Vague thought: it is very bad when important scientists die (in the general sense, including mathematicians and cmputer scientists). I recently learned that von Neumann died at age 54 of cancer. I think it’s no exaggeration to say that von Neumann was one of the most influential scientists in history and that keeping him alive even 10 years more would have been of incredible benefit to humankind.
Seems like a problem worth solving. Proposed solution: create an organization which periodically offers grants to the most influential / important scientists (or maybe just the most influential / important people period), only instead of money they get a team of personal assistants who take care of their health and various unimportant things in their lives (e.g. paperwork). This team would work to maximize the health and happiness of the scientist so that they can live longer and do more science. Thoughts?
As I understand it, Stephen Hawking’s words-per-minute in writing is excruciatingly slow, and as a result I recall seeing in a documentary that he has a graduate student whose job is to watch as he is writing and to complete his sentences/paragraphs, at which point Hawking says ‘yes’ or ‘no’. I would think that over time this person would develop an extremely well-developed mental Hawking...
Emulators are slow due to being on different hardware than the device they are emulating. If you’re also on inferior hardware to the device you’re trying to emulate, it will be very slow.
That said, even a very slow Hawking emulator is a pretty cool thing to have.
It is unclear whether the intellectual output of eminent scientists is best increased by prolonging their lives through existing medical technology, rather than by increasing their productivity through time-management, sleep-optimization or other techniques. Maybe the goal of your proposed organization would be better achieved by paying someone like David Allen to teach the von Neumanns of today how to be more productive. (MIRI did something similar to this when it hired Kaj Sotala to watch Eliezer Yudkowsky as he worked on his book.)
Von Neumann himself, I believe, had poor work habits; maybe the goal of your proposed organization is better achieved by paying someone like David Allen to teach the von Neumanns of today how to be more productive.
There is something comically presumptuous about this statement. Von Neumann had very unusual work habits (he liked noise and distraction). He was also phenomenally productive (how many branches of mathematics have YOU helped invent?)
Given that he was (A) smarter and (B) more successful than any life coach you are likely to find, I would be surprised if this sort of coaching added value.
I deleted the remark about von Neumann while you were composing your reply, after a quick Google search revealed no support for it. (I seem to remember a quote by von Neumann himself where he lamented that his lack of focus had prevented him from being much more productive as a scientist, but this is a very vague memory and I’m now unwilling to rest any claims on it.) For what is worth, here are some relevant remarks on von Neumann’s work habits by Herman Goldstine, which contradict my earlier (and now retracted) statement:
His work habits were very methodical. He would get up in the morning, and go to the Nassau Club to have breakfast. And then from the Nassau Club he’d come to the Institute around nine, nine-thirty, work until lunch, have lunch, and then work until, say, five, and then go on home. Many evenings he would entertain. Usually a few of us, maybe my wife and me. We would just sit around, and he might not even sit in the same room. He had a little study that opened off of the living room, and he would just sit in there sometimes. He would listen, and if something interested him, he would interrupt. Otherwise he would work away. [...] So those were his work habits. He was a very methodical worker. Everytime he thought about something, he wrote it down in great detail. There was nothing rough or unpolished. Everything got written down either in the form of a letter or a memorandum.
Anyone who has managed to become an eminent scientist is probably doing a pretty good job at things like time management. Since maintaining healthy habits is not a prerequisite for attaining eminence, that is more likely to be an area where they’re lacking.
Perhaps the word “eminent” was inappropriate: I meant, more generally, people with the ability to produce extremely valuable intellectual work and who have to some degree already produced that kind of work. This description could apply to people who haven’t attained eminence in the traditional sense, but have still demonstrated the required brilliance. Eliezer is, again, a good example: he says, I believe, that he does serious work for only a couple of hours per day (I’m not entirely sure about this, and I’m happy to be corrected), and is as such someone who could benefit from a productivity or time-management coach. Another example that comes to mind is Saul Kripke, who is widely regarded as one of the smartest philosophers alive and the author of one of the most influential philosophical works of the past century (Naming and Necessity), and yet has produced very little output in large part because of lack of discipline.
