) that evoke caretaking behaviours in adults. - [[notes/Kindleberger Trap.md|Kindleberger Trap]]: A situation where no single country is willing or able to provide global public goods, leading to instability. - [[notes/KISS principle.md|KISS principle]]: The design principle urging simplicity: Keep It Simple, Stupid. - [[notes/Klein bottle.md|Klein bottle]]: A non‑orientable surface with no distinct inside or outside, existing in four-dimensional space. - [[notes/Knightian uncertainty.md|Knightian uncertainty]]: Uncertainty that cannot be quantified with probabilities because future events are fundamentally unknowable. - [[notes/Knowability continuum.md|Knowability continuum]]: A proposal for a comprehensive framework of whether knowledge is achievable. - [[notes/Knowledge is fractal.md|Knowledge is fractal]]: The more you learn, the more you realize there is to learn, as knowledge expands like a fractal. - [[notes/Kolmogorov complexity.md|Kolmogorov complexity]]: The length of the shortest possible program that produces a given string, measuring its algorithmic randomness. - [[notes/Kopfkino.md|Kopfkino]]: German for "head cinema", referring to vivid, often involuntary mental imagery or daydreams. - [[notes/Krasnikov tube.md|Krasnikov tube]]: A theoretical construct in general relativity allowing for faster‑than‑light travel by altering spacetime along a path. - [[notes/Kübler-Ross model.md|Kübler-Ross model]]: A framework describing five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. - [[notes/Lake Wobegon effect.md|Lake Wobegon effect]]: The human tendency to overestimate one’s abilities relative to others, where everyone thinks they are above average. - [[notes/Langlands program.md|Langlands program]]: A set of conjectures connecting number theory, representation theory, and geometry, seeking a unified theory of mathematics. - [[notes/Laplace's demon.md|Laplace's demon]]: The hypothetical intellect that, knowing the precise position and momentum of every atom, could predict the future entirely. - [[notes/Last Thursdayism.md|Last Thursdayism]]: \- - [[notes/Law of the instrument.md|Law of the instrument]]: The bias of overreliance on a familiar tool, expressed as ‘If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail’. - [[notes/Law of triviality.md|Law of triviality]]: People give disproportionate attention to trivial issues while neglecting complex ones. - [[notes/Learning.md|Learning]]: The acquisition of knowledge or skills through study, experience or teaching. - [[notes/Lehmann’s Laws.md|Lehmann’s Laws]]: The acquisition of knowledge or skills through study, experience or teaching. - [[notes/Lewis–Mogridge position.md|Lewis–Mogridge position]]: The observation that the amount of traffic on roads increases to fill the available capacity, negating congestion relief. - [[notes/Lex talionis.md|Lex talionis]]: The retributive justice principle of "an eye for an eye". - [[notes/Liar's paradox.md|Liar's paradox]]: A self-referential logical paradox that arises when a statement refers to its own falsity. - [[notes/Liebig's law of the minimum.md|Liebig's law of the minimum]]: The principle that growth is limited by the scarcest resource rather than the total resources available. - [[notes/Light cone.md|Light cone]]: In relativity, the region of spacetime reachable by light from a given event, defining causal structure. - [[notes/Likert scale.md|Likert scale]]: A psychometric instrument commonly used in research surveys that assigns ratings on a scale. - [[notes/Limitarianism.md|Limitarianism]]: The philosophical view that there should be upper limits on wealth to ensure fair distribution and social justice. - [[notes/Lindy effect.md|Lindy effect]]: The concept that the future life expectancy of a non‑perishable thing, like a book, increases with its current age. - [[notes/Linguistic relativity.md|Linguistic relativity]]: The hypothesis that the structure of a language influences its speakers’ cognition and worldview. - [[notes/Lipschitz condition.md|Lipschitz condition]]: The condition that functions change slowly, guaranteeing uniqueness and stability of solutions to differential equations. - [[notes/Loaded question.md|Loaded question]]: A question that contains a controversial or unjustified assumption, making it difficult to answer without appearing guilty. - [[notes/Logical connectives.md|Logical connectives]]: Operators such as AND, OR and NOT used in logic to build compound statements. - [[notes/Logical paradox.md|Logical paradox]]: A type of paradox where the flaw resides in the rules or assumptions. - [[notes/Lorenz system.md|Lorenz system]]: A set of three nonlinear differential equations that exhibit chaotic behavior and produce the famous "butterfly" attractor. - [[notes/Loss leader strategy.md|Loss leader strategy]]: A marketing tactic where a product is sold at a loss to attract customers who then purchase additional items at normal profit. - [[notes/Lossy implications.md|Lossy implications]]: Simplified statements that lose nuance or critical details when information is compressed or summarised. - [[notes/Lovecraftian horror.md|Lovecraftian horror]]: A subgenre of horror fiction focusing on cosmic dread, incomprehensible entities and the insignificance of humanity. - [[notes/Lunarpunk.md|Lunarpunk]]: A speculative aesthetic that imagines resilient, decentralised communities using technology to live sustainably and peacefully. - [[notes/Make or buy.md|Make or buy]]: A strategic decision to determine whether to produce goods internally or procure them from external suppliers. - [[notes/Malkus waterwheel.md|Malkus waterwheel]]: A mechanical device that demonstrates chaotic behaviour in fluid dynamics and time series. - [[notes/Marchetti's constant.md|Marchetti's constant]]: The empirical observation that humans spend roughly one hour per day travelling, regardless of transportation mode. - [[notes/Markov chain.md|Markov chain]]: A stochastic process where the probability of each state depends only on the previous state, exhibiting the Markov property. - [[notes/Material constitution.md|Material constitution]]: The metaphysical