Maker Mind

Antilibrary.

Hi friends!

This is the last week of my Master's in neuroscience. My dissertation is due early next week. What an incredibly learning journey over the past two years! Thank you for following along.

Paradoxically, learning more about the brain made me become aware of how much we don't know about the brain. I feel like I'm swimming in an ocean of unknowns. But, instead of being terrified by the sheer lack of knowledge, I'm excited and grateful for all our future discoveries.

This shift in mindset is reflected in the way I manage my personal book library. I feel increasingly comfortable buying books I may not be able to read for a while. All of these unread books remind me of endless opportunities for learning, and make me humble.

This week, we will talk about the benefits of building an antilibrary and how you can go about it. We'll also talk about the hindsight bias—when we say "I knew it!", but really... We didn't.

Finally, I'm very excited to share a rare interview with Alexandra Elbakyan, the founder of Sci-Hub, who was sued by Elsevier in 2015 for building an illegal open science platform.

Many of you asked for interviews of researchers and creators, and there will definitely be more of these in the future.

Enjoy the read, and hit reply if you have any questions, feedback, or want to say hello!

p.s. my highlight of the week :)

Brain food

Building an antilibrary: the power of unread books (6 min)
An antilibrary is a private collection of unread books. The concept was first mentioned by Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his book The Black Swan, where he describes the unique relationship Umberto Eco had with books.

Hindsight bias: the knew-it-all-along phenomenon (5 min)
Historians and physicians alike are constantly fighting an invisible beast: the hindsight bias, which is the tendency for people to perceive past outcomes as having been more predictable than they actually were.

Interview: collective intelligence with Alexandra Elbakyan (7 min)
Read to learn about Alexandra's view on collective intelligence, brain-machine interfaces, the relationship between consciousness, religion, and communication, the Information Integration Theory, and more.

Brain candy

Feature visualization (Distill)
“How neural networks build up their understanding of images.”

A city is not a tree (Twitter)
“This is an interesting idea in urban design. It was written in 1964 by mathematician/architect Christopher Alexander. He realized natural, organic cities are more beautiful and more efficient; they are structured as complex systems.”

Listening to the world (The On Being Project podcast)
“Amid the harshness of life, Mary Oliver found redemption in the natural world and in beautiful, precise language. Oliver, who died in 2019, was one of the most beloved poets of modern times.”

Brain trust

Here's a sneak peek into what's going on in the community. If you enjoy Maker Mind, become a member to support the newsletter and to expand your mind!

• The state of Personal Knowledge Management. You can still download the report by joining as a yearly member!
• Mind wandering. We had an amazing meetup about the benefits and dangers of mind-wandering and daydreaming. Watch the recording.
• Newsletter mastermind. In our next AMA, you'll get to ask me questions about how I manage Maker Mind. Register.
• The Future of University. Our next meetup will led by the wonderful Adelaida. We will discuss new models of education and the potential of innovative teaching models. Register.
• Community. Currently discussing tracking tasks, Pomodoro apps, managing multiple priorities at once, our learning processes, going from learning to doing, mental toughness, and more. Join the conversation.
• Support groups. We have groups for newsletter owners, writers, side hustlers, book lovers, and more. Anyone can join or create a group.
• Writing Cycle. Want to write more often? Join a cycle to make progress on your creative work and stick to your content goals.
• Mind Match. Fill this form to get matched with a fellow member for a virtual coffee chat.

Brain waves

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