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michael_nielsen

@michael_nielsen

Searching for the numinous @YCombinator Research

San Francisco, CA
michaelnielsen.org
Joined July 2008

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    michael_nielsen‏ @michael_nielsen 21 Jul 2018

    In research, both problem finding and problem solving are important. Surprisingly often, problem finding is more important than problem solving.

    10:09 AM - 21 Jul 2018
    • 157 Retweets
    • 588 Likes
    • Jonathan Uesato Matjaz Jogan Kiran Johny Edo ꙮvchinnikov Seshat John Hagel Francisco Boni Arrowz
    12 replies 157 retweets 588 likes
      1. New conversation
      2. michael_nielsen‏ @michael_nielsen 21 Jul 2018

        There's a rare, related activity which I think of as field finding. It's not about problem finding, per se, but rather about developing an underlying narrative which generates many superb problems over decades or centuries.

        1 reply 19 retweets 96 likes
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      3. michael_nielsen‏ @michael_nielsen 21 Jul 2018

        Most of my favourite papers are field finding.

        2 replies 4 retweets 34 likes
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      4. michael_nielsen‏ @michael_nielsen 21 Jul 2018

        Turing's paper on computing is field finding. So too are Feynman and Deutsch's papers on quantum computing.

        2 replies 12 retweets 57 likes
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      5. michael_nielsen‏ @michael_nielsen 21 Jul 2018

        By comparison, the early Sanger (et al) sequencing papers were field founding - they started a field - but not field finding, since it was obvious for many years prior that sequencing DNA (or RNA) was a good idea. Sanger et al were the first to really figure out how to do it.

        1 reply 3 retweets 17 likes
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      6. michael_nielsen‏ @michael_nielsen 21 Jul 2018

        Obviously, the distinction isn't black & white. Eg in Turing's case you can argue that the problem of developing a notion of effective computation was implicit in earlier work (eg Hilbert). But Turing understood the big picture problem superbly, & made it obvious this was a field

        1 reply 3 retweets 18 likes
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      7. michael_nielsen‏ @michael_nielsen 21 Jul 2018

        I've seen and heard lots of discussion of field founding, usually in a Sanger-like context: figuring out how to make progress on big problems that are more or less obvious to everyone.

        1 reply 1 retweet 10 likes
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      8. michael_nielsen‏ @michael_nielsen 21 Jul 2018

        But I've heard very, very little about field finding. And I believe field finders are (a) incredibly valuable for science; and (b) dramatically undervalued by existing institutions.

        6 replies 10 retweets 56 likes
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      9. michael_nielsen‏ @michael_nielsen 21 Jul 2018

        It's surprisingly hard to think of a field finding paper that was supported by a grant. It's a case where you by definition _can't_ make a strong prior argument for the work; in fact, the whole job is to figure out the basic concepts that will make such an argument even possible

        2 replies 7 retweets 40 likes
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      10. michael_nielsen‏ @michael_nielsen 21 Jul 2018

        Eg you can't motivate the founding paper of computer science by referring to some prior notion of how important computers are; you're actually trying to invent the notion of computers, & argue for its importance.

        3 replies 1 retweet 19 likes
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      11. michael_nielsen‏ @michael_nielsen 21 Jul 2018

        When such papers were supported by a grant, it was always for something very different, AFAIK.

        1 reply 0 retweets 10 likes
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      12. michael_nielsen‏ @michael_nielsen 21 Jul 2018

        Such papers often argue on very fundamental grounds. Consider this line of argument, which, taken sufficiently seriously, leads to quantum computers (and, possibly, other notions of computation). From @DavidDeutschOxf's https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~christos/classics/Deutsch_quantum_theory.pdf …pic.twitter.com/ONMdskU3Iy

        1 reply 2 retweets 29 likes
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      13. michael_nielsen‏ @michael_nielsen 21 Jul 2018

        It's striking that very, very few later papers on quantum computing take these questions seriously. They instead take the notion of quantum computing as given, and ask questions about that notion. But that wasn't possible in the early 1980s.

        3 replies 1 retweet 13 likes
        Show this thread
      14. michael_nielsen‏ @michael_nielsen 21 Jul 2018

        What's even more striking is that many funders are very, very keen on field founding. And yet they adhere to policies which make field finding actually impossible for them to fund.

        2 replies 5 retweets 38 likes
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      15. End of conversation
      1. Ben Reinhardt‏ @Ben_Reinhardt 21 Jul 2018
        Replying to @michael_nielsen

        A butchered quote from (maybe Douglas North): "People win Nobel prizes for starting debates more often than for ending them"

        0 replies 1 retweet 15 likes
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      1. Kenny Friedman‏ @futurekennysf 21 Jul 2018
        Replying to @michael_nielsen

        Is there anything AKay hasn’t covered?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Z1TBb_0nCQ …

        0 replies 0 retweets 3 likes
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      1. Sebastien Mamessier‏ @smamessier 22 Jul 2018
        Replying to @michael_nielsen

        Field finding or simply epistemology. I found it baffling that most of my PhD labmates did not know what that means. They probably also forgot what Ph. stands for.

        0 replies 0 retweets 2 likes
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      1. Psyche is short for Cycle‏ @jedrek 21 Jul 2018
        Replying to @michael_nielsen

        In middle school (89-92) I took part in an inner-school activity named Future Problem Solving (http://www.fpspi.org/ ). That was the first time I realized that defining problems is often more than half the battle, but then forgot it for 20 years.

        0 replies 0 retweets 2 likes
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      1. Mark Nagelberg‏ @MarkNagelberg 21 Jul 2018
        Replying to @michael_nielsen

        I think this is true in business as well. E.g. solving a problem which is merely a symptom of a deeper problem that hasn’t been found or at least understood or appreciated. More valuable to find the fundamental problem than solve symptom problems.

        0 replies 0 retweets 1 like
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      1. Joshua Saxe‏ @joshua_saxe 12 Nov 2018
        Replying to @michael_nielsen

        +1 - Your description here seems pretty closely aligned with Thomas Kuhn's description of "normal science" (problem solving) as a kind of regime that keeps its own homeostasis via funding agencies, academic seniority hierarchies, ... and paradigm shifts ("field finding")

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      1. Kim Juhyun(김주현)‏ @juhyunkim76 23 Jul 2018
        Replying to @michael_nielsen

        I totally agree with you.

        0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
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