Rules for the direction of the mind

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• EdwardCoffin · Dec 27, 2017 · Recommends

  Descartes' Regulae (Rules for the Direction of the Mind). There are online copies, but all the ones I have found are incomplete. The best one is in John Cottingham's The Philosophical Writings of Descartes: Volume 1 [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rules_for_the_Direction_of_the...

  on “Ask HN: Any recommended books on developing mental models?” ↗
• EdwardCoffin · Sep 22, 2022 · Recommends

  …them. The Rules for the Dance by Mary Oliver. I already knew I liked certain kinds of poetry, but never really understood why. This book breaks down metrical poetry and explains how it works. The Rules for the Direction of the Mind by Descartes, aka the regulae.

  on “Ask HN: Which books you have read till now that were worth investing time in?” ↗
• bwfan123 · Sep 10, 2025 · Recommends

  Descartes' brief rules for the direction of the mind [1] is pertinent here, as it articulates beautifully what it means to do "thinking" and how that relates to "memory". Concepts have to be "internalized" into intuition for much of our thinking, and if…

  on “We can’t circumvent the work needed to train our minds” ↗
• EdwardCoffin · Dec 6, 2015 · Mentions

  I think some of that stuff is there, it's just buried. For instance, the first thing I thought of was Descartes, and his Rules for the Direction of the Mind, so I checked: it is listed [1], but there seems to be no discussion of it, and that page is the only mention of Descartes. [1] on this page: http://www.ludism.org/mentat/BrainBooks

  on “Mentat Wiki” ↗
• negoutputeng · Oct 24, 2024 · Mentions

  …the broad premise) it is not what the foundational knowledge "is" - but "how" the foundational knowledge is "unpacked" by each person from the first principles. this was articulated by Descartes in "Rules for the direction of the mind" which remains sadly unread and forgotten. the difference between the 2 approaches is that the author's approach does not clearly delineate what is meant by "learning". In fact, it could even encourage…

  on “Learning to Learn” ↗