“Most influential/important scientists” would likely tell this organization exactly where to go and how fast. They are usually not short on cash and can handle their own affairs. Or their partners/secretaries do that already. Some eccentric ones might not, but they are even more likely to reject this “help”.
I am also wondering whom you would name as top 5 or so “important scientists”?
My thoughts exactly. Most of the high-level mathematicians I know are loathe to off-load their travel arrangements onto the department travel agent, even though the process is more efficient.
They are usually not short on cash and can handle their own affairs.
Maybe, but this isn’t their comparative advantage. They could spend some time becoming an expert on health, but it makes much more sense to have a health expert take care of the health stuff. I expect there are enough trivial inconveniences along the way that even academics with the money don’t do this, and that seems very bad.
Or their partners/secretaries do that already.
I see no particular reason that the partner of an influential scientist ought to be particularly knowledgeable about health. And do academics even have personal secretaries anymore? I haven’t observed any such people in my limited experience in academia so far.
I am also wondering whom you would name as top 5 or so “important scientists”?
A more straightforward approach: Give a prize to every leading scientist who reach 70, 80, and 90 years of age. It is counter-intuitive, but it seems that monetary incentives do actually influence people’s mortality. Source: I remember reading this somewhere, so it must be true.
Isn’t there a known phenomenon where, for example, where Nobel prize winners get significantly less productive after they win their prizes? Is it really true that the marginal benefit of keeping old scientists alive longer would be that great?
Maybe. Feynman talks about scientists getting less productive once they move to the IAS. But 10 years of a less productive von Neumann still beats 10 years of a dead one, I think. (Edit: It’s less clear whether 10 years of a productive von Neumann and then 10 years of a dead von Neumann beats 20 years of a less productive von Neumann, I guess.)
It’s an interesting coincidence that JvN had both eidetic memory and extraordinary powers of mental computation. Given Hans Bethe: “I have sometimes wondered whether a brain like von Neumann’s does not indicate a species superior to that of man”, does anyone think maybe von Neumann had some kind of unusual hardware-level brain mutation that simultaneously made him super smart and super-good at remembering things? (Any interesting implications for the basis of human intelligence differences and thus the intelligence explosion?) Or was it the combination of extreme memory powers and computational powers that allowed JvN to achieve such fame in the first place?
This seems to be effectively what universities and research groups do. Providing administrative assistance, psychological support etc. to specialist researchers. (While they don’t normally provide medical care themselves they often pay for health insurance.)
What would your proposed organisation do that they don’t?
It would be aggressively personalized, e.g. I don’t think even universities and research groups will just straight up do your taxes or plan your meals.
Would important scientists still do science at the same level of quality if all their stuff was aggressively personalized? I can think of a couple of mechanisms that might kick in. They might work harder because they feel like they have to match the help they’re receiving in scientific output. But they might also take the assistance as a sign that they’re great and valuable and start slacking off, like … divas?
Also, from what I’ve seen/read, I think Japanese culture has this type of system for elders/experts in various fields. Maybe it applies to scientists?
Like if the scientists get their best thinking done while chopping carrots or something?
I was about to write about how it might feel weird to have someone else do tasks that you’re perfectly capable of doing. Or maybe scientists might feel used (objectified?) that society only values them for their output if there’s assistants constantly yanking away any non-science and saying, “Sir, please get back to your work!” But then I realized that this could be overcome by having the scientists decide on exactly which chores need to be done. However, that leads to the overhead of explaining to someone how you want something done, which is sometimes more annoying than just doing it yourself.
It could be anything. I know a mathematician who took advice from a very emphatic writer about not being perfectionistic about editing. This is not bad advice for commercial writers, though I don’t think it necessarily applies to all of them. The problem is that being extremely picky is part of the mathematician’s process for writing papers. IIRC, the result was two years without him finishing any papers.
Or there’s the story about Erdos, who ran on low doses of amphetamines. A friend of his asked him to go a month without the amphetamine, and he did, but didn’t get any math done during that month.
It’s possible that the net effect of some sort of adviser could be good, whether for a particular scientist or for scientists in general, but it’s not guaranteed.
