I gather from your posts that you have metaphysical views which make you believe that solving the FAI problem is the most important thing you should be doing.
But is it really that important that you are the one to bring this work to fruition?
Do you think your life will have been unfulfilled, or your opportunity wasted, if you don’t finish this, and finish it as soon as you can?
Would building an exceptional foundation, which future exceptional people can improve on, not be achievement enough?
What does it matter how smart you are, if you are doing what you love, and giving it your best effort?
Perhaps it is the fear of being too late that is causing you distress. Perhaps you fear that humanity is going to be destroyed because you didn’t build an FAI soon enough. Perhaps you fear that your life will end some 10,000 years sooner than you’d like.
But it is not your responsibility to save the world. It can be fun if you contribute to the effort. But planets are a dime a dozen, and lives are even cheaper than that. We are not really that important. No one is. In the grand scheme of things, our dramas and concerns are lightweight fun.
One of the problems of always being the top banana is that you never learn to realize that you don’t have to be the top banana to be fulfilled in your life.
There’s no need to worry so much about being on Jaynes’s or Conway’s level. Do what you do best, and do it because it’s fun. If you’ve been given what it takes, then this is the fastest way to become the master of your field. And even if you didn’t have what it takes—which in your case is unlikely—you would still be making a contribution and having fun.
Eliezer,
what’s with the ego?
In other words—why are you so driven?
I gather from your posts that you have metaphysical views which make you believe that solving the FAI problem is the most important thing you should be doing.
But is it really that important that you are the one to bring this work to fruition?
Do you think your life will have been unfulfilled, or your opportunity wasted, if you don’t finish this, and finish it as soon as you can?
Would building an exceptional foundation, which future exceptional people can improve on, not be achievement enough?
What does it matter how smart you are, if you are doing what you love, and giving it your best effort?
Perhaps it is the fear of being too late that is causing you distress. Perhaps you fear that humanity is going to be destroyed because you didn’t build an FAI soon enough. Perhaps you fear that your life will end some 10,000 years sooner than you’d like.
But it is not your responsibility to save the world. It can be fun if you contribute to the effort. But planets are a dime a dozen, and lives are even cheaper than that. We are not really that important. No one is. In the grand scheme of things, our dramas and concerns are lightweight fun.
One of the problems of always being the top banana is that you never learn to realize that you don’t have to be the top banana to be fulfilled in your life.
There’s no need to worry so much about being on Jaynes’s or Conway’s level. Do what you do best, and do it because it’s fun. If you’ve been given what it takes, then this is the fastest way to become the master of your field. And even if you didn’t have what it takes—which in your case is unlikely—you would still be making a contribution and having fun.