That is an excellent question. I would love to and I probably can, but it will take a fair amount of thinking to articulate in something unlike this overly cute way, and therefore time. In the meantime, if anyone has thoughts about what I probably ought to mean by “build and distribute flashlights”, please do share.
Flashlights could be a bunch of portable methods and heuristics that can help on a wide range of problems, not just under one streetlight. Polya’s book is an example, as are some of the methods of statistical learning and Feynman’s “visualize a hairy green sphere” trick.
Really? When I google feynman hairy green sphere, I get as the second hit a quote from Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman! which runs:
Richard P. Feynman … Finally they state the theorem, which is some dumb thing about the ball which isn’t true for my hairy green ball thing, so I say, “False!
Clicking through reveals the whole story, of course. And the third hit is a blog post which excerpts the key summary:
I had a scheme, which I still use today when somebody is explaining something that I’m trying to understand: I keep making up examples.
For instance, the mathematicians would come in with a terrific theorem, and they’re all excited. As they’re telling me the conditions of the theorem, I construct something which fits all the conditions. You know, you have a set (one ball)-- disjoint (two balls). Then the balls turn colors, grow hairs, or whatever, in my head as they put more conditions on.
Finally they state the theorem, which is some dumb thing about the ball which isn’t true for my hairy green ball thing, so I say “False!” [and] point out my counterexample.
It’s the “hairy green ball” from “Surely you are joking...”:
For instance, the mathematicians would come in
with a terrific theorem, and they’re all excited. As they’re telling me the conditions of the
theorem, I construct something which fits all the conditions. You know, you have a set
(one ball) disjoint
(two balls). Then the balls turn colors, grow hairs, or whatever, in
my head as they put more conditions on. Finally they state the theorem, which is some
dumb thing about the ball which isn’t true for my hairy green ball thing, so I say, “False!”
If it’s true, they get all excited, and I let them go on for a while. Then I point out
my counterexample.
The process of coalescing, separating off, or starting new disciplines or (sub-)fields. The necessity and immediacy of this can vary.
Examples:
Vectors/linear algebra/etc.—Necessary because these are minimally and sufficiently complex formalisations/frameworks for intuitive ideas. Immediate because these areas were developed for immediate use on solving linear equations/kinematics/theoretical physics.
Cell biology—Necessary, not particularly immediate: Once the existence of cells was known, it was an obvious next step to analyse them into components, and cells are complicated enough that this necessitates a new sub-field, but the cell model was not a formalisation/framework for an existing intuition; it was an unexpected discovery, and so was of course not pursued to solve a problem at hand (indeed, since it was not known in advance, it was not pursued at all), and possibly (not an expert) did not yield significant use for some time.
Mathematics—Infamous for spawning seemingly-useless-but-decades-later-turn-out-to-be-the-key-to-everything sub-fields. So often not immediate. Necessity is difficult to tell: Addition could plausibly be a necessary concept for sufficiently advanced intelligences, but, say, quaternions are very probably not.
Newtonian mechanics—Possibly necessary, immediate: It’s possible that Newtonian mechanics is necessary for most intelligent species on the way to sufficiently advanced physics. Immediate because IIRC Newton’s initial speculations were more towards the theoretical/‘idle’ natural philosophy side, but that they were quickly commissioned by Halley for immediate use.
Freudian psychoanalysis—Unnecessary, immediate: If the LW consensus is correct, then this is both an asspull and useless. It is immediately used to try to treat people.
FAI—Possibly necessary, immediate: For species that are sufficiently ‘goal-driven’, recursive self-improvement of the species or its constructed successor(s) seems necessary. In the latter case, FAI is intended to solve the problem of solving problems, so is immediate.
~~~~
Each discipline is a way of lossily zooming in on a particular part of the territory. New disciplines are created by new ways to lossily zoom in. Sometimes discplines split off as similar but still significantly different ways of lossily zooming in. Or if you like, each discipline is a language game that is (hopefully) useful to understand some things; sometimes new language games pop up; sometimes language games spin off others.
Philosophy, being the therapy concerned with the logical clarification of thought, is the incubator for and gives away a disproportionate variety of new fields. Examples: Logic, metamathematics, causality, theoretical physics, biology, chemistry, penology.
I...okay, that was too much metaphor for me. Could you tell me what this means?
That is an excellent question. I would love to and I probably can, but it will take a fair amount of thinking to articulate in something unlike this overly cute way, and therefore time. In the meantime, if anyone has thoughts about what I probably ought to mean by “build and distribute flashlights”, please do share.
Flashlights could be a bunch of portable methods and heuristics that can help on a wide range of problems, not just under one streetlight. Polya’s book is an example, as are some of the methods of statistical learning and Feynman’s “visualize a hairy green sphere” trick.
What’s the hairy green sphere? My search engine gives this page as first result.
Really? When I google
feynman hairy green sphere
, I get as the second hit a quote from Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman! which runs:Clicking through reveals the whole story, of course. And the third hit is a blog post which excerpts the key summary:
It’s the “hairy green ball” from “Surely you are joking...”:
Science itself would be a major “flashlight”, I guess?
The process of coalescing, separating off, or starting new disciplines or (sub-)fields. The necessity and immediacy of this can vary.
Examples:
Vectors/linear algebra/etc.—Necessary because these are minimally and sufficiently complex formalisations/frameworks for intuitive ideas. Immediate because these areas were developed for immediate use on solving linear equations/kinematics/theoretical physics.
Cell biology—Necessary, not particularly immediate: Once the existence of cells was known, it was an obvious next step to analyse them into components, and cells are complicated enough that this necessitates a new sub-field, but the cell model was not a formalisation/framework for an existing intuition; it was an unexpected discovery, and so was of course not pursued to solve a problem at hand (indeed, since it was not known in advance, it was not pursued at all), and possibly (not an expert) did not yield significant use for some time.
Mathematics—Infamous for spawning seemingly-useless-but-decades-later-turn-out-to-be-the-key-to-everything sub-fields. So often not immediate. Necessity is difficult to tell: Addition could plausibly be a necessary concept for sufficiently advanced intelligences, but, say, quaternions are very probably not.
Newtonian mechanics—Possibly necessary, immediate: It’s possible that Newtonian mechanics is necessary for most intelligent species on the way to sufficiently advanced physics. Immediate because IIRC Newton’s initial speculations were more towards the theoretical/‘idle’ natural philosophy side, but that they were quickly commissioned by Halley for immediate use.
Freudian psychoanalysis—Unnecessary, immediate: If the LW consensus is correct, then this is both an asspull and useless. It is immediately used to try to treat people.
FAI—Possibly necessary, immediate: For species that are sufficiently ‘goal-driven’, recursive self-improvement of the species or its constructed successor(s) seems necessary. In the latter case, FAI is intended to solve the problem of solving problems, so is immediate.
~~~~
Each discipline is a way of lossily zooming in on a particular part of the territory. New disciplines are created by new ways to lossily zoom in. Sometimes discplines split off as similar but still significantly different ways of lossily zooming in. Or if you like, each discipline is a language game that is (hopefully) useful to understand some things; sometimes new language games pop up; sometimes language games spin off others.
Philosophy, being the therapy concerned with the logical clarification of thought, is the incubator for and gives away a disproportionate variety of new fields. Examples: Logic, metamathematics, causality, theoretical physics, biology, chemistry, penology.
I’d think that calculus would be a perfect example. A mathematical analysis technique that’s broadly applicable to a wide variety of fields.