Vague thought: it is very bad when important scientists die (in the general sense, including mathematicians and cmputer scientists). I recently learned that von Neumann died at age 54 of cancer. I think it’s no exaggeration to say that von Neumann was one of the most influential scientists in history and that keeping him alive even 10 years more would have been of incredible benefit to humankind.
Seems like a problem worth solving. Proposed solution: create an organization which periodically offers grants to the most influential / important scientists (or maybe just the most influential / important people period), only instead of money they get a team of personal assistants who take care of their health and various unimportant things in their lives (e.g. paperwork). This team would work to maximize the health and happiness of the scientist so that they can live longer and do more science. Thoughts?
Only tangentially related vague thought:
As I understand it, Stephen Hawking’s words-per-minute in writing is excruciatingly slow, and as a result I recall seeing in a documentary that he has a graduate student whose job is to watch as he is writing and to complete his sentences/paragraphs, at which point Hawking says ‘yes’ or ‘no’. I would think that over time this person would develop an extremely well-developed mental Hawking...
Emulators are slow due to being on different hardware than the device they are emulating. If you’re also on inferior hardware to the device you’re trying to emulate, it will be very slow.
That said, even a very slow Hawking emulator is a pretty cool thing to have.
It is unclear whether the intellectual output of eminent scientists is best increased by prolonging their lives through existing medical technology, rather than by increasing their productivity through time-management, sleep-optimization or other techniques. Maybe the goal of your proposed organization would be better achieved by paying someone like David Allen to teach the von Neumanns of today how to be more productive. (MIRI did something similar to this when it hired Kaj Sotala to watch Eliezer Yudkowsky as he worked on his book.)
There is something comically presumptuous about this statement. Von Neumann had very unusual work habits (he liked noise and distraction). He was also phenomenally productive (how many branches of mathematics have YOU helped invent?)
Given that he was (A) smarter and (B) more successful than any life coach you are likely to find, I would be surprised if this sort of coaching added value.
I deleted the remark about von Neumann while you were composing your reply, after a quick Google search revealed no support for it. (I seem to remember a quote by von Neumann himself where he lamented that his lack of focus had prevented him from being much more productive as a scientist, but this is a very vague memory and I’m now unwilling to rest any claims on it.) For what is worth, here are some relevant remarks on von Neumann’s work habits by Herman Goldstine, which contradict my earlier (and now retracted) statement:
Ah. The thing I thought you had in mind is that he liked to work in a noisy distracting environment. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann#Personal_life) Which wouldn’t work for most people, but evidently did for him.
Anyone who has managed to become an eminent scientist is probably doing a pretty good job at things like time management. Since maintaining healthy habits is not a prerequisite for attaining eminence, that is more likely to be an area where they’re lacking.
Perhaps the word “eminent” was inappropriate: I meant, more generally, people with the ability to produce extremely valuable intellectual work and who have to some degree already produced that kind of work. This description could apply to people who haven’t attained eminence in the traditional sense, but have still demonstrated the required brilliance. Eliezer is, again, a good example: he says, I believe, that he does serious work for only a couple of hours per day (I’m not entirely sure about this, and I’m happy to be corrected), and is as such someone who could benefit from a productivity or time-management coach. Another example that comes to mind is Saul Kripke, who is widely regarded as one of the smartest philosophers alive and the author of one of the most influential philosophical works of the past century (Naming and Necessity), and yet has produced very little output in large part because of lack of discipline.
“Most influential/important scientists” would likely tell this organization exactly where to go and how fast. They are usually not short on cash and can handle their own affairs. Or their partners/secretaries do that already. Some eccentric ones might not, but they are even more likely to reject this “help”.
I am also wondering whom you would name as top 5 or so “important scientists”?
My thoughts exactly. Most of the high-level mathematicians I know are loathe to off-load their travel arrangements onto the department travel agent, even though the process is more efficient.
This, about pursuing varied movement, might offer intrinsic motivation to a few.
Maybe, but this isn’t their comparative advantage. They could spend some time becoming an expert on health, but it makes much more sense to have a health expert take care of the health stuff. I expect there are enough trivial inconveniences along the way that even academics with the money don’t do this, and that seems very bad.
