I agree with the general principle, it’s just that, my impression is that most scientists have asked themselves this question and made more or less reasonable decisions regarding it, with respect to the scale of importance prevalent in the academia. From my (moderate amount of) experience, most scientists would love to crack the biggest problem in their field if they think they have a good shot at it.
So, I’m not actually sure. I’m taking at face value that there *was* a guy who went around asking the question, and that it was fairly unusual and provoked weird enough reactions to become somewhat mythological. (Although I wouldn’t be that surprised if the mythology turned out to be be false).
But it’s not that surprising to me that many people would end up working on some random thing because it was expedient, or without having reflected much on what they should be working on at all. These seems to be the way people are by default.
I think the first version that reached me through the rationality sphere had Hamming asking the all the questions on the same day.
A bit later there was a local rationalist who got a different version of the story through family connection and a Bell labs source. In that story Hamming asked “What’s the most important question” in week 1, “What are you working on?” in week 2 and “Why isn’t that the same?” in week 3.
Or, “it’s too hard”. Or, “I don’t think I am good enough”. Or plenty of other excuses that are not necessarily a good reason for not doing the thing.
The point is not to have an answer, but to ask the question and to check.
You are not smarter for having the answer, you are smarter for asking the question.
I agree with the general principle, it’s just that, my impression is that most scientists have asked themselves this question and made more or less reasonable decisions regarding it, with respect to the scale of importance prevalent in the academia. From my (moderate amount of) experience, most scientists would love to crack the biggest problem in their field if they think they have a good shot at it.
So, I’m not actually sure. I’m taking at face value that there *was* a guy who went around asking the question, and that it was fairly unusual and provoked weird enough reactions to become somewhat mythological. (Although I wouldn’t be that surprised if the mythology turned out to be be false).
But it’s not that surprising to me that many people would end up working on some random thing because it was expedient, or without having reflected much on what they should be working on at all. These seems to be the way people are by default.
The way I understand it, Hamming was a real guy doing real annoying questions in Bell labs.
That’s my understanding too, I just wouldn’t be that surprised if that story went through a few games of telephone before it reached us.
I think the first version that reached me through the rationality sphere had Hamming asking the all the questions on the same day.
A bit later there was a local rationalist who got a different version of the story through family connection and a Bell labs source. In that story Hamming asked “What’s the most important question” in week 1, “What are you working on?” in week 2 and “Why isn’t that the same?” in week 3.
(Pun intended? The former name of Bell Labs, and so on...)
Oh lol. No, unfortunately.