Curated. When I was younger I had the belief that the people at the top of their fields “knew what they were doing” but struggled later with finding I didn’t implicitly believe this in my actions, and also from finding the people at the top often not able to give good explanations of why they’re doing what they’re doing. I’d come around to deciding that they’d discovered effective “strategies” but that was a different skill than building “accurate models”, but I hadn’t fully stopped being confused, and now I am still not all the way.
I wish I’d read this post when I was 14, that would’ve saved me a lot of time and confusion. The examples of your grandfather, and of machine learning practitioners, really helped, and I think a more fleshed out version of this post would examine more fields and industries. I also really liked reading the advice — I’m not sure the advice actually applies in all situations, but it sure is helpful to even see an approach to how to act given this model of the world.
I also found it helpful to read Aysja’s comment — to read another thoughtful perspective on the same topic.
Curated. When I was younger I had the belief that the people at the top of their fields “knew what they were doing” but struggled later with finding I didn’t implicitly believe this in my actions, and also from finding the people at the top often not able to give good explanations of why they’re doing what they’re doing. I’d come around to deciding that they’d discovered effective “strategies” but that was a different skill than building “accurate models”, but I hadn’t fully stopped being confused, and now I am still not all the way.
I wish I’d read this post when I was 14, that would’ve saved me a lot of time and confusion. The examples of your grandfather, and of machine learning practitioners, really helped, and I think a more fleshed out version of this post would examine more fields and industries. I also really liked reading the advice — I’m not sure the advice actually applies in all situations, but it sure is helpful to even see an approach to how to act given this model of the world.
I also found it helpful to read Aysja’s comment — to read another thoughtful perspective on the same topic.
Sometimes all you’ve got is experience and heuristics that you don’t actually know how to put into words.