So how does it work, in your opinion? Because “I may not be as brilliant as Jaynes or Conway, but that doesn’t mean I can’t do important things in my chosen field,” sounds suspiciously similar to how Hamming asserts that it works in “You and Your Research.” I guess you have a different belief about how doing important things in your chosen field works, but I don’t see that you’ve explained that belief here or anywhere else that I’ve seen.
I don’t suppose Marcello is related to Nadja and Josh Herreshoff?
I don’t know if it helps, but while I’ve appreciated the things I’ve learned from you, my limited interaction with you hasn’t made me think you’re the brightest person I know. I think of you as more or less at my level — maybe a couple of standard deviations above or below, I can’t really tell. Certainly you’re sharp enough that I’d enjoy hanging out with you. (Let me know the next time you’re in Argentina.)
P.S. the impugnment of your notability has now been removed from your Wikipedia page, apparently as a result of people citing you in their papers.
I too would like to hear “how it works,” because if I don’t know how Eliezer thinks it works, it just sounds like he’s defining the problem of Being a Great Researcher in the most intimidating way possible. Whatever way that may be. Inflating the problem like that is bad practice, for much the same reason that cheap gestures of humility are bad practice.
I’m commenting on a two-year-old post, so I guess I shouldn’t expect a response, but this post is linked from the getting-started page, so I was a bit disappointed that it ended with what looks a lot like a handwave at humility.
So how does it work, in your opinion? Because “I may not be as brilliant as Jaynes or Conway, but that doesn’t mean I can’t do important things in my chosen field,” sounds suspiciously similar to how Hamming asserts that it works in “You and Your Research.” I guess you have a different belief about how doing important things in your chosen field works, but I don’t see that you’ve explained that belief here or anywhere else that I’ve seen.
I don’t suppose Marcello is related to Nadja and Josh Herreshoff?
I don’t know if it helps, but while I’ve appreciated the things I’ve learned from you, my limited interaction with you hasn’t made me think you’re the brightest person I know. I think of you as more or less at my level — maybe a couple of standard deviations above or below, I can’t really tell. Certainly you’re sharp enough that I’d enjoy hanging out with you. (Let me know the next time you’re in Argentina.)
P.S. the impugnment of your notability has now been removed from your Wikipedia page, apparently as a result of people citing you in their papers.
I too would like to hear “how it works,” because if I don’t know how Eliezer thinks it works, it just sounds like he’s defining the problem of Being a Great Researcher in the most intimidating way possible. Whatever way that may be. Inflating the problem like that is bad practice, for much the same reason that cheap gestures of humility are bad practice.
I’m commenting on a two-year-old post, so I guess I shouldn’t expect a response, but this post is linked from the getting-started page, so I was a bit disappointed that it ended with what looks a lot like a handwave at humility.