relationship between an object and the matter that composes it, exploring issues like change and persistence. - [[notes/McKelvey–Schofield chaos theorem.md|McKelvey–Schofield chaos theorem]]: A result in social choice theory suggesting that majority rule in multi‑dimensional policy spaces can yield chaotic outcomes. - [[notes/Mean sojourn time.md|Mean sojourn time]]: The expected time a stochastic process spends in a given state during an interval. - [[notes/Mean world syndrome.md|Mean world syndrome]]: The belief that the world is more dangerous than it actually is, often fueled by media consumption. - [[notes/Meaning of life.md|Meaning of life]]: Philosophical question concerning the purpose or significance of existence. - [[notes/Measurement problem.md|Measurement problem]]: In quantum mechanics, the measurement scale at which a quantum system transitions from superposition to a definite outcome. - [[notes/Meat paradox.md|Meat paradox]]: The paradox of caring for animals and yet eating them. - [[notes/MECE principle.md|MECE principle]]: A consulting framework ensuring that categories are Mutually Exclusive and Collectively Exhaustive to avoid overlaps and gaps. - [[notes/Memento mori.md|Memento mori]]: Latin for "remember that you will die". - [[notes/Memex.md|Memex]]: A conceptual device that could store and quickly retrieve information through associative links, a precursor to hypertext. - [[notes/Meta-complexity.md|Meta-complexity]]: The study of the complexity of algorithms or systems that themselves analyse or generate complex structures. - [[notes/Metcalfe's law.md|Metcalfe's law]]: The value of a telecommunications network is proportional to the square of the number of connected users or devices. - [[notes/Methodolatry.md|Methodolatry]]: The excessive reverence for a particular research method at the expense of other approaches or the research question itself. - [[notes/Mimetic theory of conflict.md|Mimetic theory of conflict]]: The extension of Girard’s mimetic theory that explains how rivalry escalates to violence and scapegoating. - [[notes/Mimetic theory of desire.md|Mimetic theory of desire]]: René Girard’s theory that human desires are imitated from others and can lead to rivalry and conflict. - [[notes/Minimum description length.md|Minimum description length]]: A principle in information theory that the best model is the one that compresses data to the shortest total description length. - [[notes/Minimum Effective Dose.md|Minimum Effective Dose]]: The smallest dose of a substance or activity that yields the desired outcome without unnecessary excess. - [[notes/Misophonia.md|Misophonia]]: A condition where specific sounds trigger intense emotional or physical reactions, such as anger or anxiety. - [[notes/Mitahara.md|Mitahara]]: A yogic principle advocating moderate, balanced eating for health and spiritual well‑being. - [[notes/Möbius strip.md|Möbius strip]]: A surface with only one side and one boundary, formed by joining the ends of a strip of paper after twisting one end 180 degrees. - [[notes/Moloch trap.md|Moloch trap]]: A situation where individuals or groups engage in destructive competition because cooperation is unstable or unenforceable. - [[notes/Monkeywrenching.md|Monkeywrenching]]: Sabotage or disruption aimed at preventing environmentally damaging activities, often associated with radical environmentalism. - [[notes/Mono no aware.md|Mono no aware]]: Japanese for the appreciation of the impermanence of all things. - [[notes/Monty Hall problem.md|Monty Hall problem]]: A game show's probability puzzle that resists intuition. - [[notes/Moore's law.md|Moore's law]]: The observation that the number of transistors on integrated circuits doubles approximately every two years. - [[notes/Moral hazard.md|Moral hazard]]: The tendency for one party to take risks because another party bears the costs of those risks. - [[notes/Moral luck.md|Moral luck]]: The philosophical notion that outcomes beyond a person’s control can affect judgments of their moral worth. - [[notes/Moravec paradox.md|Moravec paradox]]: The observation that high‑level reasoning requires little computation, while sensorimotor skills require a lot. - [[notes/Mu.md|Mu]]: A Japanese and Zen Buddhist term meaning ‘nothing’ or the answer ‘unasked question’, suggesting the invalidity of the question. - [[notes/Multiplication.md|Multiplication]]: The arithmetic operation of scaling one number by another, one of the four basic operations. - [[notes/Naïve realism.md|Naïve realism]]: The belief that we perceive the world as it truly is, without interpreting or constructing our perceptions. - [[notes/Narrative web.md|Narrative web]]: A concept emphasising how stories and narratives are interconnected and shape our understanding of the world. - [[notes/Navier–Stokes equations.md|Navier–Stokes equations]]: Fundamental partial differential equations that describe the motion of viscous fluid substances like liquids and gases. - [[notes/Navigation problem.md|Navigation problem]]: The concern that hypertexts enmesh readers in a confusing tangle of links. - [[notes/Nazi bar.md|Nazi bar]]: An adage that any unmoderated space eventually fills with extremists, likened to a bar that becomes dominated by Nazis. - [[notes/Neijuan.md|Neijuan]]: A Chinese term referring to involution—excessive competition and work without increased productivity or satisfaction. - [[notes/Network society.md|Network society]]: A social structure organized around digital flows of information. - [[notes/Neuromorphic computing.md|Neuromorphic computing]]: The design of computer architectures inspired by the structure and function of biological neural systems. - [[notes/Newton's laws of motion.md|Newton's laws of motion]]: Three fundamental laws formulated by Isaac Newton describing the relationship between forces and the motion of objects. - [[notes/Nexialism.md|Nexialism]]: A fictional philosophy advocating interdisciplinary integration to solve complex problems, coined in A.E. van Vogt’s science fiction. - [[notes/Nine Zulu Queens Ruled China.md|Nine Zulu Queens Ruled China]]: A mnemonic for the nesting of number