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An interesting subject. Elon Musk has been saying that it's important to reason from first principles and not by analogy. A lot of reasoning in startup world se
by dirtyaura 14y ago
An interesting subject. Elon Musk has been saying that it's important to reason from first principles and not by analogy. A lot of reasoning in startup world seems to be by analogy - the epitome being "AirBnB for Cars" type of elevator pitches.
- Evbn 14y agoAnalogy is inspiration, not proof.
- rsync 14y agoSomewhere in this comment, and in the first principles vs. analogy dichotomy, is the dichotomy showcased in the book/film "Moneyball". Something has always bothered me about it. Something like ... is it better for a human to make a wrong decision than it is for a machine to make a right one ? Perhaps "it depends" ? If so, what is the threshold ? How wrong does a human decision have to be to be inferior to a machine decision ? The same thing is showing up in Talebs _Antifragile_ ... he argues quite clearly for analogy, and skewers decision making from first principles. It troubles me somehow...
- erikpukinskis 14y agoI was just watching a talk by him where he clearly says that it's impossible to do this all the time, that you would go insane without using analogical thinking all day. But that it's a useful exercise when you are trying to sit down and find an innovative solution to a problem.