Thanks for writing this! I think about this a lot, and this helped clarify the problem for me.
The problem can be summarized as: there’s a couple competing forces. There’s not wanting to re-invent the wheel. Humanity makes progress by standing on the shoulders of giants.
On the other side, there’s 1) anchoring (not getting stuck in how people think about things in the field) and 2) benefits of having your own model (force you to think actively and helps guide your reading).
The problem we’re trying to solve is how to get the benefits of both.
One potential solution is to start off with small amounts of thinking on your own, like Alex Lintz described, then spending time on consuming existing knowledge. Then you can alternate between creating and consuming, starting off with the bulk of your time in consuming, with short periods of creating interspersed throughout, and the time spent creating can get longer and longer as time progresses.
Schools already work this way to a large extent. Most of your time as an undergraduate you are simply reading existing literature and only doing occasional novel contributions. Then when you’re a PhD student you’re focused mostly on making new contributions.
However, I do think that formal education does this suboptimally. To think creatively is a skill, and like all skills, the more you practice, the better you get. If you’ve spent the first 16 years of your education more or less regurgitating pre-prackaged information, you’re not going to be as good at coming up with new ideas once you’re finally in position to than if you had been practicing along the way. This definitely cross-applies to EA.
Thanks for writing this! I think about this a lot, and this helped clarify the problem for me.
The problem can be summarized as: there’s a couple competing forces. There’s not wanting to re-invent the wheel. Humanity makes progress by standing on the shoulders of giants.
On the other side, there’s 1) anchoring (not getting stuck in how people think about things in the field) and 2) benefits of having your own model (force you to think actively and helps guide your reading).
The problem we’re trying to solve is how to get the benefits of both.
One potential solution is to start off with small amounts of thinking on your own, like Alex Lintz described, then spending time on consuming existing knowledge. Then you can alternate between creating and consuming, starting off with the bulk of your time in consuming, with short periods of creating interspersed throughout, and the time spent creating can get longer and longer as time progresses.
Schools already work this way to a large extent. Most of your time as an undergraduate you are simply reading existing literature and only doing occasional novel contributions. Then when you’re a PhD student you’re focused mostly on making new contributions.
However, I do think that formal education does this suboptimally. To think creatively is a skill, and like all skills, the more you practice, the better you get. If you’ve spent the first 16 years of your education more or less regurgitating pre-prackaged information, you’re not going to be as good at coming up with new ideas once you’re finally in position to than if you had been practicing along the way. This definitely cross-applies to EA.