sets. - [[notes/Nirvana fallacy.md|Nirvana fallacy]]: A logical fallacy of comparing a realistic solution with an idealized alternative and dismissing the fomer because it is imperfect. - [[notes/Nitrogen blanket effect.md|Nitrogen blanket effect]]: The slight narcotic effect of nitrogen in the air at sea level pressure. - [[notes/No hello.md|No hello]]: \- - [[notes/No true Scotsman.md|No true Scotsman]]: A fallacy in which one dismisses counterexamples by redefining a group to exclude them, preserving a generalisation. - [[notes/Noblebright.md|Noblebright]]: A speculative fiction subgenre featuring hopeful, morally good characters who strive for noble causes in a bright world. - [[notes/Nolan chart.md|Nolan chart]]: A political spectrum diagram mapping economic freedom against personal freedom to classify ideologies. - [[notes/Non sequitur.md|Non sequitur]]: A logical fallacy where a conclusion does not logically follow from the premises. - [[notes/Nonlinear system.md|Nonlinear system]]: A system in which outputs are not directly proportional to inputs and small changes can produce large effects. - [[notes/Noosphere.md|Noosphere]]: The sphere of human thought and consciousness, theorized to emerge from the interaction of minds and technology. - [[notes/Norton's dome.md|Norton's dome]]: A thought experiment in Newtonian mechanics demonstrating indeterminism. - [[notes/Not all those who wander are lost.md|Not all those who wander are lost]]: A popular line from J.R.R. Tolkien suggesting that exploration or unconventional paths do not imply aimlessness. - [[notes/Not even wrong.md|Not even wrong]]: A critique of ideas that cannot be falsified or tested scientifically, making them meaningless as scientific statements. - [[notes/Novum.md|Novum]]: In science fiction, the innovative element or premise that differentiates the story’s world from our own. - [[notes/Nudge theory.md|Nudge theory]]: The concept that small changes in choice architecture can influence behavior without restricting freedom. - [[notes/Objective-collapse theory.md|Objective-collapse theory]]: Interpretations of quantum mechanics where wave function collapse is a physical process rather than observation dependent. - [[notes/Occam's razor.md|Occam's razor]]: The heuristic principle that the simplest explanation consistent with the facts is usually preferable. - [[notes/Oceanic feeling.md|Oceanic feeling]]: A sense of boundless connection with the universe, often described in mysticism and psychoanalysis. - [[notes/Okinawa diet.md|Okinawa diet]]: A traditional Japanese eating pattern associated with longevity and consisting of vegetables, sweet potatoes, and moderate fish. - [[notes/Omega Point.md|Omega Point]]: A hypothesis that evolution is leading to a final point of maximum complexity and consciousness. - [[notes/Ontic randomness.md|Ontic randomness]]: \- - [[notes/Orchestrated objective reduction.md|Orchestrated objective reduction]]: The hypothesis linking consciousness to quantum processes in microtubules. - [[notes/Order statistics.md|Order statistics]]: Statistics derived from the ordered values of a sample, such as the minimum, maximum or median. - [[notes/Orphism.md|Orphism]]: An ancient Greek religious movement focusing on the soul’s purification and the afterlife. - [[notes/Orthogonality.md|Orthogonality]]: The concept of being statistically or logically independent; in geometry, lines or vectors at right angles to each other. - [[notes/Ostrom’s principles.md|Ostrom’s principles]]: Design principles for governing common‑pool resources sustainably without central regulation. - [[notes/Overton window.md|Overton window]]: The range of policies considered politically acceptable at a given time, which can shift due to public opinion and discourse. - [[notes/Overview effect.md|Overview effect]]: The cognitive shift reported by astronauts when viewing Earth from space. - [[notes/Pablum fare.md|Pablum fare]]: Material that is bland, simplistic or intellectually undemanding, akin to baby food. - [[notes/Padārtha.md|Padārtha]]: A Sanskrit term in Indian philosophy referring to categories of being or objects of thought. - [[notes/Panopticon.md|Panopticon]]: A ubiquitous and pervasive surveillance system that internalizes self-discipline. - [[notes/Panspermia.md|Panspermia]]: The hypothesis that life exists throughout the universe and can spread via meteoroids, comets or spacecraft. - [[notes/Parable of the turkey.md|Parable of the turkey]]: An illustrative failure in inductive reasoning: a turkey fed daily assumes it will always be fed until it is slaughtered. - [[notes/Paradox of intolerance.md|Paradox of intolerance]]: Karl Popper’s argument that unlimited tolerance leads to the rise of intolerant forces that can destroy tolerance itself. - [[notes/Paradox.md|Paradox]]: A statement that resists intution. - [[notes/Pareidolia.md|Pareidolia]]: The tendency to interpret vague stimuli as meaningful, such as seeing faces in clouds or patterns in noise. - [[notes/Parkinson’s Law.md|Parkinson’s Law]]: The adage that work expands to fill the time available for its completion. - [[notes/Pascal's wager.md|Pascal's wager]]: A life-defining gamble regarding the belief in the existence of God. - [[notes/Pathogen avoidance.md|Pathogen avoidance]]: Behaviours and mechanisms that reduce contact with disease‑causing agents, from disgust to public health measures. - [[notes/Pauca sed matura.md|Pauca sed matura]]: A Latin motto meaning ‘few but ripe’, encouraging focus on quality rather than quantity. - [[notes/Peacocking.md|Peacocking]]: Displaying ostentatious or flamboyant behaviour to attract attention or impress others. - [[notes/Peak experience.md|Peak experience]]: A moment of intense joy, creativity or fulfillment described in humanistic psychology by Abraham Maslow. - [[notes/Peaking power syndrome.md|Peaking power syndrome]]: The phenomenon where countries experience economic stagnation after reaching a certain level of development. - [[notes/Peer pressure.md|Peer pressure]]: \- - [[notes/Penny gap.md|Penny gap]]: The disproportionate drop in demand that occurs when a previously free product begins charging