5 ms·

The advantages in a social setting lie in the introduction of entropy, that is _creativity_, to a community. In a rigorous academic setting and with proper trai

The advantages in a social setting lie in the introduction of entropy, that is _creativity_, to a community. In a rigorous academic setting and with proper training these individuals are more likely identify links between ideas or information that may not seem obvious at first, and tend to be your more 'eccentric' academics. For the interests of the wider group, the best outcome is to help these individuals refine their communication to make it clear when information they present is unsubstantiated inference as opposed to verified knowledge. Once the proper 'rules of engagement' are outlined the contributions of these individuals is an oftentimes useful 'ingredient' to the success of many enterprises.

chaos_emergent 3y ago
Given that this is an online forum, another advantage is that a conversational trail is left for others to discover. The inferences these types of individuals make are often based on a structure of knowledge and reality that others share, so the most common preconceived and incorrect notions tend to have the most documentation on how to ameliorate the incorrectness (given that these individuals are allowed to state their inferences out loud).
- doctor_eval 3y ago
  This had got to be the best thread I’ve ever (inadvertently) started.
  - refulgentis 3y ago
    Its a good thread, particularly Exuma's comment, but a memento mori from the root node: My one word "Source?" meant: "You are adding a new episode of fictional info to a discussion about fictional info." Even in that fictional world the post was wrong. Even if it was right in some allegorical sense, the simplistic allegory adds nothing. "Mixture of experts is like a group of experts where you pick the right expert to ask a question" isn't some hard-won cross-domain self-taught knowledge. It's something a bright 6th grader would pull off. The self-taught feeling-stuff-out stuff matters when you're making useful connections that get practical results. When you're just wiring stuff together online, and the wiring together is meaningless, you're doing nothing and taking the consequences of the negative signals
  - natpalmer1776 3y ago
    I have quite deeply enjoyed this thread myself. Thanks :)
Exuma 3y ago
You have clarified something I have always thought about very intensely and deeply but haven’t really ever read anyone else who understands that so well or rather put it into words so clearly. I’m an inferenced based learner to an extreme and it definitely has many upsides and also downsides. The upsides are being able to learn extremely rapidly by making connections between pieces of information where there’s gaps and then using a sort of heuristic detection like a compass to feel out which gaps need filled in most. Then, I follow that trail down, regardless of how hard or complex it is to the bottom just to the point where it accomplishes what I need (whether it is statistics, machine learning, transaction isolation that I've learned for the 50th time...). Another upside is significant abstract thinking ability, and sometimes it feels like looking at a maze from overhead. I’ve built over 100+ projects over close to 30,000 hours of programming over like 15 years The downside is always when I’m around strong people of the other type I get the sense they don’t respect this style of learning sometimes. It comes through in their words, tone, subtle body language cues. My friend, who is very very much the other type with a PhD in something very hard I don’t remember … algorithms and data structures or something, said it’s because I don’t value domain knowledge. He said if you spent an entire life building say, a database, you would not consider that a life worth lived. I laughed cause that makes me sound like an asshole but the more I thought about it the more it’s clear that I actually agree somehow. As if information on its own as a means to an end is not fulfilling to me. To me it feels like efficiency, creativity and and moving from A to B very rapidly while hierarchically organizing a massive amount of chaotic information is engrained in my DNA but just simply getting the correct, deepest domain knowledge possible is not appealing to me at all. I sort of will go to the depths that’s needed then go elsewhere. I’m VERY thankful for those people though as that’s where a lot if not most of progress is made. It has been an internal paradox for most of my life where I can’t figure out if I’m smart or stupid. I have built companies completely on my own on the tech side where one made over 10m and another made over 200m revenue. I’ve been told I built some things entire teams were not capable of doing on another project.., this gives me signals that I’m smart. Then other things like getting an F on this hard programming interview from my first employer who is genius level Harvard graduate academic style domain knowledge style person. It made me feel completely idiotic. There are many other times and situations where I often think I’m wired weird where it “feels” like I’m stupid. This over the years I’ve accepted this paradox but it wasn’t until this domain knowledge piece or the creativity aspect that made me finally just accept it as ok and not something wrong with me. The hardest part is VERY often being misunderstood. So much of it that I often have to expend an exhausting amount of time when working with new teams to say “how I think” because like a fortune teller I can always predict what will be misperceived, and even when I say it up front it usually happens anyway. This is why trust is paramount with my business partners. They know I’m extremely eccentric so to speak but they “trust the process” when I lock myself in a room for 30 days and come out with an amazing piece of tech that was built purely on raw intuition. The other part that often made me feel stupid is despite its upsides this way of thinking often is exhausting because I don’t usually rely on past experiences ti make decisions. Each situation is different. So even if I’ve done something new 30 times I will feel this “stepping into unknown” feeling which takes great willpower and courage to repeatedly, especially when other people are relying on it. Using this method tho I’ve also built cool things, one recently is the platform I built is the best converting one in the entire industry. On that project there is a massive team on the other side but the platform itself was also just built by me alone without much starting info to go off of other than a few multi hour brain dump calls. One thing my PhD friend I mentioned pointed out is that Feynman was a creative learner I think. It helped me feel better that it’s not a “wrong” way of thinking or stupid way if other people out there that high up might share similar ways of thinking more creatively. Of course it’s not exactly everything I describe to a T, I’m not saying that, but threads of it. Hopefully none of what I wrote sounds insulting or arrogant to anyone. I fully acknowledge that domain knowledge is what moves world forward in many ways.

