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RobbBB comments on Leaving LessWrong for a more rational life - Less Wrong
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Big Al may well have had some intuitive mojo that enabled him to pick the right thought experiments , but that still doesn't make thought experiments a substitute for real empiricism. And intuitive mojo, isnt a method in the sense of vbeing reproducible.
Why not derive probability theory in terms of confirmation.?
Thought experiments aren't a replacement for real empiricism. They're a prerequisite for real empiricism.
"Intuitive mojo" is just calling a methodology you don't understand a mean name. However Einstein repeatedly hit success in his lifetime, presupposing that it is an ineffable mystery or a grand coincidence won't tell us much.
I already understand probability theory, and why it's important. I don't understand what you mean by "confirmation," how your earlier statement can be made sense of in quantitative terms, or why this notion should be treated as important here. So I'm asking you to explain the less clear term in terms of the more clear term.
Actually he did not. He got lucky early in his career, and pretty much coasted on that into irrelevance. His intuition allowed him to solve problems related to relativity, the photoelectric effect, Brownian motion, and a few other significant contributions within the span of a decade, early in his career. And then he went off the deep end following his intuition down a number of dead-ending rabbit holes for the rest of his life. He died in Princeton in 1955 having made no further significant contributions to physics after is 1916 invention of general relativity. Within the physics community (I am a trained physicist), Einstein's story is retold more often as a cautionary tale than a model to emulate.
There are worse fates than not being able to top your own discovery of general relativity.
...huh? Correct me if I'm wrong here, but Einstein was a great physicist who made lots of great discoveries, right?
The right cautionary tale would be to cite physicists who attempted to follow the same strategy Einstein did and see how it mostly only worked for Einstein. But if Einstein was indeed a great physicist, it seems like at worst his strategy is one that doesn't usually produce results but sometimes produces spectacular results... which doesn't seem like a terrible strategy.
I have a very strong (empirical!) heuristic that the first thing people should do if they're trying to be good at something is copy winners. Yes there are issues like regression to the mean and stuff, but it provides a good alternative perspective vs thinking things through from first principles (which seems to be my default cognitive strategy).
The thing is Einstein was popular, but his batting average was less than his peers. In terms of advancing the state of the art, the 20th century is full of theoretical physicists that have a better track record for pushing the state of the art forward than Einstein, most of whom did not spend the majority of their career chasing rabbits down holes. They may not be common household names, but honestly that might have more to do with the hair than his physics.
I should point out that I heard this cautionary tale as "don't set your sights too high," not "don't employ the methods Einstein employed." The methods were fine, the trouble was that he was at IAS and looking for something bigger than his previous work, rather than planting acorns that would grow into mighty oaks (as Hamming puts it).
OK, good to know.