As presaged in our verbal discussion my top conceptual complement would be to emphasise exploration/experimentation as central to the knowledge production loop—the cycle of ‘developing good taste to plan better experiments to improve taste (and planning model)’ is critical (indispensable?) to ‘produce new knowledge which is very helpful by the standards of human civilization’ (on any kind of meaningful timescale).
This because just flailing, or even just ‘doing stuff’, gets you some novelty of observations, but directedly seeking informative circumstances at the boundaries of the known (which includes making novel unpredictable events happen, as well as getting equipped with richer means to observe and record them, and perhaps preparing to deliberatively extract insight) turns out to be able to mine vastly more insight per resource (time, materials, etc.). Hence science, but also hence individual human and animal playfulness, curiosity, adversarial exercises and drills (self-play ish), and whatnot.
Said another way, maybe I’d characterise ‘the way that fluid intelligence and crystallised intelligence synergise in the knowledge production loop’ as ‘directed exploration/experimentation’?
Having said that, I don’t necessarily think these capacities need to reside ‘in the same mind’, just as contemporary human orgs get more of this done and more effectively than individuals. But the pieces do need to be fit to each other (like, a physicist with great physics taste can’t usually very well complement a bio lab without first becoming a person with great bio taste).
(cross-posted on LW)
Love this!
As presaged in our verbal discussion my top conceptual complement would be to emphasise exploration/experimentation as central to the knowledge production loop—the cycle of ‘developing good taste to plan better experiments to improve taste (and planning model)’ is critical (indispensable?) to ‘produce new knowledge which is very helpful by the standards of human civilization’ (on any kind of meaningful timescale).
This because just flailing, or even just ‘doing stuff’, gets you some novelty of observations, but directedly seeking informative circumstances at the boundaries of the known (which includes making novel unpredictable events happen, as well as getting equipped with richer means to observe and record them, and perhaps preparing to deliberatively extract insight) turns out to be able to mine vastly more insight per resource (time, materials, etc.). Hence science, but also hence individual human and animal playfulness, curiosity, adversarial exercises and drills (self-play ish), and whatnot.
Said another way, maybe I’d characterise ‘the way that fluid intelligence and crystallised intelligence synergise in the knowledge production loop’ as ‘directed exploration/experimentation’?
Having said that, I don’t necessarily think these capacities need to reside ‘in the same mind’, just as contemporary human orgs get more of this done and more effectively than individuals. But the pieces do need to be fit to each other (like, a physicist with great physics taste can’t usually very well complement a bio lab without first becoming a person with great bio taste).