even a small fee. - [[notes/Penny-doubling riddle.md|Penny-doubling riddle]]: A thought experiment where a penny doubled daily for a month results in a surprisingly large sum. "[[idea compass]]" - [[notes/Person from Porlock.md|Person from Porlock]]: An allusion to an unwanted interruption that disrupts inspiration or productivity. - [[notes/Personal monopoly.md|Personal monopoly]]: A strategy where an individual builds a unique combination of skills and reputation that differentiates them in the market. - [[notes/Perverse incentive.md|Perverse incentive]]: An incentive that has unintended, undesirable results contrary to the original intention. - [[notes/Peter principle.md|Peter principle]]: The concept that people in a hierarchy tend to be promoted until they reach their level of incompetence. - [[notes/Peto's paradox.md|Peto's paradox]]: The observation that larger animals do not have higher cancer rates than smaller ones. - [[notes/PhD.md|PhD]]: A doctoral degree awarded for original research, advanced knowledge and scholarship in a specific discipline. - [[notes/Philosophy of science.md|Philosophy of science]]: The study of the foundations, methods, and implications of science. - [[notes/Philosophy of subtraction.md|Philosophy of subtraction]]: The ethos of stripping away the superfluous to reveal the underlying essence. - [[notes/Pigeonhole principle.md|Pigeonhole principle]]: If the count of objects exceeds the count of boxes, then at least one box contains at least two objects. - [[notes/Planck's principle.md|Planck's principle]]: The notion that scientific ideas change not because of persuasion but because their proponents die. - [[notes/Planetary boundaries.md|Planetary boundaries]]: Nine Earth system thresholds identified to maintain a safe operating space for humanity. - [[notes/Plastic platypus learning.md|Plastic platypus learning]]: A playful term for using simple, toy examples to test ideas and debug complex systems or algorithms. - [[notes/Poe's law.md|Poe's law]]: The adage that without obvious cues, satire and sincere extremism are indistinguishable on the internet. - [[notes/Poiesis.md|Poiesis]]: Greek for the generative process of creating emergent ideas, insights, poetry, etc. - [[notes/Poincaré map.md|Poincaré map]]: A method for reducing the dimensionality of a dynamical system. - [[notes/Poincaré recurrence theorem.md|Poincaré recurrence theorem]]: A theorem stating that certain systems will, after a sufficiently long time, return arbitrarily close to their initial state. - [[notes/Polanyi’s paradox.md|Polanyi’s paradox]]: The observation that we know more than we can tell; tacit knowledge is difficult to codify and automate. - [[notes/Polymath.md|Polymath]]: A person whose knowledge spans a significant number of subjects. - [[notes/Polyseme.md|Polyseme]]: A word with multiple related meanings, such as ‘head’ meaning body part, person or leader. - [[notes/Pournelle's iron law of bureaucracy.md|Pournelle's iron law of bureaucracy]]: The proposition that bureaucrats dedicated to the organization become more powerful than those dedicated to its mission. - [[notes/Preference falsification.md|Preference falsification]]: The act of misrepresenting one’s true preferences in public due to social pressure or fear of repercussions. - [[notes/Preparedness paradox.md|Preparedness paradox]]: The situation where effective precautionary measures lead to scepticism or complacency because disaster is averted. - [[notes/Presentism.md|Presentism]]: The anachronistic application of present-day perspectives and values to interpret past events. - [[notes/Principal-agent problem.md|Principal-agent problem]]: A situation where an agent has incentives to act in their own interest rather than that of the principal who employs them. - [[notes/Principle of charity.md|Principle of charity]]: A principle that suggests we should interpret others’ statements in their strongest, most rational form before critiquing them. - [[notes/Principle of computational equivalence.md|Principle of computational equivalence]]: The hypothesis that systems with simple rules can have computational abilities equivalent to more complex systems. - [[notes/Principle of least astonishment.md|Principle of least astonishment]]: The idea that a system should behave in a way that least surprises users, adhering to common conventions. - [[notes/Probabilistic forecasting.md|Probabilistic forecasting]]: Predicting future events by assigning probabilities to different outcomes based on data and models. - [[notes/Problem of emergence.md|Problem of emergence]]: Philosophical question about how higher-level properties arise from lower-level processes and whether they are reducible. - [[notes/Problem of time.md|Problem of time]]: In physics, the difficulty of reconciling the treatment of time in quantum mechanics with that in general relativity. - [[notes/Project Xanadu.md|Project Xanadu]]: A unfinished hypertext project aiming to create a universal library with bidirectional links and version control. - [[notes/Proof that 1 = 2.md|Proof that 1 = 2]]: A classic mathematical example of a falsidical paradox. - [[notes/Propositional logic.md|Propositional logic]]: A branch of logic dealing with propositions and their connectives, without internal structure. - [[notes/Prospect-refuge theory.md|Prospect-refuge theory]]: A psychology theory that people prefer spaces that offer both expansive views (prospect) and places to hide (refuge). - [[notes/Punctuated equilibrium.md|Punctuated equilibrium]]: \- - [[notes/Pygmalion effect.md|Pygmalion effect]]: The self-fulfilling phenomenon where higher expectations lead to improved performance. - [[notes/Pyrrhonism.md|Pyrrhonism]]: An ancient sceptical philosophy that advocates suspending judgement to achieve mental tranquility. - [[notes/Pythagoreanism.md|Pythagoreanism]]: The philosophical and religious teachings of Pythagoras, emphasising mathematics, harmony and the transmigration of souls. - [[notes/Quantum entanglement.md|Quantum entanglement]]: A phenomenon where particles become correlated such that the state of one cannot be described independently