chaos_emergent 3y ago

Given that this is an online forum, another advantage is that a conversational trail is left for others to discover. The inferences these types of individuals make are often based on a structure of knowledge and reality that others share, so the most common preconceived and incorrect notions tend to have the most documentation on how to ameliorate the incorrectness (given that these individuals are allowed to state their inferences out loud).

doctor_eval 3y ago
This had got to be the best thread I’ve ever (inadvertently) started.
- refulgentis 3y ago
  Its a good thread, particularly Exuma's comment, but a memento mori from the root node: My one word "Source?" meant: "You are adding a new episode of fictional info to a discussion about fictional info." Even in that fictional world the post was wrong. Even if it was right in some allegorical sense, the simplistic allegory adds nothing. "Mixture of experts is like a group of experts where you pick the right expert to ask a question" isn't some hard-won cross-domain self-taught knowledge. It's something a bright 6th grader would pull off. The self-taught feeling-stuff-out stuff matters when you're making useful connections that get practical results. When you're just wiring stuff together online, and the wiring together is meaningless, you're doing nothing and taking the consequences of the negative signals
- natpalmer1776 3y ago
  I have quite deeply enjoyed this thread myself. Thanks :)

Exuma 3y ago

You have clarified something I have always thought about very intensely and deeply but haven’t really ever read anyone else who understands that so well or rather put it into words so clearly. I’m an inferenced based learner to an extreme and it definitely has many upsides and also downsides. The upsides are being able to learn extremely rapidly by making connections between pieces of information where there’s gaps and then using a sort of heuristic detection like a compass to feel out which gaps need filled in most. Then, I follow that trail down, regardless of how hard or complex it is to the bottom just to the point where it accomplishes what I need (whether it is statistics, machine learning, transaction isolation that I've learned for the 50th time...). Another upside is significant abstract thinking ability, and sometimes it feels like looking at a maze from overhead. I’ve built over 100+ projects over close to 30,000 hours of programming over like 15 years The downside is always when I’m around strong people of the other type I get the sense they don’t respect this style of learning sometimes. It comes through in their words, tone, subtle body language cues. My friend, who is very very much the other type with a PhD in something very hard I don’t remember … algorithms and data structures or something, said it’s because I don’t value domain knowledge. He said if you spent an entire life building say, a database, you would not consider that a life worth lived. I laughed cause that makes me sound like an asshole but the more I thought about it the more it’s clear that I actually agree somehow. As if information on its own as a means to an end is not fulfilling to me. To me it feels like efficiency, creativity and and moving from A to B very rapidly while hierarchically organizing a massive amount of chaotic information is engrained in my DNA but just simply getting the correct, deepest domain knowledge possible is not appealing to me at all. I sort of will go to the depths that’s needed then go elsewhere. I’m VERY thankful for those people though as that’s where a lot if not most of progress is made. It has been an internal paradox for most of my life where I can’t figure out if I’m smart or stupid. I have built companies completely on my own on the tech side where one made over 10m and another made over 200m revenue. I’ve been told I built some things entire teams were not capable of doing on another project.., this gives me signals that I’m smart. Then other things like getting an F on this hard programming interview from my first employer who is genius level Harvard graduate academic style domain knowledge style person. It made me feel completely idiotic. There are many other times and situations where I often think I’m wired weird where it “feels” like I’m stupid. This over the years I’ve accepted this paradox but it wasn’t until this domain knowledge piece or the creativity aspect that made me finally just accept it as ok and not something wrong with me. The hardest part is VERY often being misunderstood. So much of it that I often have to expend an exhausting amount of time when working with new teams to say “how I think” because like a fortune teller I can always predict what will be misperceived, and even when I say it up front it usually happens anyway. This is why trust is paramount with my business partners. They know I’m extremely eccentric so to speak but they “trust the process” when I lock myself in a room for 30 days and come out with an amazing piece of tech that was built purely on raw intuition. The other part that often made me feel stupid is despite its upsides this way of thinking often is exhausting because I don’t usually rely on past experiences ti make decisions. Each situation is different. So even if I’ve done something new 30 times I will feel this “stepping into unknown” feeling which takes great willpower and courage to repeatedly, especially when other people are relying on it. Using this method tho I’ve also built cool things, one recently is the platform I built is the best converting one in the entire industry. On that project there is a massive team on the other side but the platform itself was also just built by me alone without much starting info to go off of other than a few multi hour brain dump calls. One thing my PhD friend I mentioned pointed out is that Feynman was a creative learner I think. It helped me feel better that it’s not a “wrong” way of thinking or stupid way if other people out there that high up might share similar ways of thinking more creatively. Of course it’s not exactly everything I describe to a T, I’m not saying that, but threads of it. Hopefully none of what I wrote sounds insulting or arrogant to anyone. I fully acknowledge that domain knowledge is what moves world forward in many ways.