Debate is more frequent on lesswrong and the factors you mentioned mostly don’t contribute to more frequent debate in academia, because debate is not a very important component of how academia makes intellectual progress, unless you construe the term very widely. I disagree with basically every explicit and implicit claim you made there.
“debate is not a very important component of how academia makes intellectual progress, unless you construe the term very widely” Does your construal exclude exchanges through writing papers? ”
“I disagree with basically every explicit and implicit claim you made there. ”
Where? Which implicit claims did you think were there? Do you disagree that there is rapid progress in academia (implicit), that progress is often more rapid at the confluence of multiple domains (explicit), that there is more progress-relevant debate there (explicit), or something else?
I see. I agree with you that this, or other, progress does not necessarily rely on debate. However I find it hard to understand how there could possibly not be a sudden, temporary acceleration of progress at the point when two different domains meet. Of course, this usually plateaus as the two separate domains merge into one, which could perhaps be what you mean, and if so then maybe we don’t disagree. I should have clarified that my statement was time dependent.
I don’t think your model of how this works is accurate.
In what way is my model inaccurate? And am I to interpret that statement as an answer , ‘no’ , to the question?
Debate is more frequent on lesswrong and the factors you mentioned mostly don’t contribute to more frequent debate in academia, because debate is not a very important component of how academia makes intellectual progress, unless you construe the term very widely. I disagree with basically every explicit and implicit claim you made there.
“debate is not a very important component of how academia makes intellectual progress, unless you construe the term very widely” Does your construal exclude exchanges through writing papers? ”
“I disagree with basically every explicit and implicit claim you made there. ”
Where? Which implicit claims did you think were there? Do you disagree that there is rapid progress in academia (implicit), that progress is often more rapid at the confluence of multiple domains (explicit), that there is more progress-relevant debate there (explicit), or something else?
I disagree that progress is more rapid at the confluence of multiple domains and that this relies on debate.
I see. I agree with you that this, or other, progress does not necessarily rely on debate. However I find it hard to understand how there could possibly not be a sudden, temporary acceleration of progress at the point when two different domains meet. Of course, this usually plateaus as the two separate domains merge into one, which could perhaps be what you mean, and if so then maybe we don’t disagree. I should have clarified that my statement was time dependent.