of the other. - [[notes/Quantum eraser experiment.md|Quantum eraser experiment]]: Experiments in quantum mechanics showing that interference patterns can be restored, challenging notions of causality. - [[notes/Quantum mechanics, cellular automaton interpretation.md|Quantum mechanics, cellular automaton interpretation]]: Gerard ’t Hooft’s proposal that quantum mechanics emerges from deterministic cellular automata at a deeper level. - [[notes/Quantum theory of the mind.md|Quantum theory of the mind]]: The hypothesis that quantum processes play a role in consciousness and cognitive functions. - [[notes/Quiet and loud aliens.md|Quiet and loud aliens]]: Hypothetical categories of extraterrestrials: quiet civilizations avoid broadcasting signals, while loud ones actively communicate. - [[notes/Radical horizontalism.md|Radical horizontalism]]: A rejection of hierarchy in decision making in favor of an inclusive democratic consensus. - [[notes/Ramanujan summation.md|Ramanujan summation]]: A method of assigning finite values to divergent series using analytic continuation and regularization techniques. - [[notes/Readiness potential.md|Readiness potential]]: \- - [[notes/Reassortment.md|Reassortment]]: The genetic process where two viruses exchange segments of their genomes, potentially creating new strains. - [[notes/Reductio ad absurdum.md|Reductio ad absurdum]]: A indirect argument to show that a claim leads to an illogical conclusion. - [[notes/Redundancy.md|Redundancy]]: The inclusion of extra components or functions in a system so that it continues operating if parts fail. - [[notes/Reed's law.md|Reed's law]]: The proposition that the utility of large networks, particularly social networks, scales exponentially with the size of the network. - [[notes/Reification.md|Reification]]: Treating an abstract concept as if it were a concrete thing or entity. - [[notes/Resource curse.md|Resource curse]]: The paradox where countries rich in natural resources experience slower economic growth than resource‑poor countries. - [[notes/Retributive justice.md|Retributive justice]]: A theory of justice that focuses on punishment proportional to the crime committed, emphasising moral accountability. - [[notes/Reversion to the mean.md|Reversion to the mean]]: The statistical phenomenon where extreme observations are likely to be followed by more average ones. - [[notes/Ricardian contract.md|Ricardian contract]]: A digital document that is both human‑readable and machine‑readable, acting as a binding agreement and a program. - [[notes/Riemann hypothesis.md|Riemann hypothesis]]: The nontrivial zeros of the Riemann zeta function all lie on the critical line with real part 1/2. - [[notes/Robustness principle.md|Robustness principle]]: The directive in network design to be conservative in what you send and liberal in what you accept, ensuring interoperability. - [[notes/Roko's basilisk.md|Roko's basilisk]]: A thought experiment about a vengeful AI that punishes its human detractors. - [[notes/Rosy retrospection.md|Rosy retrospection]]: The tendency to remember past events more fondly than they were experienced at the time. - [[notes/Royal we.md|Royal we]]: The use of a plural pronoun by a single person, typically a monarch, to refer to themselves. - [[notes/Rubberducking.md|Rubberducking]]: The practice of explaining a problem aloud to an inanimate object in order to clarify one’s thinking and find a solution. - [[notes/Russell conjugation.md|Russell conjugation]]: The observation that words with similar denotations can evoke different emotions depending on how they are used. - [[notes/Sacrifice.md|Sacrifice]]: Giving up something valued for the sake of something else regarded as more important or worthy. - [[notes/Santai.md|Santai]]: \- - [[notes/Satisficing.md|Satisficing]]: Choosing an option that is good enough rather than the optimal one, balancing effort and outcome. - [[notes/Saudade.md|Saudade]]: A Portuguese term expressing a deep, nostalgic longing for something or someone absent. - [[notes/SCAMPER.md|SCAMPER]]: A creativity technique encouraging idea generation. - [[notes/Scholarship of integration.md|Scholarship of integration]]: A form of scholarship involving synthesizing information across disciplines to create new understanding. - [[notes/Schrödinger equation.md|Schrödinger equation]]: The fundamental equation of nonrelativistic quantum mechanics describing how quantum states evolve over time. - [[notes/Schrödinger's cat.md|Schrödinger's cat]]: A thought experiment illustrating quantum superposition in which a cat is simultaneously alive and dead until observed. - [[notes/Scunthorpe problem.md|Scunthorpe problem]]: The unintended filtering of text by automated profanity filters that block innocent words containing offensive substrings. - [[notes/Segal’s law.md|Segal’s law]]: The adage that a man with a watch knows what time it is; a man with two watches is never sure. - [[notes/Sehnsucht.md|Sehnsucht]]: German for the bittersweet longing for something unattainable. - [[notes/Self-constancy.md|Self-constancy]]: The persistence of personal identity or character over time despite external changes. - [[notes/Self-licking ice cream cone.md|Self-licking ice cream cone]]: An organisation or process that exists primarily to perpetuate itself rather than fulfil its stated mission. - [[notes/Self-organized criticality.md|Self-organized criticality]]: A property of dynamical systems that naturally evolve to a critical state where minor events can trigger large responses. - [[notes/Self.md|Self]]: The concept of an individual’s identity, encompassing consciousness, personality and agency. - [[notes/Semantic paradox.md|Semantic paradox]]: A type of paradox where the flaw resides in the ambiguity of the language used to describe it. - [[notes/Serendipity.md|Serendipity]]: The occurrence of beneficial discoveries by chance or accident while seeking something else. - [[notes/Serial position-negativity effect.md|Serial position-negativity effect]]: The tendency to better recall items at the beginning and end of a list than those in the middle. - [[notes/Seriatim.md|Seriatim]]: \- - [[notes/SETI.md|SETI]]: The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, scientific efforts to detect signals or evidence of alien civilizations. - [[notes/Shatter belt.md|Shatter belt]]: A region caught between stronger external powers where persistent conflict and fragmentation occur. - [[notes/Shattered assumptions theory.md|Shattered assumptions theory]]: \- - [[notes/Shedagogy.md|Shedagogy]]: A playful term for self‑directed learning using resources and guidance outside formal education. - [[notes/Ship of Theseus.md|Ship of Theseus]]: A philosophical paradox questioning whether an object remains the same when all its components are replaced over time. - [[notes/Shirky Principle.md|Shirky Principle]]: The idea that institutions will try to preserve the problem they are meant to solve because their existence depends on it. - [[notes/Shoshin.md|Shoshin]]: A Zen Buddhist concept meaning ‘beginner’s mind’, encouraging openness, eagerness and freedom from preconceptions. - [[notes/Sierpiński triangle.md|Sierpiński triangle]]: A fractal composed of an equilateral triangle subdivided recursively into smaller triangles, exhibiting self‑similarity. - [[notes/Simpson’s paradox.md|Simpson’s paradox]]: The counter-intuitive disappearance or reversal of a group-level statistical trend once the data are combined. - [[notes/Simulation hypothesis.md|Simulation hypothesis]]: The proposition that reality might be a computer simulation created by an advanced civilisation. - [[notes/Sin tax.md|Sin tax]]: A tax on goods or services considered harmful, such as alcohol or tobacco, to discourage consumption. - [[notes/Singularitarianism.md|Singularitarianism]]: The belief that humanity will transcend biological limitations through technological singularity. - [[notes/Skinner box.md|Skinner box]]: \- - [[notes/Smale’s horseshoe.md|Smale’s horseshoe]]: A mathematical mapping demonstrating chaos, stretching and folding a region like a horseshoe. - [[notes/Solarpunk.md|Solarpunk]]: A utopian movement envisioning futures powered by renewable energy, community resilience, and harmony with nature. - [[notes/Solecism.md|Solecism]]: A grammatical mistake or nonstandard usage of language; in rhetoric, a blunder in speech. - [[notes/Solipsism.md|Solipsism]]: The philosophical idea that only one’s own mind is sure to exist; everything else could be an illusion. - [[notes/Sorites paradox.md|Sorites paradox]]: Small incremental changes lead from one category to another without a clear boundary in between. - [[notes/Sousveillance.md|Sousveillance]]: The bottom-up surveillance of the authorities by individual citizens. - [[notes/Spaghettification.md|Spaghettification]]: The process by which objects stretched by tidal forces near a black hole are drawn out into long thin shapes. - [[notes/Specialization.md|Specialization]]: The practice of focusing on a narrow area of expertise, often increasing efficiency and proficiency. - [[notes/Speciesism.md|Speciesism]]: The assignment of different moral value or rights to beings based solely on their species. - [[notes/Specificity paradox.md|Specificity paradox]]: The phenomenon where adding specificity to a claim can make it less persuasive by triggering skepticism or doubt. - [[notes/Sputnik moment.md|Sputnik moment]]: An event that galvanizes a nation to invest in science and technology. - [[notes/Statue-clay problem.md|Statue-clay problem]]: A metaphysical puzzle about whether a statue and the lump of clay that constitutes it are the same object or distinct. - [[notes/Steelmanning.md|Steelmanning]]: The practice of constructing the strongest version of someone else’s argument before evaluating or critiquing it. - [[notes/Stein’s law.md|Stein’s law]]: The proposition that if something cannot go on forever, it will stop; associated with economist Herb Stein. - [[notes/Stochastic terrorism.md|Stochastic terrorism]]: Public demagoguery that implicitly encourages violence by extremists through ambiguous or incendiary rhetoric. - [[notes/Stranded assets.md|Stranded assets]]: Assets that have lost economic value due to changes like regulation or market shifts. - [[notes/Strange loop.md|Strange loop]]: A self-referential structure that describes elements of consciousness, among others. - [[notes/Strauss–Howe generational theory.md|Strauss–Howe generational theory]]: A theory positing a recurring generational cycle in history, with four archetypal generations repeating every 80–90 years. - [[notes/Strong and weak link problems.md|Strong and weak link problems]]: The distinction between systems where either the strongest or the weakest link determines overall performance. - [[notes/Strong opinion, loosely held (SOLH).md|Strong opinion, loosely held (SOLH)]]: When one advocates for a position while remaining willing to revise it when presented with new evidence. - [[notes/Sub rosa.md|Sub rosa]]: Latin for "under the rose", signifying confidentiality or secrecy. - [[notes/Śūnyatā.md|Śūnyatā]]: A Buddhist concept of emptiness, asserting that all phenomena lack intrinsic, independent existence. - [[notes/Superdeterminism.md|Superdeterminism]]: An interpretation of quantum mechanics suggesting all events, including measurement choices, are predetermined. - [[notes/Supernormal stimulus.md|Supernormal stimulus]]: An exaggerated artificial stimulus that elicits a stronger response than the natural stimulus it mimics. - [[notes/Synopticon.md|Synopticon]]: A societal surveillance system where the many watch the few. - [[notes/T-shaped skills.md|T-shaped skills]]: A talent profile combining deep expertise in one area with broad knowledge across disciplines. - [[notes/Table selection.md|Table selection]]: The strategy of choosing which contests or opportunities to enter based on the number and skill level of competitors. - [[notes/Table stakes.md|Table stakes]]: The minimum requirements or essentials needed to compete in a particular market or activity. - [[notes/Tang ping.md|Tang ping]]: Chinese for "lying flat", describing rejection of intense competition and embracing a more relaxed life. - [[notes/Tarpit idea.md|Tarpit idea]]: A seductive project or problem