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Your example about navigating roads has nothing to do with hierarchy. And, in fact, most road networks are not hierarchical and the interconnectedness is their

Your example about navigating roads has nothing to do with hierarchy. And, in fact, most road networks are not hierarchical and the interconnectedness is their strength: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_City_Is_Not_a_Tree https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_City_Is_Not_a_Tree Your brain doesn't organize information hierarchically. Let's say I ask you: 1. Name a band that starts with "B". 2. Name a band from England. 3. Name a rock band. If your brain stored bands in a hierarchy, you'd only be able to come up with "The Beatles" as an answer for one of those questions. You'd have to figure out whether to categorize the Beatles by name, location, or genre and it would be absent from the other categories.

schoen 3y ago
Or you'd have to do an inefficient search in order to find something that matched, which would be slow, but not impossible. Or you'd have to maintain several redundant hierarchies. (I agree with you that our subjective experience and speed in thinking of things is evidence that we probably don't mentally represent things this way.)
- jychang 3y ago
  Strong disagree. https://blog.oup.com/2016/11/evolution-human-memory/ https://blog.oup.com/2016/11/evolution-human-memory/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-gps-weakens-m https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-gps-weakens-m... Navigation memory is the most core type of memory- most other forms of memory evolved later. There’s a reason why GPS usage is correlated with dementia. Human memory actually evolved out of a sense of navigation. I strongly agree with the commentator who likened the hierarchal folder structure to the physical world, it’s a much more direct mapping of how human memory actually works. Humans aren’t actually magical AI computers of energy floating in midair, they’re made of physical meat. Even if some abstract concepts (like tags) may make more theoretical sense (I agree with people who say that certain things can be classified in 2 different locations), it may not play to the actual structure and advantages of the human brain.
  - schoen 3y ago
    > Navigation memory is the most core type of memory- most other forms of memory evolved later. There’s a reason why GPS usage is correlated with dementia. Human memory actually evolved out of a sense of navigation. That seems very possible, and probably important, but it's hard for me to relate that to the experience (as an "anatomically modern human") of having other kinds of associative memory that are very effective and don't have a discernible spatial or other hierarchical component.
  - untech 3y ago
    It seems that navigation memory theory should imply not a hierarchical structure, but a wiki-like structure with many links. In a tree, there’s only one path to a given element, which is not the case in the physical world.
  - jaystraw 3y ago
    I agree. But are there any better solutions than manually ln -s? I'm in a band, and also manage booking for a venue. I have $venue/poster/$date\ $bands/$posterfile. I also have $band/poster/$date\ $venue I don't know of any system that lets a single poster be in multiple places at the same time.
    - munificent 3y ago
      If you want to model this using your filesystem, that's exactly why symlinks (shortcuts on Windows and Mac) were invented. On Mac, you can write tags on files and then use Spotlight to search for them. Pick one (more or less arbitrary) primary category to use as the directory for the file, then write tags for the other ways you want to be able to search for it.
  - munificent 3y ago
    > I strongly agree with the commentator who likened the hierarchal folder structure to the physical world, it’s a much more direct mapping of how human memory actually works. But the physical world isn't hierarchical at all. It's spatial. It's much more like a graph than a tree where there are usually multiple paths between any two points. If you have to pick up your kid from school and stop at the grocery store for milk on the way home from work, you probably do not: 1. Drive to school and get kid. 2. Drive back to work. 3. Drive to grocery story to get milk. 4. Drive back to work. 5. Drive home from work. Or: 1. Drive to school and get kid. 2. Drive to grocery story to get milk. 3. Drive back to school. 4. Drive back to work. 5. Drive home from work. If the physical world was hierarchical, all navigation through multiple waypoints would look like this kind of stack pushing and popping.

schoen 3y ago

Or you'd have to do an inefficient search in order to find something that matched, which would be slow, but not impossible. Or you'd have to maintain several redundant hierarchies. (I agree with you that our subjective experience and speed in thinking of things is evidence that we probably don't mentally represent things this way.)

jychang 3y ago
Strong disagree. https://blog.oup.com/2016/11/evolution-human-memory/ https://blog.oup.com/2016/11/evolution-human-memory/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-gps-weakens-m https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-gps-weakens-m... Navigation memory is the most core type of memory- most other forms of memory evolved later. There’s a reason why GPS usage is correlated with dementia. Human memory actually evolved out of a sense of navigation. I strongly agree with the commentator who likened the hierarchal folder structure to the physical world, it’s a much more direct mapping of how human memory actually works. Humans aren’t actually magical AI computers of energy floating in midair, they’re made of physical meat. Even if some abstract concepts (like tags) may make more theoretical sense (I agree with people who say that certain things can be classified in 2 different locations), it may not play to the actual structure and advantages of the human brain.
- schoen 3y ago
  > Navigation memory is the most core type of memory- most other forms of memory evolved later. There’s a reason why GPS usage is correlated with dementia. Human memory actually evolved out of a sense of navigation. That seems very possible, and probably important, but it's hard for me to relate that to the experience (as an "anatomically modern human") of having other kinds of associative memory that are very effective and don't have a discernible spatial or other hierarchical component.
- untech 3y ago
  It seems that navigation memory theory should imply not a hierarchical structure, but a wiki-like structure with many links. In a tree, there’s only one path to a given element, which is not the case in the physical world.
- jaystraw 3y ago
  I agree. But are there any better solutions than manually ln -s? I'm in a band, and also manage booking for a venue. I have $venue/poster/$date\ $bands/$posterfile. I also have $band/poster/$date\ $venue I don't know of any system that lets a single poster be in multiple places at the same time.
  - munificent 3y ago
    If you want to model this using your filesystem, that's exactly why symlinks (shortcuts on Windows and Mac) were invented. On Mac, you can write tags on files and then use Spotlight to search for them. Pick one (more or less arbitrary) primary category to use as the directory for the file, then write tags for the other ways you want to be able to search for it.
- munificent 3y ago
  > I strongly agree with the commentator who likened the hierarchal folder structure to the physical world, it’s a much more direct mapping of how human memory actually works. But the physical world isn't hierarchical at all. It's spatial. It's much more like a graph than a tree where there are usually multiple paths between any two points. If you have to pick up your kid from school and stop at the grocery store for milk on the way home from work, you probably do not: 1. Drive to school and get kid. 2. Drive back to work. 3. Drive to grocery story to get milk. 4. Drive back to work. 5. Drive home from work. Or: 1. Drive to school and get kid. 2. Drive to grocery story to get milk. 3. Drive back to school. 4. Drive back to work. 5. Drive home from work. If the physical world was hierarchical, all navigation through multiple waypoints would look like this kind of stack pushing and popping.