Mistakes certainly can be beneficial. I acquired most of my present level of skill at rationality in the course of throwing off religion. I recently looked back at some arguments I wrote up for the existence of God (although I was still terrified of death, whether or not there was a God, interestingly) and I feel absolutely ashamed for my ineptitude. I certainly was intelligent, I was very persuasive, but it was flat out wrong. That mistake (or rather, series of mistakes) is one of my strongest motivators to become stronger. Tsuyoku naratai. At the same time, I have held out from running certain experiments because I knew that if the experiment didn’t work the way I expected, it would be very detrimental to my own situation. I had to find other ways to do it.
At the same time, Eliezer has talked quite a bit about that moment when “the tools break in your hands”. I’ve never had that experience. I have never had a truly surprising, major failure, where I applied everything I knew and it still didn’t work. Eliezer seems to think that it helped him a lot, and if that is true, I kind of want that to happen. Obviously, I can’t make it happen, since that would defeat the purpose. Still, it might be good to keep pushing yourself further and further, until you reach the outer limit of your abilities.
Mistakes certainly can be beneficial. I acquired most of my present level of skill at rationality in the course of throwing off religion. I recently looked back at some arguments I wrote up for the existence of God (although I was still terrified of death, whether or not there was a God, interestingly) and I feel absolutely ashamed for my ineptitude. I certainly was intelligent, I was very persuasive, but it was flat out wrong. That mistake (or rather, series of mistakes) is one of my strongest motivators to become stronger. Tsuyoku naratai. At the same time, I have held out from running certain experiments because I knew that if the experiment didn’t work the way I expected, it would be very detrimental to my own situation. I had to find other ways to do it.
At the same time, Eliezer has talked quite a bit about that moment when “the tools break in your hands”. I’ve never had that experience. I have never had a truly surprising, major failure, where I applied everything I knew and it still didn’t work. Eliezer seems to think that it helped him a lot, and if that is true, I kind of want that to happen. Obviously, I can’t make it happen, since that would defeat the purpose. Still, it might be good to keep pushing yourself further and further, until you reach the outer limit of your abilities.