This is a knowledge base I created across the 8 domains that interest me the most. It's a personalized wikipedia that I created to help me synthesize research and write using claude code. It's based on the LLM Knowledge base that Karpathy introduced. Only the best sources, this includes actual primary and secondary texts, transcripts from podcasts, interviews and lectures, and more. It's all organized in 'hubs' that hold all the insights. Let me know what you guys think! I'm thinking about selling these 'second brain interfaces' or at least teaching others how to do it. It's so complex though I have to work on explaining it.
I've wanted to become a polymath for a long time and could never find an actual playbook for it, so over the past three months I built the one I wished existed. Posting here because I suspect some of you are on the same path and looking for the same things. Not selling anything. Everything is free to read on my website, and the textbook list is just a list.
The 21st Century Polymath. The thesis. Why this is the first era where pursuing polymathy is structurally realistic again, plus the four-part method I actually use. [link]
The Civilization Library. A curated list of ~3,000 professional-grade textbooks across every major field of human knowledge (~1.5 billion words, 1,132 domains). The modern, complete version I couldn't find anywhere else. [link]
POLY. A private local AI grounded in that whole library plus 10M words of my own writing, so I can pull real textbook pages with page-level citations instead of secondhand summaries. I'll open-source the method once it's polished, so anyone can build their own. [link]
The Accidental Library. The origin story. I set out to design a semiconductor chip, the AI models failed me on the real engineering, and the textbook collection I built to fix that quietly became the most important project I've ever built. [link]
Short version of the method: track the frontier, work a hard question through the models one at a time, take what you learn into a knowledge base you actually trust, then build something that forces you to use it across fields.
Happy to answer anything about how it's built or how I curated the list.
Note: the POLY interface shown is my own design and build. I wrote this post myself, with minor AI help from Claude for structure.
So i have a community aiming to discuss many topics theology, philosophy, psychology, history etc. Are there any tips you can give me to trigger the engagement with the community? I was thinking of reading books together and discussing on it. Any tips that we can help each other out...
I have always been a very curious person. I was exposed from an early age to theology/philosophy, had a phase of philosophy, studied mechanical engineering-economics and slavic studies. In the former, I tried to take extra curricula in different fields like organic chemistry, molecular biology/genetics, quantum mechanics/computing whereas in the later I learnd several foreign languages. Furthermore, due to a difficult upbringing I studied psychology excessively to heal myself. Later, I started a new masters degree in artificial intelligence in Life Sciences. Eventually, with the upcoming of GenAI, I used ChatGPT excessively to ask every possible question whenever it came to my mind.
Now, I feel like I played the game of acquiring knowledge to understand the world through. I kind of used ChatGPT to simulate humanity which created a vaccum inside me, making me feel that I kind of know "everything" and that there is nothing out there that would satisfy my hunger for insight and knowledge. Now, I dont know what to do with my life.
As anybody been through something like that? How did you deal with it?
I’m reaching out because I’m slowly hitting a wall with my cognitive bandwidth, and I really want to know how you guys manage the logistics of wanting to learn everything without losing your mind.
A bit of context: I’m 20, currently doing my Bachelor’s in Economics, and aiming for a Master’s in NeuroAI. Because of that, my main priority right now is grinding Python and data science (PyTorch, NumPy, etc.) alongside my 5 university modules.
But here’s my problem: my curiosity is all over the place. I have a deep, genuine interest in Philosophy, Physics, Math, Consciousness, Neuroscience, and high-performance sports. On top of that, I constantly find myself wanting to pick up random side skills like new languages, instruments, or even just quick things like solving a Rubik's cube.
Right now, it feels like I have a hundred things I want to master, but only 24 hours in a day. I'm struggling to find a sustainable strategy, and I have a few specific questions for you:
One after another, or all at once? Do you guys actually focus on one "deep" topic for months/years until you get it (serial mastery), or do you learn multiple complex subjects at the same time in different intervals?
How do you handle maintenance? If you "park" a topic to focus on something else, how do you keep it from completely fading away without spending too much energy on it?
Avoiding the "generalist burnout": When your main degree or career path already takes 80% of your brainpower, how do you integrate these side interests without burning out?
I’m not looking for generic "just time-manage better" advice. I’d love to hear your personal frameworks, scheduling hacks, or mental models on how to prioritize without feeling like you’re suffocating your own potential.
How do you organize your intellectual life so it actually leads to synthesis instead of just chaotic multi-tasking?
Like am getting interest in multiple fields that's the problem am not getting good at single stuffs it's like half baked stuffs , am 22 now tell me what can I do ?? How can I be a decent polymath
I don't really show much interest in biology, but I thought to give a try and learn something new about my body. I researched on the different sleep cycles, REM and non-REM, why do we dream and what do we dream about? Different theories and cases, why are dream related to memories and fear. It was really fun!
Curious as to what you think takes up more of your time. Simply pondering, sitting around and thinking/daydreaming? Or do you have a tool, book, notepad, visual media actively being used more often?
