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Vladimir_Nesov comments on Scholarship: how to tell good advice from bad advice? - Less Wrong Discussion

11 Post author: ChrisHallquist 29 June 2012 02:13AM

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Comment author: Vladimir_Nesov 29 June 2012 02:08:17PM *  10 points [-]

(A remark on how what you wrote sounds, even though the intended interpretation might've been entirely different.)

It's really hard to tell good from bad when you don't have the domain knowledge. You have to acquire a little bit by luck/accident, and then you start iterating.

This reads like a recipe for locking-in into your own randomly generated dogma. Personal anecdotes processed by bad understanding of statistics don't generally bring enlightenment.

Comment author: handoflixue 29 June 2012 08:02:00PM 2 points [-]

I don't see that this method would necessarily result in you getting stuck dogmatically. If you refuse to acknowledge that your initial success was merely luck/accident, then it would seem easier to think "well, my method is perfect." If you realize it's a random dogma and that you could have gotten similar results from a dozen other dogmas, it encourages you to experiment and start narrowing in on the dogmas with the greatest returns.

It's also, in my experience, VERY difficult to measure success until you've had a taste of it. I was shocked the first time I did a successful exercise routine - I'd never known it could be so easy and enjoyable. Now I can quickly discard any dogma that says I'm supposed to suffer, at least until I hit a wall with my easy and enjoyable methods :)

Comment author: MarkL 28 January 2013 08:35:40PM 1 point [-]

This reads like a recipe for locking-in into your own randomly generated dogma.

I'm coming back to this years later, but, wait, what? How does one learn, then? How does one separate true stuff from false stuff without engaging with it, without wrestling with it, without trying to disprove it, without applying it?

When you don't know, you don't know what you don't know. How can you know, except by doing something intelligently accidental? Even if it's just doing the exercises at the end of the chapter?

Comment author: Vladimir_Nesov 29 January 2013 04:50:01AM 0 points [-]

You move in small reliable steps, making yourself stronger, so that eventually you can take bigger steps that you couldn't judge reliable before.

Comment author: MarkL 29 January 2013 04:46:03PM 0 points [-]

Ok. That's compatible with what I meant, even if it's not what I said. :)