It’s hard to nail down; it’d probably be a very long essay to even try.
And it’s not a perfect predictor, alas — just evidence.
But I believe there’s a certain way to spot “good reasoning” and “having thoroughly worked out the problem” from one’s writing. It’s not the smoothness of the words, nor the simplicity.
I’s hard to describe, but it seems somewhat consistently recognizable. Yudkowsky has it, incidentally.
The quality I’m describing isn’t quite “readability” — it overlaps, but that’s not quite it.
Feynman has it —
http://www.faculty.umassd.edu/j.wang/feynman.pdf
It’s hard to nail down; it’d probably be a very long essay to even try.
And it’s not a perfect predictor, alas — just evidence.
But I believe there’s a certain way to spot “good reasoning” and “having thoroughly worked out the problem” from one’s writing. It’s not the smoothness of the words, nor the simplicity.
I’s hard to describe, but it seems somewhat consistently recognizable. Yudkowsky has it, incidentally.