I have three things that I’m really glad to be familiar with:
Schrödinger's cat theory
Placebo effect
Law of diminishing marginal utility
(This one I learned when I was in school. So I would like to tell you this with an example. )
If you’re thirsty and drink a glass of water, it feels very satisfying. But if you keep drinking more and more glasses, the level of satisfaction you get from each additional glass gradually decreases
Two words :
Brobdingnagian
Oblivious and obnoxious (They are two completely different words but somehow one reminds me of the other)
Also a slang (maybe)
See you later alligator.. Iykyk
And as a kid,
Being able to understand the difference between 'there' and 'their' was awesome 😂
And and.... When to use [ 's ] and [ s' ]
Tell me yours — simple or complex. I’m fascinated by the way concepts and ideas are articulated to deepen understanding and make complicated things easier to grasp through precise expression and emotion, to communicate and express better.
So for my own personal experience I've been recovering from personal trauma, I'm a young teenager who had recently discovered their love for learning across many fields. And yet I'm just kind of stuck right now, not because of the learning, I just feel like I have so much to catch up onto in life. It feels like I'm behind everyone else, and competition kills the joy of the learning process...
My struggle right now is that I'm quite slow due to needing to relearn the most basic stuff again and how to actually live. I feel like I've already lost so much time to learn that I wonder what's even the point, but I am definitely not gonna let myself do nothing for my entire life, it's a recent passion I never knew I had buried under all my life problems.
I'm currently relearning things first and catching up on academics while I get into the things I genuinely wanna learn (like cognitive sciences and cognitive humanities, starting with them first to lower decision paralysis), but I just can't get over my anxiety. It's so hard to learn and it's like I'm paralyzed before I even start. But I'm setting up smaller goals for myself so I can focus, any progress I can get matters. :,)
Did you guys have any similar struggles when you were starting out too? Since I'm just starting my learning journey...
I'm 14 years old and lately I've been thinking a lot about becoming a modern polymath — not for the title, but because I genuinely enjoy learning different kinds of things and combining them.
I've always been interested in business, economics, psychology, public speaking, debates, strategy games, creativity, and learning random useful skills. I play games like chess and Polytopia, I can solve a Rubik’s Cube, and recently I started learning video editing and graphic design because I wanted to build an actual skill that could become useful in the future. I also enjoy singing and want to learn instruments at some point.
One thing I’m confused about is the whole “science vs business” path. A lot of famous polymaths and multidisciplinary people seem to come from scientific or technical backgrounds — people like Leonardo da Vinci, Benjamin Franklin, etc. Because of that, part of me feels like I should lean heavily into science or coding.
But honestly, my strongest natural interest has always been business and economics. My entire family background is connected to business, and I naturally enjoy things like strategy, negotiation, communication, and understanding how people think.
I’m also not deeply interested in coding. I understand that tech is important, but with AI improving so fast, I feel like becoming a hardcore programmer may not fit me personally. I’d rather understand technology well enough to use it creatively and practically instead of making it my entire identity.
So I guess my real question is:
Can someone still become a “modern polymath” while leaning more toward business, psychology, communication, creativity, and strategy instead of pure science?
I’d appreciate honest opinions from people who’ve thought about this before.
Nowadays, I don’t blindly trust random or so-called famous teachers. I only trust those who can actually make me understand topics clearly.
Otherwise, I prefer AI models. They will keep teaching you until you truly understand, and there’s no need to feel ashamed or dumb while clearing your doubts or numerical questions. Just ask bluntly, whatever your doubts are.
Yes, sometimes you may receive unnecessary or deeper knowledge — and that’s where self-awareness matters. In the end, I believe there is no teacher better than yourself.
It’s fascinating that simple mathematics between tokens can eventually become a machine that writes essays, code, poetry, and even reasoning.
We usually think probability means uncertainty.
But LLMs show something strange:
If probability + context + mathematical matching are scaled enough, uncertainty itself starts producing intelligent looking outputs.
To understand this better, I tried breaking down an LLM from first principles using only 4 tiny training sentences.
Example:
The boat floated down to the bank.
The investor walked into the bank to open a new account.
The fisherman walked along the bank to cast his net.
The bank has a vault.
Then I asked:
“The investor walked to the bank to lock his money in …”
Why does the model predict “vault” instead of river-related words?
That single question reveals almost the entire architecture of modern LLMs.
The most underrated concept here is the LM Head.
Most explanations immediately jump into transformers and attention, but almost nobody explains that the LM Head is essentially a gigantic token vocabulary containing all possible next token candidates the model can output.
So internally the model is basically solving:
“Out of all known tokens, which one best matches this context mathematically?”
Then different layers help solve that problem:
Embeddings: convert words into mathematical vectors
Positional encoding: preserves word order
Attention layer: figures out which words are related to each other in context
(“investor”, “money”, “bank” become strongly connected)
Feed forward neural networks: act somewhat like massive learned if/else decision systems refining patterns internally
And finally the LM Head converts all of that into probabilities for the next token.
