Be Wrong—It has been said: if google fails you, the fastest way to get a question answered is to post a wrong answer on reddit. This will result in a lot of flood of people explaining things to you.
It strikes me, in light of Scott Alexander’s recent post on predictive processing, that this might not be quite as “evil” as it seems. Maybe seeing a wrong answer triggers a prediction error which brings more relevant information into conscious awareness, actually making the original question easier to think about.
Worth noting: the strategy I end up using (post things that aren’t fully thought out, label them as-such, and then I get to be wrong about some things without doing it *quite* on purpose), is something I think I mostly endorse, it’s just that I don’t want it to be the only kind of post that gets a lot of comments.
Scott Aaronson’s gone on record as saying that he gets a lot of his research ideas from engaging with people he disagrees with and trying to explain carefully what his disagreement with, or something like that. I think there’s some interesting room for periodically attempting to be Wrong on Purpose to see what reactions it inspires in other people.
It strikes me, in light of Scott Alexander’s recent post on predictive processing, that this might not be quite as “evil” as it seems. Maybe seeing a wrong answer triggers a prediction error which brings more relevant information into conscious awareness, actually making the original question easier to think about.
Huh, that may be.
Worth noting: the strategy I end up using (post things that aren’t fully thought out, label them as-such, and then I get to be wrong about some things without doing it *quite* on purpose), is something I think I mostly endorse, it’s just that I don’t want it to be the only kind of post that gets a lot of comments.
Scott Aaronson’s gone on record as saying that he gets a lot of his research ideas from engaging with people he disagrees with and trying to explain carefully what his disagreement with, or something like that. I think there’s some interesting room for periodically attempting to be Wrong on Purpose to see what reactions it inspires in other people.
Thinking about my experience, this actually does seem right to me (at least in some cases).