that consumes time and resources without yielding significant progress. - [[notes/Taste of a spark.md|Taste of a spark]]: The pleasant sensation from experiencing new ideas. - [[notes/Technological singularity.md|Technological singularity]]: A future where technological growth becomes uncontrollable and irreversible. - [[notes/Teleology.md|Teleology]]: The philosophical account that interprets phenomena by their purpose or goal rather than cause. - [[notes/Temporal parochialism.md|Temporal parochialism]]: The assumption that the concerns and values of the present time are universally important across all times. - [[notes/Ten stages of genocide.md|Ten stages of genocide]]: Gregory Stanton’s framework outlining warning signs and stages that societies may pass through on the path to genocide. - [[notes/Tetractys.md|Tetractys]]: A triangular figure with rows of one, two, three and four points symbolising harmony and the cosmos in Pythagoreanism. - [[notes/Teumessian fox.md|Teumessian fox]]: A mythical fox destined never to be caught, pursued by a dog destined to catch everything, creating a paradox. - [[notes/The computer vs. the casino.md|The computer vs. the casino]]: The two communities most represented in Web3: those interested in the technology and those in making money. - [[notes/The DAO hack.md|The DAO hack]]: A 2016 Ethereum smart contract exploit that led to a contentious hard fork. - [[notes/The debtor’s paradox.md|The debtor’s paradox]]: A paradox where a debtor argues they are not the same person who incurred the debt because they have changed over time. - [[notes/The dose makes the poison.md|The dose makes the poison]]: A toxicology maxim meaning that a substance’s harmfulness depends on its dose; even water can be toxic in excess. - [[notes/The fox and the cat.md|The fox and the cat]]: A fable contrasting the value of having many strategies (fox) versus mastering one strategy (cat) for survival. - [[notes/The Last Messiah.md|The Last Messiah]]: \- - [[notes/The map is not the territory.md|The map is not the territory]]: The idea that representations of reality, such as models or maps, are simplifications and not the same as reality itself. - [[notes/The medium is the message.md|The medium is the message]]: Marshall McLuhan’s theory that the form of a medium embeds itself in the message, influencing how the message is perceived. - [[notes/The old man lost his horse.md|The old man lost his horse]]: An ancient Chinese parable showing that events considered good or bad can have unpredictable future consequences. - [[notes/The other butterfly effect.md|The other butterfly effect]]: A variant of the butterfly effect emphasizing that small positive actions can also lead to significant beneficial outcomes. - [[notes/The puzzle of Dion and Theon.md|The puzzle of Dion and Theon]]: A thought experiment about identity over time, raising questions about persistence. - [[notes/The Rule of 48.md|The Rule of 48]]: A reminder that scientists may overlook mistakes in the extant literature and take them for established facts. - [[notes/The Seven Sins of Memory.md|The Seven Sins of Memory]]: A classification of memory errors. - [[notes/The Spaceship Made The Escape.md|The Spaceship Made The Escape]]: A mnemonic for the five layers of the atmosphere. - [[notes/The teleological suspension of the ethical.md|The teleological suspension of the ethical]]: Kierkegaard’s idea that faith may require temporarily setting aside ethical norms to fulfil a divine command. - [[notes/The tyranny of structurelessness.md|The tyranny of structurelessness]]: When there is no org chart, there is an invisible org chart. - [[notes/The wisdom of paradox.md|The wisdom of paradox]]: The insight that apparent contradictions or paradoxes can reveal deeper truths or insights. - [[notes/Theory of constraints.md|Theory of constraints]]: A management philosophy that focuses on identifying and alleviating the bottleneck that limits the performance of a system. - [[notes/Theory U.md|Theory U]]: A leadership framework that guides participants through stages of observing, retreating, and prototyping to co‑create the future. - [[notes/Think globally, act locally.md|Think globally, act locally]]: A position that large-scale change requires grassroots level action. - [[notes/Third place.md|Third place]]: A term for informal public places that foster community outside home (first place) and work (second place). - [[notes/Three prisoners problem.md|Three prisoners problem]]: A game theory puzzle that resists intuition. - [[notes/Thucydides Trap.md|Thucydides Trap]]: The theory that rising powers often instigate conflicts with established powers. - [[notes/Time of useful consciousness.md|Time of useful consciousness]]: The period during which a pilot can perform useful tasks after oxygen deprivation at high altitude before losing consciousness. - [[notes/Time preference.md|Time preference]]: An economic concept describing the degree to which people value present consumption over future consumption. - [[notes/Torment nexus.md|Torment nexus]]: A system that concentrates large amounts of intense suffering into a small, stable set of beings or processes. - [[notes/Transhumanism.md|Transhumanism]]: A movement advocating the use of technology to enhance human abilities and overcome biological limitations. - [[notes/Transition risks.md|Transition risks]]: Potential financial risks stemming from the shift to a low‑carbon economy, including regulatory and market changes. - [[notes/Transitivity.md|Transitivity]]: A mathematical property where if A is related to B and B to C, then A is related to C; important in ordering relations. - [[notes/Travelling salesman problem.md|Travelling salesman problem]]: An optimisation problem seeking the shortest possible route visiting a set of cities exactly once and returning to the origin city. - [[notes/Tsundoku.md|Tsundoku]]: The practice of acquiring books and letting them pile up without reading them. - [[notes/Twin prime conjecture.md|Twin prime conjecture]]: The hypothesis that there are infinitely many pairs of prime numbers that differ by two. - [[notes/Typed link.md|Typed