Piotr Wozniak Apology

Lost mail

In the months Aug-Oct 2022, my official mail address was sending mail into a spam blackhole. If you never received a reply, please resend!

Apology

I apologize for my "rules of conduct" that make it hard to communicate and work together on important projects, on occasion. In particular, I apologize:

• My e-mail replies can be intermittent, delayed, chaotic or none! To process mail, I use incremental mail processing that is similar to incremental reading in SuperMemo. This makes it possible to prioritize individual pieces, focus on most important messages, work on messages creatively, and delay most of the remaining mail (often indefinitely). The process is partly stochastic, and I may stop working on threads even if my usual enthusiasm seems to indicate their priority is high enough. I may respond in minutes or in months even on important subjects within the same thread. I almost never decide not to reply, and the delay is occurring without a conscious decision. My poor reaction time comes from the insufficient ratio of time allocated to mail volume. I realize this makes all co-operation extremely difficult. If you write on a subject that is extremely important and still get no reply, you may re-send. Some pieces of mail get lost in transit.
• I do not take on new projects. My schedule seems blocked and closed for years to come. My capacity to add more work hours per day has been exhausted by the end of the 1990s. If you have new ideas about projects related to SuperMemo, you would better write to Krzysztof Biedalak (CEO). Almost daily I get lovely mail with great visions about what SuperMemo might become. However, my work over incremental reading, science of sleep, or this site fills my days to the brim. I love to read all inspiring mail, esp. if it touches my favorite areas of research. Unfortunately, it would take an extraordinarily interesting idea to shunt my train to new tracks. Please keep writing nevertheless
• I disappear for months at a time (see: creative vacation). When I work on an important project, I often cut off all my links with the outside world. This works wonders for focused work on a single subject. Naturally, this can be exasperating for everyone else, esp. that I send no notifications and all my mail is redirected to a colleague. The privacy level in my communications is dismal
• I do not attend conferences or business meetings. In short, I do not travel. In this modern electronic world, I consider travelling an unnecessary risk, as well as a waste of energy and time. All my work can now be done over the Internet. I have never been aboard a plane. My last conference, and the last business meeting took place in 1999. My last train trip took place in 2004. My most recent experience of smelling the interior of a car occurred in 2011. I have no driving license
• I do not have a cell phone. I design my schedule around my circadian cycle using the Plan feature of SuperMemo. Phone calls at unpredictable moments of time make the execution of the schedule difficult, and for some slots, impossible. For the same reason, I do not use Skype. This is explained in Planning a perfect productive day without stress. I am not a Luddite. I will use a phone for learning at some point in the future (I think). However, I am still waiting for the right kind of SuperMemo that will make that worthwhile.

Considering the above, you may ask if I even like or care about other people. With all my work I hope to contribute to a better world. I love people! Love is often a problem. I need rational methods to temper and organize my enthusiasm for people, projects and ideas. I believe my attitude will be increasingly prevalent in creative professions. It is not dictated by lack of concern for others. It is dictated by efficiency! I apologize to anyone who feels offended, or was affected by my intermittent communication habits.

If I do not reply to your mail, do not be discouraged by my words. We all know that mail can disappear. Some important people made public claims on my unresponsiveness. I never ignore important messages (in the long run)! Please write again. I will not be overwhelmed.

Why be Guru

One of my colleagues noticed that by writing as Guru, I depart from pure science. He noticed that there are two types of people around: C and P. Class C are communicators. In pure science they care about the truth. They reveal the truth to the rest of the world. Class P are persuaders. Those are the people who are like salesmen, trying to persuade others that some idea is true. He also noticed that writing as Guru, I slowly transform to join the Class P. I found this C-P dichotomy very interesting and inspiring. After all, it is true that I care about science, but I also care about persuasion. In the end, I decided we need to expand the classification. There are three classes of people: C, P and M. We all hope that most researchers are communicators (class C). I would reserve the class P for politicians. They are masters of persuasion, however, they are also conditioned to present the reality in a selective manner. Their presentation may change with their audience. Class M are missionaries. For a missionary, the Truth is the supreme master. However, missionaries also care about the change. When I say we need to abandon coercive schooling, I wish for a change that would affect a billion children. My supreme leader is science. I must remain faithful or my message would lose credibility. At the same time I must craft the message to be understandable, and persuasive. This is why I often use metaphors to depict models of neuroscience.

Here are the key distinctions between Politicians (P) and Missionaries (M):

• for a Politician, the end justifies the means. Truth may die for the mission. For a Missionary, the Truth is sacred
• for a Politician, failure to persuade may mean the end of the mission. For a Missionary, the mission is eternal
• we all change our minds. Politicians change it with polls. Missionaries change it with discovery and learning
• under attack Politicians transmute. A science Missionary will collect more evidence and (usually) double down