I see no particular reason that the partner of an influential scientist ought to be particularly knowledgeable about health. And do academics even have personal secretaries anymore? I haven’t observed any such people in my limited experience in academia so far.
Dunno. This is out of my domain.
If they have an administrative position, yes.
A more straightforward approach: Give a prize to every leading scientist who reach 70, 80, and 90 years of age. It is counter-intuitive, but it seems that monetary incentives do actually influence people’s mortality. Source: I remember reading this somewhere, so it must be true.
Isn’t there a known phenomenon where, for example, where Nobel prize winners get significantly less productive after they win their prizes? Is it really true that the marginal benefit of keeping old scientists alive longer would be that great?
Isn’t that more a case of reversion to the mean, with the implication that it’s more a random variable than anything else?
Maybe. Feynman talks about scientists getting less productive once they move to the IAS. But 10 years of a less productive von Neumann still beats 10 years of a dead one, I think. (Edit: It’s less clear whether 10 years of a productive von Neumann and then 10 years of a dead von Neumann beats 20 years of a less productive von Neumann, I guess.)
It’s an interesting coincidence that JvN had both eidetic memory and extraordinary powers of mental computation. Given Hans Bethe: “I have sometimes wondered whether a brain like von Neumann’s does not indicate a species superior to that of man”, does anyone think maybe von Neumann had some kind of unusual hardware-level brain mutation that simultaneously made him super smart and super-good at remembering things? (Any interesting implications for the basis of human intelligence differences and thus the intelligence explosion?) Or was it the combination of extreme memory powers and computational powers that allowed JvN to achieve such fame in the first place?
Also, how hard would it be to harvest genetic material from von Neumann’s grave and create a zombie von Neumann? Edit: wait, looks like he might have had some worrisome views on nukes. Though is that just hindsight bias on my part?
This seems to be effectively what universities and research groups do. Providing administrative assistance, psychological support etc. to specialist researchers. (While they don’t normally provide medical care themselves they often pay for health insurance.)
What would your proposed organisation do that they don’t?
It would be aggressively personalized, e.g. I don’t think even universities and research groups will just straight up do your taxes or plan your meals.
Would important scientists still do science at the same level of quality if all their stuff was aggressively personalized? I can think of a couple of mechanisms that might kick in. They might work harder because they feel like they have to match the help they’re receiving in scientific output. But they might also take the assistance as a sign that they’re great and valuable and start slacking off, like … divas?
Also, from what I’ve seen/read, I think Japanese culture has this type of system for elders/experts in various fields. Maybe it applies to scientists?
Another risk is that what the helpers think is good for the scientist actually interferes with the scientists’ work.
Like if the scientists get their best thinking done while chopping carrots or something?
I was about to write about how it might feel weird to have someone else do tasks that you’re perfectly capable of doing. Or maybe scientists might feel used (objectified?) that society only values them for their output if there’s assistants constantly yanking away any non-science and saying, “Sir, please get back to your work!” But then I realized that this could be overcome by having the scientists decide on exactly which chores need to be done. However, that leads to the overhead of explaining to someone how you want something done, which is sometimes more annoying than just doing it yourself.
It could be anything. I know a mathematician who took advice from a very emphatic writer about not being perfectionistic about editing. This is not bad advice for commercial writers, though I don’t think it necessarily applies to all of them. The problem is that being extremely picky is part of the mathematician’s process for writing papers. IIRC, the result was two years without him finishing any papers.
Or there’s the story about Erdos, who ran on low doses of amphetamines. A friend of his asked him to go a month without the amphetamine, and he did, but didn’t get any math done during that month.
It’s possible that the net effect of some sort of adviser could be good, whether for a particular scientist or for scientists in general, but it’s not guaranteed.
Oh, but some of them are such excellent company! Feynmann was such a charming raconteur when he came to visit in 1989...
I know I shouldn’t encourage novelty roleplaying accounts; but Feynman visiting Gensokyo is now canon for me.
(Now, with whom shall I ship him...)
A certain kappa comes to mind.