Experts like Yoshua Bengio have deep mental models of their field that allow them to systematically evaluate new ideas and understand barriers, while most others lack such models and rely more on trial and error.
Impostor syndrome may be correct in that most people genuinely don’t have deep understanding of their work in the way experts do, even if they are still skilled compared to others in their field.
Progress can still be made through random experimentation if a field has abundant opportunities and good feedback loops, even without deep understanding.
Claiming nobody understands anything provides emotional comfort but isn’t true—understanding varies significantly between experts and novices.
The real problem with impostor syndrome is the pressure to pretend one understands more than they do.
People should be transparent about what they don’t know and actively work to develop deeper mental models through experience.
The goal should be learning, not just obtaining credentials, by paying attention to what works and debugging failures.
Have long-term goals and evaluate work in terms of progress towards those goals.
Over time, actively working to understand one’s field leads to developing expertise rather than feeling like an impostor.
Widespread pretending of understanding enables a “civilizational LARP” that discourages truly learning one’s profession.
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/nt8PmADqKMaZLZGTC/inside-views-impostor-syndrome-and-the-great-larp
Experts like Yoshua Bengio have deep mental models of their field that allow them to systematically evaluate new ideas and understand barriers, while most others lack such models and rely more on trial and error.
Impostor syndrome may be correct in that most people genuinely don’t have deep understanding of their work in the way experts do, even if they are still skilled compared to others in their field.
Progress can still be made through random experimentation if a field has abundant opportunities and good feedback loops, even without deep understanding.
Claiming nobody understands anything provides emotional comfort but isn’t true—understanding varies significantly between experts and novices.
The real problem with impostor syndrome is the pressure to pretend one understands more than they do.
People should be transparent about what they don’t know and actively work to develop deeper mental models through experience.
The goal should be learning, not just obtaining credentials, by paying attention to what works and debugging failures.
Have long-term goals and evaluate work in terms of progress towards those goals.
Over time, actively working to understand one’s field leads to developing expertise rather than feeling like an impostor.
Widespread pretending of understanding enables a “civilizational LARP” that discourages truly learning one’s profession.