Some of these are very good, others a little bit less so. Granted, they come from a Twitter feed and are therefore spur of the moment, but I’m going to point out a few I disagree with.
Test your hypothesis on simple cases.
I’m not sure this is always true. Ideally we should test in simple cases, but sometimes ruling out strange stuff requires using complicated cases. I’d prefer something like “Test your hypothesis on the simplest cases necessary to make a useful test.”
Forming your own opinion is no more necessary than building your own furniture.
I strongly disagree with this. At minimum, one needs to form opinions about which opinions to trust. If you are a good rationalist you can often trust within some confidence the consensus of experts in a field when you have no other data. But not forming opinions easily can let you get taken in by the wrong experts. And not having any opinions will paralyze you.
Thoughts about useless things are not necessarily useless thoughts.
This depends heavily on the definition of “useless”.
One of the successes of the Enlightenment is the distinction between beliefs and preferences.
One of the failures of the Enlightenment is the failure to distinguish whether this distinction is a belief or a preference.
I like these two a lot, and I’m going to steal them and use them. I’m not sure the second is completely accurate, certainly most major Enlightenment figures who thought about these issues would argue strongly that this distinction is not a preference.
Not all entities comply with attempts to reason formally about them. For instance, a human who feels insulted may bite you.
This one is very funny and another one I’m stealing. But I’m not sure there’s a substantial point here.
Edit and one more:
First eat the low-hanging fruit. Then eat all of the fruit. Then eat the tree.
I’m not sure I agree with this. If I have multiple trees it might be better to get all the low-hanging fruit before I move on to the higher level fruit in any tree. This is especially true because easy results in related fields can help us understand other fields better and help us in our fruit plucking on the nearby trees. Focusing on a single tree until all fruit has been removed is generally not doable in almost any field.
This depends heavily on the definition of “useless”.
Learning math sure isn’t useless, and it seems to mostly consist of thinking about useless or nonexistent things.
most major Enlightenment figures who thought about these issues would argue strongly that this distinction is not a preference.
Possible. I didn’t check the literature before posting that tweet. Anyway I think both encodings are possible to some extent. “You can’t derive ought from is” is a belief. “People should distinguish between beliefs and preferences” is a preference.
Not all entities comply with attempts to reason formally about them. For instance, a human who feels insulted may bite you.
This refers to a possible difficulty of introspection.
Learning math sure isn’t useless, and it seems to mostly consist of thinking about useless or nonexistent things.
I learned a lot of math (undergraduate major), and while it entertained me, it has been almost completely useless in my life. And the forms of math I believe to be most useful and wish I’d learned instead (statistics) are useful because they are so directly applicable to the real world.
What useful math have you learned that doesn’t involve reference to useful or existent things?
I’ve hypothesised before that learning math might be useful because a) you get lots of practice in understanding abstraction and how abstract objects can meaningfully be manipulated using rules, and b) you hopefully learn that proofs are nobody’s opinion. So basically a lot of practice in using basic logic. Neither of which require study of useful or existing things.
Though obviously it would be preferable if the actual content were about useful stuff as well, to get double the benefit, it’s not inherently useless.
Real analysis is the first thing that comes to mind. Linear algebra is the second thing.
Lately I’ve been thinking about if and how learning math can improve one’s thinking in seemingly unrelated areas. I should be able to report on my findings in a year or two.
Lately I’ve been thinking about if and how learning math can improve one’s thinking in seemingly unrelated areas.
This seems like a classic example of the standard fallacious defense of undirected research (that it might and sometimes does create serendipitous results)?
Yes, learning something useless/nonexistent might help you learn useful things about stuff that exists, but it seems awfully implausible that it helps you learn more useful things about existence than studying the useful and the existing. Doing the latter will also improve your thinking in seemingly unrelated areas...while having the benefit of not being useless.
If instead of learning the clever tricks of combinatorics as an undergraduate, I had learned useful math like statistics or algorithms, I think I would have had just as much mental exercise benefit and gotten a lot more value.
This depends heavily on the definition of “useless”.
The thought “I will not purchase this useless thing” is a thought about a useless thing, and it is not a useless thought. His formulation (“not necessarily”) means that technically, it doesn’t depend on the definition (given that you accept the previous example, of course).
