Yet I also feel like John Carmack probably probably isn’t remotely near the level of Pearl (I’m not that familiar Carmack’s work): pushing forward video game development doesn’t compare to neatly figuring what exactly causality itself is.
You’re looking at the wrong thing. Don’t look at the topic of their work; look at their cognitive style and overall generativity. Carmack is many levels above Pearl. Just as importantly, there’s enough recorded video of him speaking unscripted that it’s feasible to absorb some of his style.
You’re looking at the wrong thing. Don’t look at the topic of their work; look at their cognitive style and overall generativity.
By generativity do you mean “within-domain” generativity?
Carmack is many levels above Pearl.
To unpack which “levels” I was grading on, it’s something like a blend of “importance and significance of their work” / “difficulty of the problems they were solving”, admittedly that’s still pretty vague. On those dimensions, it seems entirely fair to compare across topics and assert that Pearl was solving more significant and more difficult problem(s) than Carmack. And for that “style” isn’t especially relevant. (This can also be true even if Carmack solved many more problems.)
But I’m curious about your angle—when you say that Carmack is many levels above Pearl, which specific dimensions is that on (generativity and style?) and do you have any examples/links for those?
By generativity do you mean “within-domain” generativity?
Not exactly, because Carmack has worked in more than one domain (albeit not as successfully; Armadillo Aerospace never made orbit.)
On those dimensions, it seems entirely fair to compare across topics and assert that Pearl was solving more significant and more difficult problem(s) than Carmack
You’re looking at the wrong thing. Don’t look at the topic of their work; look at their cognitive style and overall generativity. Carmack is many levels above Pearl. Just as importantly, there’s enough recorded video of him speaking unscripted that it’s feasible to absorb some of his style.
By generativity do you mean “within-domain” generativity?
To unpack which “levels” I was grading on, it’s something like a blend of “importance and significance of their work” / “difficulty of the problems they were solving”, admittedly that’s still pretty vague. On those dimensions, it seems entirely fair to compare across topics and assert that Pearl was solving more significant and more difficult problem(s) than Carmack. And for that “style” isn’t especially relevant. (This can also be true even if Carmack solved many more problems.)
But I’m curious about your angle—when you say that Carmack is many levels above Pearl, which specific dimensions is that on (generativity and style?) and do you have any examples/links for those?
Not exactly, because Carmack has worked in more than one domain (albeit not as successfully; Armadillo Aerospace never made orbit.)
Agree on significance, disagree on difficulty.
In an interesting turn of events, John Carmack announced today that he’ll be pivoting to work on AGI.