the world is too big and confusing, so to get anything done (and to stay sane) you have to adopt a frame. each frame abstracts away a ton about the world, out of necessity. every frame is wrong, but some are useful. a frame comes with a set of beliefs about the world and a mechanism for updating those beliefs.
some frames contain within them the ability to become more correct without needing to discard the frame entirely; they are calibrated about and admit what they don’t know. they change gradually as we learn more. other frames work empirically but are a dead end epistemologically because they aren’t willing to admit some of their false claims. for example, many woo frames capture a grain of truth that works empirically, but come with a flawed epistemology that prevents them from generating novel and true insights.
often it is better to be confined inside a well trodden frame than to be fully unconstrained. the space of all possible actions is huge, and many of them are terrible. on the other hand, staying inside well trodden frames forever substantially limits the possibility of doing something extremely novel
It’s as efficient to work on many frames while easily switching between them. Some will be poorly developed, but won’t require commitment and can anchor curiosity, progress on blind spots of other frames.
corollary: oftentimes, when smart people say things that are clearly wrong, what’s really going on is they’re saying the closest thing in their frame that captures the grain of truth
″...you learn that there’s three kinds of intellectuals. There’s intellectuals that work in one frame. There’s intellectuals that work in two frames. And there’s intellectuals that change frames like you and I change clothes.”
the world is too big and confusing, so to get anything done (and to stay sane) you have to adopt a frame. each frame abstracts away a ton about the world, out of necessity. every frame is wrong, but some are useful. a frame comes with a set of beliefs about the world and a mechanism for updating those beliefs.
some frames contain within them the ability to become more correct without needing to discard the frame entirely; they are calibrated about and admit what they don’t know. they change gradually as we learn more. other frames work empirically but are a dead end epistemologically because they aren’t willing to admit some of their false claims. for example, many woo frames capture a grain of truth that works empirically, but come with a flawed epistemology that prevents them from generating novel and true insights.
often it is better to be confined inside a well trodden frame than to be fully unconstrained. the space of all possible actions is huge, and many of them are terrible. on the other hand, staying inside well trodden frames forever substantially limits the possibility of doing something extremely novel
It’s as efficient to work on many frames while easily switching between them. Some will be poorly developed, but won’t require commitment and can anchor curiosity, progress on blind spots of other frames.
corollary: oftentimes, when smart people say things that are clearly wrong, what’s really going on is they’re saying the closest thing in their frame that captures the grain of truth
″...you learn that there’s three kinds of intellectuals. There’s intellectuals that work in one frame. There’s intellectuals that work in two frames. And there’s intellectuals that change frames like you and I change clothes.”