Yeah, essentially what I’m arguing (poorly) in the OP is that “surprise is necessary for real understanding” is … well, not exactly wrong, but creating some cargo-cult behaviors which are not strictly necessary.
Taking the RL vs imitation idea from the OP, it’s like people have a concept of RL as an important type of learning, but it’s making them think that they have to stub their toe at some point, otherwise they’ll never learn to avoid furniture properly. You don’t necessarily have to personally stub your toe. Trying problems is a pretty good way to test how “fake” your understanding is if you’re unsure. But there are other ways to notice this, and other remedies. It seems to me that people put trial-and-error learning up on a bit of a pedestal when thinking about things like this.
Yeah, essentially what I’m arguing (poorly) in the OP is that “surprise is necessary for real understanding” is … well, not exactly wrong, but creating some cargo-cult behaviors which are not strictly necessary.
Taking the RL vs imitation idea from the OP, it’s like people have a concept of RL as an important type of learning, but it’s making them think that they have to stub their toe at some point, otherwise they’ll never learn to avoid furniture properly. You don’t necessarily have to personally stub your toe. Trying problems is a pretty good way to test how “fake” your understanding is if you’re unsure. But there are other ways to notice this, and other remedies. It seems to me that people put trial-and-error learning up on a bit of a pedestal when thinking about things like this.