If I have multiple trees it might be better to get all the low-hanging fruit before I move on to the higher level fruit in any tree
I actually parsed that quote as “Eat all the low-hanging fruit (in the orchard). Then eat all the fruit (in the orchard). Then eat the tree(s).” Well, not specifically thinking orchard, but I imagined running along a row of trees plucking all the low-hanging fruit, then returning for all the fruit, then shrugging and uprooting the trees.
Some of these are very good, others a little bit less so. Granted, they come from a Twitter feed and are therefore spur of the moment, but I’m going to point out a few I disagree with.
I’m not sure this is always true. Ideally we should test in simple cases, but sometimes ruling out strange stuff requires using complicated cases. I’d prefer something like “Test your hypothesis on the simplest cases necessary to make a useful test.”
I strongly disagree with this. At minimum, one needs to form opinions about which opinions to trust. If you are a good rationalist you can often trust within some confidence the consensus of experts in a field when you have no other data. But not forming opinions easily can let you get taken in by the wrong experts. And not having any opinions will paralyze you.
This depends heavily on the definition of “useless”.
I like these two a lot, and I’m going to steal them and use them. I’m not sure the second is completely accurate, certainly most major Enlightenment figures who thought about these issues would argue strongly that this distinction is not a preference.
This one is very funny and another one I’m stealing. But I’m not sure there’s a substantial point here.
Edit and one more:
I’m not sure I agree with this. If I have multiple trees it might be better to get all the low-hanging fruit before I move on to the higher level fruit in any tree. This is especially true because easy results in related fields can help us understand other fields better and help us in our fruit plucking on the nearby trees. Focusing on a single tree until all fruit has been removed is generally not doable in almost any field.
Learning math sure isn’t useless, and it seems to mostly consist of thinking about useless or nonexistent things.
Possible. I didn’t check the literature before posting that tweet. Anyway I think both encodings are possible to some extent. “You can’t derive ought from is” is a belief. “People should distinguish between beliefs and preferences” is a preference.
This refers to a possible difficulty of introspection.
I learned a lot of math (undergraduate major), and while it entertained me, it has been almost completely useless in my life. And the forms of math I believe to be most useful and wish I’d learned instead (statistics) are useful because they are so directly applicable to the real world.
What useful math have you learned that doesn’t involve reference to useful or existent things?
I’ve hypothesised before that learning math might be useful because a) you get lots of practice in understanding abstraction and how abstract objects can meaningfully be manipulated using rules, and b) you hopefully learn that proofs are nobody’s opinion. So basically a lot of practice in using basic logic. Neither of which require study of useful or existing things.
Though obviously it would be preferable if the actual content were about useful stuff as well, to get double the benefit, it’s not inherently useless.
Real analysis is the first thing that comes to mind. Linear algebra is the second thing.
Lately I’ve been thinking about if and how learning math can improve one’s thinking in seemingly unrelated areas. I should be able to report on my findings in a year or two.
This seems like a classic example of the standard fallacious defense of undirected research (that it might and sometimes does create serendipitous results)?
Yes, learning something useless/nonexistent might help you learn useful things about stuff that exists, but it seems awfully implausible that it helps you learn more useful things about existence than studying the useful and the existing. Doing the latter will also improve your thinking in seemingly unrelated areas...while having the benefit of not being useless.
If instead of learning the clever tricks of combinatorics as an undergraduate, I had learned useful math like statistics or algorithms, I think I would have had just as much mental exercise benefit and gotten a lot more value.
I first learned calculus using infinitesimals.
The thought “I will not purchase this useless thing” is a thought about a useless thing, and it is not a useless thought. His formulation (“not necessarily”) means that technically, it doesn’t depend on the definition (given that you accept the previous example, of course).
I actually parsed that quote as “Eat all the low-hanging fruit (in the orchard). Then eat all the fruit (in the orchard). Then eat the tree(s).” Well, not specifically thinking orchard, but I imagined running along a row of trees plucking all the low-hanging fruit, then returning for all the fruit, then shrugging and uprooting the trees.