Why Use Public Peer-Review to Write a Book? - "See For Yourself" 10/18/23 Update
Statement of Audience, Purpose, & Process for All Readers
This pinned post updates the description of audience & purpose for this Substack newsletter as it prepares to move into its third year of daily postings.
What’s New in this Update?
This process of public, peer-review on Substack, at the rate of two-pages per day, has moved from presenting the “Tools, Checklists & Processes” for “Making Good Decisions” in Volume 1 to presenting the foundational authors that support these developments in Volume 2.
The need for presenting the foundational authors that support these “Tools, Checklists & Processes” became clear and urgent after a post, published on 9/15/23 described the results of feeding the “Procedural Map” for “Constructive Skepticism” that summarizes Volume 1 into GPT with a prompt seeking evaluation, and summarization. This first post led to a second post, published on 9/16/23, that described the results of a prompt asking GPT to provide its sources & references behind its original evaluation and summarization.
As you can “See for Yourself” when you read these two posts, GPT’s sources & references mostly came from recent college textbooks, and did not include the foundational authors. These two posts confirmed the value of CTRI’s research process, the engine behind writing these posts, and its focus on finding the earliest foundational authors that define a domain of knowledge, instead of looking for the latest sources. Recent college textbooks present a current narrative. Starting from the foundational authors shines a light on both the road taken by the college textbooks, and their unsolvable “Puzzles, Paradoxes & Anomalies” as well as the other roads, the roads not taken, and the “Puzzles, Paradoxes & Anomalies” that they solve. Thus, as Paul Harvey used to say on the radio: “And now you know the rest of the story…”
This research process, and these Substack posts help readers play like Wayne Gretsky, skating “where the puck is going”, thus “Seeing for Yourself” when to zig and others zag.
Primary Audience:
The next generation of entrepreneurially-minded individuals, and members of their business ecosystem.
Origins:
The author’s entrepreneurial experience, and study from the 1970s to the Present in what has become known as Fintech.
Focus:
What do entrepreneurs need to know in order to make good individual, business, and investment decisions?
Purpose
Provide readers with “Tools, Checklists & Processes” developed over a lifetime of learning, and experience to “See for Yourself” so they can trust their “Perceptions”, and make their own accurate “Predictions”.
How to Read These Posts:
First, get familiar with the writing style of these posts by reading the pdf at the link shown below to see the illustration of the traditional linear writing/reading format vs. the non-linear format in E-prime used for these workbooks.
Second, Substack keeps posts archived in chronological order, thus readers can use the following timeline to find specific posts:
· Posts started on January 8, 2022 present the ideas that inspired the decision to write these Workbooks.
· Posts started on May 4, 2022 present the first draft of writing these posts as a single book, at the rate of one two-page section per day, and in the form of a downloadable pdf file.
· Posts started on September 17, 2022 document the first round of edits of these posts as a single book. At this point in the process, the single book becomes too large, and turns into a book in three volumes.
· Posts started on January 17, 2023 present the first draft of sections (mostly “Author Profiles”) for Volume 2.
· Posts started on Feb. 2, 2023 document the second round of edits from public peer-review, and package the sections in a specific Workbook titled: Volume 1 - Part V: The Template for Reading Research Papers.
o Note: This second round of edits started with Volume 1 - Part V instead of Volume 1 - Part I to give readers a usable summary of the “Tools, Checklists & Processes” as soon as possible, and the detailed explanations and documentation later (Part I, II, III & IV).
· Posts started on April 3, 2023 document the second round of edits for the Workbook titled: Volume 1 - Part I: Our Shared Humanity.
· Posts started on June 14, 2023 document the second round of edits for the Workbook titled: Volume 1 - Part II: Making Good Individual Decisions.
· Posts started on July 14, 2023 document the second round of edits for the Workbook titled: Volume 1 - Part III: Making Good Business Decisions.
· Posts started on August 1, 2023 document the second round of edits for the Workbook titled: Volume 1 - Part IV: Making Good Investment Decisions.
· Posts started on September 10, 2023 revise the second round of edits for the Workbook titled: Volume 1 - Part V: The Template for Reading Research Papers. At this point in the process, all five Parts in Volume 1 are ready for submission to the third-party editor for the formatting, editing, and publishing of a print version on Amazon.
· Posts started on October 19, 2023 document the second round of edits (and additions) to the Authors Profiles, the first Handbook in Volume 2.
What keeps these Posts Current
Reading Health, Wealth, & Statistics (AI/ML/NLP) research for CTRI members, and working with them on new ventures that use Large Language Models (LLM).
What is CTRI?
The author’s current venture, started in 2018: A membership-based, research & development, not-for-profit association.
Reason for these Posts:
Develop a publicly peer-reviewed book in three volumes as follows:
- Volume 1: A Book of Connections in five Parts (thus five Workbooks) that include:
· Our Shared Humanity
· Making Good Individual Decisions
· Making Good Business Decisions
· Making Good Investment Decisions
· The Template for Reading Research Papers
- Volume 2: A Book of Collections, regroups the glossary lists, author profiles, terms-of-art definitions as well as the “Tools, Checklists & Processes” from Volume 1 in five Handbooks.
- Volume 3: A Book of Illustrations, uses the “Tools, Checklists & Processes” from Volumes 1 & 2 to write an open-ended number of Reading Notes based on topics suggested by readers & CTRI members.
Public Peer-Review Process
· Substack readers have access to the daily publication of the two-page sections and author profiles. Comments are open to all.
· Substack subscribers receive the complete pdf files, paginated for two-sided printing, for the Workbooks associated with Volumes 1, 2, & 3.
· CTRI Members have first access to content, and direct the pace & focus of projects.
Closing Note to Answer a Question from a Reader: Why don’t you opine on the News?
You likely noticed that these Substack posts, and matching workbooks do not make comments on the News, but instead focus on foundational “Axioms, Assumptions & Hypotheses” in order to develop “Tools, Checklists”, Processes” that readers can use to “See for Yourself”.
Reasons include:
Rodolfo LLinás showed that our embodied, reality emulators (“Brains”) exist to manage “Motions” through “Predictions”, subject to time, space, and sensory limitations.
Additionally, John Boyd showed that these reality emulators use our unique histories of emotional “Amplifications” and “Suppressions” to “Orient” the direction of their decisions.
Finally, Marshall McLuhan showed that “Media” filters our “Perceptions”, and can be used intentionally by others to create “Willful Ignorance, Error & Deceit”.
This individual localization in time and space places a hard constraint on useful communications:
- When does one’s need-to-know treasures in the moment become nice-to-know garbage for another?
Thus, describing “Tools, Checklists & Processes” that help readers create their own need-to-know treasures in the moment becomes more useful than advocating for a specific “Model, Theory or Law”.
Developing…
”CTRI by Francois Gadenne” writes a business book in three volumes, published serially on Substack for public peer-review. The book connects the dots of life-enhancing practices for the next generation, free of controlling algorithms, based on the lifetime experience of a retirement age entrepreneur, & continuously updated with insights from reading Wealth, Health, & Statistics research papers on behalf of large companies as the co-founder of CTRI.