Intelligent people simply aren’t willing to accept answers that they don’t understand — no matter how many other people try to convince them of it, or how many other people believe it
- No location available
-

the essential element for successful work in any field was “the will to think”
- No location available
- work ethic, diligence, success,

Feynman said that the first rule of science is that you do not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool. It is uniquely easy to lie to yourself because there is no external force keeping you honest; only you can run the constant loop of asking “do I really understand this?”.
- No location available
-

Writing forces clarity
- No location available
-

(highlight:: I recently saw this striking representation of the “bag of words” model in NLP. If you were reading this in the usual dry mathematical way these things are represented, and then forced yourself to come up with a visualization like this, then you’d be much further on your way to really grasping the thing.
Conversely, if you’re not coming up with visuals like this, and your understanding of the thing remains on the level of equations or abstract concepts, you probably do not understand the concept deeply and should dig further.)
- No location available
-

My father has zero intellectual insecurities... It has never crossed his mind to be concerned that the world thinks he’s an idiot. He’s not in that game. So if he doesn’t understand something, he just asks you. He doesn’t care if he sounds foolish. He will ask the most obvious question without any sort of concern about it.
- No location available
-
- [note::Questions to ask to check understanding]

(highlight:: There are some mantra-like questions it can be helpful to ask as you’re thinking through things. Some examples:
But what exactly is X? What is it? (h/t Laura Deming’s post)Why must X be true? Why does this have to be the case? What is the single, fundamental reason? Do I really believe that this is true, deep down? Would I bet a large amount of money on it with a friend?)
- No location available
-

understanding is not a binary “yes/no”. It has layers of depth.
- No location available
-
- [note::Understanding is not a binary]