link]]: A hyperlink that includes metadata specifying the type or semantics of the link, useful for machine‑readable web data. - [[notes/Ultracrepidarianism.md|Ultracrepidarianism]]: The habit of giving opinions and advice on subjects outside one’s knowledge or expertise. - [[notes/Umwelt.md|Umwelt]]: The environment as subjectively perceived by an organism. - [[notes/Unity of science.md|Unity of science]]: The belief that all scientific fields are fundamentally linked and can be reduced to a common set of principles. - [[notes/Unknown unknowns.md|Unknown unknowns]]: Donald Rumsfeld’s phrase for things we do not know we don’t know. - [[notes/Upādāna.md|Upādāna]]: \- - [[notes/V-model.md|V-model]]: A project management methodology depicting development and testing stages as diverging and converging branches. - [[notes/Vanitas.md|Vanitas]]: An art form that depicts the transience of life. - [[notes/Varna.md|Varna]]: Hinduism's fourfold classification of society into functional divisions. - [[notes/Varnāśrama Dharma.md|Varnāśrama Dharma]]: Hinduism's integrated system of social order. - [[notes/Veblen goods.md|Veblen goods]]: Products whose demand increases as their price rises, due to their status signalling function. - [[notes/Vegetarianism (new).md|Vegetarianism (new)]]: The practice of abstaining from consuming meat, often for ethical, environmental or health reasons. - [[notes/Vegetarianism.md|Vegetarianism]]: The practice of abstaining from consuming meat, often for ethical, environmental or health reasons. - [[notes/Vela incident.md|Vela incident]]: The unexplained double flash detected by a U.S. satellite in 1979, suspected to be a clandestine nuclear test. - [[notes/Veridical paradox.md|Veridical paradox]]: A paradox in which reasoning appears counterintuitive yet its conclusion is true. - [[notes/Via negativa.md|Via negativa]]: An approach to knowledge or theology that defines things by what they are not, rather than by what they are. - [[notes/Vicious abstractionism.md|Vicious abstractionism]]: Alfred North Whitehead’s term for overly abstract thinking that disconnects concepts from practical reality. - [[notes/Vitalism.md|Vitalism]]: The discredited doctrine that living organisms are different from non‑living entities because of a non-physical vital force. - [[notes/Voight-Kampff test.md|Voight-Kampff test]]: A fictional empathy assessment tool meant to distinguish replicants from humans. - [[notes/VSRE.md|VSRE]]: A convention for very short email replies. - [[notes/VUCA.md|VUCA]]: An acronym describing environments characterised by Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity. - [[notes/Warnock's dilemma.md|Warnock's dilemma]]: The uncertainty about whether a lack of response to online content means agreement, indifference, or absence of readers. - [[notes/Wheat-and-chessboard problem.md|Wheat-and-chessboard problem]]: A mathematical exercise illustrating exponential growth by doubling grains of wheat on each square of a chessboard. - [[notes/Wheeler-DeWitt equation.md|Wheeler-DeWitt equation]]: A theoretical equation combining general relativity and quantum mechanics, notable for lacking an explicit time term. - [[notes/Whig history.md|Whig history]]: An interpretation of history that sees it as a progression toward ever greater liberty and enlightenment. - [[notes/White Earth climate.md|White Earth climate]]: A hypothetical climate state where the Earth becomes entirely ice-covered, reflecting most sunlight and remaining cold. - [[notes/Wiedersehen.md|Wiedersehen]]: German for "seeing again" and a metaphor for reunion in the afterlife. - [[notes/Wigner’s Friend.md|Wigner’s Friend]]: A thought experiment in quantum mechanics exploring the role of observers and the relativity of quantum measurements. - [[notes/Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest.md|Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest]]: A phrase attributed to King Henry II, historically interpreted as incitement leading to the murder of Thomas Becket. - [[notes/Wolf, goat and cabbage problem.md|Wolf, goat and cabbage problem]]: A classic puzzle involving sequencing and constraints. - [[notes/Work with the garage door up.md|Work with the garage door up]]: A metaphor for working openly and sharing progress publicly to receive feedback and foster collaboration. - [[notes/Working on vs. working in.md|Working on vs. working in]]: A distinction emphasizing the difference between strategic development and day‑to‑day operations. - [[notes/Workout paradox.md|Workout paradox]]: The observation that the human body burns calories based on a preset metabolism rate rather than activity levels. - [[notes/Wright's law.md|Wright's law]]: An empirical law stating that each time cumulative production doubles, costs decrease by a constant percentage. - [[notes/Xennials.md|Xennials]]: A microgeneration born between Generation X and Millennials, typically between the late 1970s and early 1980s. - [[notes/Zakkyo.md|Zakkyo]]: A Japanese term for ambient noise or chatter, particularly in urban environments. - [[notes/Zana of Tkhina.md|Zana of Tkhina]]: A human female from Abkhazia who became a cryptozoological legend due to her unusual traits. - [[notes/Zeigarnik effect.md|Zeigarnik effect]]: The psychological phenomenon where uncompleted or interrupted tasks are remembered better than completed ones. - [[notes/Zero-sum game.md|Zero-sum game]]: A situation in game theory where one participant’s gain is exactly balanced by another’s loss. - [[notes/Zero-tolerance.md|Zero-tolerance]]: A strict legal stance on non-discretionary enforcement of the law. - [[notes/Zeteticism.md|Zeteticism]]: An approach to inquiry that emphasizes ongoing investigation and skepticism. - [[notes/Zettelkasten.md|Zettelkasten]]: A personal knowledge management system using linked, atomic notes to facilitate idea generation and retrieval. - [[notes/Zeugma.md|Zeugma]]: A figure of speech in which one word governs two or more other words but differs in meaning when applied to each. - [[notes/Zugzwang.md|Zugzwang]]: A chess position in which any legal move a player makes will worsen their situation.