I often feel like I have the opposite bias—I expect it to be much harder to converge than it is in practice. Even basic cases of semi-independent simultaneous discovery (like two people coming up with the same slightly interesting math idea, or discovering a concept after a few hints about what it should be) invoke feelings of awe in me. Once while reading Crystal Society I read an idea about how humans were the dumbest things that could build civilization (as we did so first), and was like “hey, I had that idea!”
So for me, often the opposite saying is useful: there is only one reality to study, so we should see hints of the same underlying phenomena. Even not-so-great minds think alike.
I often feel like I have the opposite bias—I expect it to be much harder to converge than it is in practice. Even basic cases of semi-independent simultaneous discovery (like two people coming up with the same slightly interesting math idea, or discovering a concept after a few hints about what it should be) invoke feelings of awe in me. Once while reading Crystal Society I read an idea about how humans were the dumbest things that could build civilization (as we did so first), and was like “hey, I had that idea!”
So for me, often the opposite saying is useful: there is only one reality to study, so we should see hints of the same underlying phenomena. Even not-so-great minds think alike.