I’m curious what your read of the history is, here? My impression is that most important paradigm-forming work so far has involved empirical feedback somehow, but often in ways exceedingly dissimilar from/illegible to prevailing scientific and engineering practice.
I have a hard time imagining scientists like e.g. Darwin, Carnot, or Shannon describing their work as depending much on “immediate feedback loops with present day” systems.
Thanks for the comment @Adam Scholl and apologies for not addressing it sooner, it was on my list but then time flew. I think we’re in qualitative agreement that non-paradigmatic research tends to have empirical feedback loops, and that the forms and methods of empirical engagement undergo qualitative changes in the formation of paradigms. I suspect we may have quantitative disagreements with how illegible these methods were to previous practitioners, but I don’t expect that to be super cruxy.
The position which I would argue against is that the issue of empirical access to ASI necessitates long bouts of philosophical thinking prior to empirical engagement and theorization. The position which I would argue for is that there is significant (and depending on the crowd undervalued) benefit to be gained for conceptual innovation by having research communities which value quick and empirical feedback loops. I’m not an expert on either of these historical periods, but I would be surprised to hear that Carnot or Shannon did not meaningfully benefit from engaging with the practical industrial advancements of their day.
Giving my full models is out of scope for a comment and would take a sequence which I’ll probably never write, but the 3 history and philosophy of science references which have had the greatest impact on my thinking around empiricism which I tend to point people towards would probably be Inventing Temperature, Exploratory Experiments, and Representing and Intervening.
So I’m curious whether you think PIBBSS would admit researchers like these into your program, were they around and pursuing similar strategies today?
In short I would say yes, because I don’t believe the criteria listed above excludes the researchers which you called attention to. But independently of whether you buy into that claim, I would stress that different programs have different mechanisms of admission. The affiliateship as it’s currently being run is designed for lower variance and is incidentally more tightly correlated with the research tastes of myself and the horizon scanning team given that these are the folks providing the support for it. The summer fellowship is designed for higher variance and goes through a longer admission process involving a selection committee, with the final decisions falling on mentors.
Thanks for the comment @Adam Scholl and apologies for not addressing it sooner, it was on my list but then time flew. I think we’re in qualitative agreement that non-paradigmatic research tends to have empirical feedback loops, and that the forms and methods of empirical engagement undergo qualitative changes in the formation of paradigms. I suspect we may have quantitative disagreements with how illegible these methods were to previous practitioners, but I don’t expect that to be super cruxy.
The position which I would argue against is that the issue of empirical access to ASI necessitates long bouts of philosophical thinking prior to empirical engagement and theorization. The position which I would argue for is that there is significant (and depending on the crowd undervalued) benefit to be gained for conceptual innovation by having research communities which value quick and empirical feedback loops. I’m not an expert on either of these historical periods, but I would be surprised to hear that Carnot or Shannon did not meaningfully benefit from engaging with the practical industrial advancements of their day.
Giving my full models is out of scope for a comment and would take a sequence which I’ll probably never write, but the 3 history and philosophy of science references which have had the greatest impact on my thinking around empiricism which I tend to point people towards would probably be Inventing Temperature, Exploratory Experiments, and Representing and Intervening.
In short I would say yes, because I don’t believe the criteria listed above excludes the researchers which you called attention to. But independently of whether you buy into that claim, I would stress that different programs have different mechanisms of admission. The affiliateship as it’s currently being run is designed for lower variance and is incidentally more tightly correlated with the research tastes of myself and the horizon scanning team given that these are the folks providing the support for it. The summer fellowship is designed for higher variance and goes through a longer admission process involving a selection committee, with the final decisions falling on mentors.