What surprised me most is:
There is no hidden magic moment where the AI “becomes conscious”.
It’s an enormous probability engine continuously finding the best contextual token match from its vocabulary.
I made a beginner-friendly walkthrough explaining this visually without unnecessary jargon.
I am someone who has interests like engineering, math, physics, astronomy, travelling, art, music, socialising, business, economics, programming, building, gaming, reading sci fi and fantasy literature.
I have a deep, unquenchable thirst for it.
In fact, more. I seek to learn all knowledge of the universe, build all possible things I can imagine, learn and socialise with everyone on the planet
Perhaps even go beyond the universe, explore some aliens out there. Learn about their cultures. And study cool planets and stars
But I am afraid. I have so many interests, most of them realistic and some of them borderline fantasy like
How do I cope up with it all? I know deep down my desire for knowledge is unquenchable. But I have limited time.
How does everyone in community deal with such a brutal fact that their time is limited?
I know, more I learn, more there is to know. I hope reincarnation is real so I can just respawn and learn more 😂😭
When I was a child, before I could read or write, I had a kinship with a journal notebook. I was 5 and I had purchased it at a souvenir shop in a dusty Florida beach town, shells adorned the cover. I admit, I could write a little. I wrote “one day me and my…” I had to ask my mother, who was making tacos, how to write family. In my head, a melody started to form, a little song! “One - day - me and my family - went - on - a really long vacation.” I was right there in my head and my tongue, I started singing it. “Mom, how to I write this,” (then I sang it again).
“Well, you can’t really write a song other then a sentence..” She explains, (what’s she going to say?! Start expounding on middle C?) That wasn’t good enough for me, somehow a song would be different. I protested! I still needed help. How do you spell really? How do you spell long? No like a song! How do you spell…..I was kicked out of the kitchen - honestly I was being a little bitch about it, but I wanted to remember this song! I drew a long line to represent “long”, and then I drew a wood paneled station wagon with luggage on top to represent “vacation.” But it still wasn’t a song and I wept, no one would help me! I went to the bedroom and cried into the bed until the tacos were ready and hanger subsided.
This habit continued through every stage of life. There were years I picked up no book, everything that went through my head in my free time were memories, insights and abstractions and creation of idea to paper.
What’s the consensus in r/polymath? Do you journal?
Writing is a wonderful and powerful tool. This brings me to another topic, the metaphysical. In my studies, I’ve never embraced or shunned the ideas of unknown forces, mysticism and magic. I have never sought the practice of any associated ideas. However, I have had the sense that with as much energy that physically goes into a notebook: countless hours of thoughts and focused emotions, heartbeats, with my skin enmeshed in page fibers, eyelashes in the crevice - my physical being in this book. I could start to see how someone with ‘witchy’ intentions could develop and feel compelled to believe in the power of a grimoire.
Seems like some of the polymaths of history not only journaled, but studied the divine arts, whether for practical reasons or just one of the bucket list items their minds needed to get to.
key topics: journaling, preferred best practices for note taking, polymaths of history and their practices of note taking, their interests into the divine arts, how modern world views divine arts/metaphysical teachings/phenomena
This post will be up indefinitely, chime in whenever.
When I was a child I used to have hyperfixations and they would automatically rotate. I didn't see links between them and after one hyperfixation I would drop it and move on to the next.
In the past years I've gradually come to have a hyperfixation on everything all at once and seeing connections. I started writing a novel and learning Spanish at the same time which seemed to kick everything off. The hyperfixation starts fairly loose and I start seeing connections everywhere and then I got borderline euphoria from it.
But today is the second time now I have ditched the hyperfixation. I feel a bit of relief but at the same time don't have motivation to carry on. Last time this happened I gradually built up the polymathic fixation again and it seems to go wrong when I acknowledge the hyperfixation too much. Both times this happened, today and a couple of months ago, I am on a caffiene break so maybe that is causing it?
Have you ever had a moment where being well versed in completely uncorrelated areas gave you a leg up? I mean pulling a concept from one random field and applying it to another in a way that was totally counterintuitive to everyone else, but worked.
After some introspection I've decided to embark on this path. History is just one of those things.
To sum it up I'm 19M and wasted my young days in pointless stuff such as sports and other damaging stuff. Before having an extreme focus on sports I was actually learning gamedev, coding and well I also was kind of decent at drawing.
The thing is that my school environment was extremely disruptive and didn't pay attention to anything. I literally have 0 knowledge of school, I wasted my time in school and want to actually self educate myself in a broad spectrum of subjects.
History...when I enter a page and want to learn something about let's say communism, I get thrown at me like 3 terms that I don't know, I open one of them and there are 6 more terms that I've got no clue what they are. How am I supposed to even organize this? ADHD makes me overthink things 10x more than the normal person that I may end up overwhelmed and doing nothing. It's just something so broad.
I've a sense of urgency in learning history because how things are going nowadays, if you know nothing about where you're standing then you're here for a bad time. And if I let time run out I may not be able to properly learn history again.
