I think it has to do with intellectual honesty. There’s a lot of highly intelligent people who are willing to accept the status quo, even if they are aware that it’s broken, and just move on with their life. Then there are some people who are just psychologically incapable of such “ignore it and move on” attitude. Interestingly, this applies across broad spectrum of disciplines.
Science: A former kind of person does all the steps from a scientific method textbook and move on with their research. The latter kind of person won’t be able to avoid thinking about why the method is as it is, whether its rationale matches their experiment, whether there are special circumstances that make the method inadequate and so on.
Engineering: The former type of person would just take existing tools and practices, glue them together and get a viable product. The latter kind of person will agonize over corner cases, whether there’s a fundamentally different way of doing the same thing, whether the design is internally consistent and so on.
Arts: The former type of person is a mannerist. They use the existing expressive repertoire of their time and use it to create viable art. The latter kind of person cannot avoid seeing the problems with the current style, trying different ways of addressing them, getting back to basics and so on. Think van Gogh, for example.
You seem to be claiming that it is a personality trait, something which influences how a person will interact with a broad variety of ideas and circumstances, which may or may not be true. Suggesting that it is a personality trait also comes with connotations that it would be hard to change, and may have origins in genetics or early childhood.
I’m somewhat skeptical of both claims. I suppose I think there is a broad personality factor which makes some difference, but for one person, it will tend to vary a lot from subject to subject, with potentially large (per-subject) variations throughout life (but especially around one’s teens perhaps).
Aren’t you describing obsessive-compulsiveness? Sure, it’s one possible path to a certain kind of creativity, but I don’t think it’s the happiest or most fruitful path. Sorry for being a bit harsh—I’m just afraid that calling it “intellectual honesty” might make people double down on their obsessive ways, when they could’ve been better off cultivating acceptance habits.
What Martin is describing might somewhat resemble OCD, without actually being OCD. Let’s just say that some degree of obsession seems related to the development of ideas, at least in some cases.
I did want to focus on the descriptive question rather than the normative question. It is possible that almost all intellectual progress comes from obsessive people, while it’s also “not the happiest or most fruitful path”. Do you think that’s wrong? If so, why do you think there are other common paths? I’m actually fairly skeptical of that. It seems very plausible that obsession is causally important.
For example, the Sequences or HPMOR don’t read like they were written in an obsessive headspace. They have plenty of free-wheeling moments, remember the bit about Greengrass of Sunshine?
I think Martin’s describing something more like “curiosity” than OCD. It’s not obsessing over the problem so much as finding the problem interesting, wondering whether there’s more to it, digging deeper.
Funny that I had exactly the same thought when writing the comment above: Isn’t that just OCD? But if you look at concrete examples, it doesn’t feel like that. Einstein? Incapable of accepting easy solutions? Yes. OCD? Probably not. Even van Gogh, despite the host of psychological problems, probably haven’t had OCD.
I think it has to do with intellectual honesty. There’s a lot of highly intelligent people who are willing to accept the status quo, even if they are aware that it’s broken, and just move on with their life. Then there are some people who are just psychologically incapable of such “ignore it and move on” attitude. Interestingly, this applies across broad spectrum of disciplines.
Science: A former kind of person does all the steps from a scientific method textbook and move on with their research. The latter kind of person won’t be able to avoid thinking about why the method is as it is, whether its rationale matches their experiment, whether there are special circumstances that make the method inadequate and so on.
Engineering: The former type of person would just take existing tools and practices, glue them together and get a viable product. The latter kind of person will agonize over corner cases, whether there’s a fundamentally different way of doing the same thing, whether the design is internally consistent and so on.
Arts: The former type of person is a mannerist. They use the existing expressive repertoire of their time and use it to create viable art. The latter kind of person cannot avoid seeing the problems with the current style, trying different ways of addressing them, getting back to basics and so on. Think van Gogh, for example.
You seem to be claiming that it is a personality trait, something which influences how a person will interact with a broad variety of ideas and circumstances, which may or may not be true. Suggesting that it is a personality trait also comes with connotations that it would be hard to change, and may have origins in genetics or early childhood.
I’m somewhat skeptical of both claims. I suppose I think there is a broad personality factor which makes some difference, but for one person, it will tend to vary a lot from subject to subject, with potentially large (per-subject) variations throughout life (but especially around one’s teens perhaps).
Aren’t you describing obsessive-compulsiveness? Sure, it’s one possible path to a certain kind of creativity, but I don’t think it’s the happiest or most fruitful path. Sorry for being a bit harsh—I’m just afraid that calling it “intellectual honesty” might make people double down on their obsessive ways, when they could’ve been better off cultivating acceptance habits.
What Martin is describing might somewhat resemble OCD, without actually being OCD. Let’s just say that some degree of obsession seems related to the development of ideas, at least in some cases.
I did want to focus on the descriptive question rather than the normative question. It is possible that almost all intellectual progress comes from obsessive people, while it’s also “not the happiest or most fruitful path”. Do you think that’s wrong? If so, why do you think there are other common paths? I’m actually fairly skeptical of that. It seems very plausible that obsession is causally important.
For example, the Sequences or HPMOR don’t read like they were written in an obsessive headspace. They have plenty of free-wheeling moments, remember the bit about Greengrass of Sunshine?
I think Martin’s describing something more like “curiosity” than OCD. It’s not obsessing over the problem so much as finding the problem interesting, wondering whether there’s more to it, digging deeper.
Funny that I had exactly the same thought when writing the comment above: Isn’t that just OCD? But if you look at concrete examples, it doesn’t feel like that. Einstein? Incapable of accepting easy solutions? Yes. OCD? Probably not. Even van Gogh, despite the host of psychological problems, probably haven’t had OCD.
The OP sounds like they’re (to some extent) talking about both the “former” and the “latter” though—why does anyone do anything at all?
Agreed.