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“You are at the bottom of a deep epistemic well.” Phil Agre on the existential dilemma of the graduate student: you have no way of knowing that the field you have chosen—because the problem matters and there’s seeming progress—is total nonsense.pic.twitter.com/E1gda2UPbt
There's something funny about the "right" amount of background reading to do. Too much and all you see is existing thinking, and risk making the same mistakes. Too little and you lack stimulation.
Excellent point; retweeted!
No contest. The former leads you astray without your ever realising it until someone beats you to the discovery. The latter is easily detected at the time.
What of Popper’s recommendation to read everything anyone’s ever written about one’s problem, as he seems to have done? Only do it when stuck?
I naturally do this when things are going well, because I'm desperate for any rare hint of an answer or clue to my questions. This only works if you have interesting questions + pursuing actively. Otherwise, it becomes schooly 'required reading', plus there's too much to read.
Yes, I bet Michael is thinking of people trying to get a ‘complete’ picture of a field without a specific problem, which can be never-ending. David’s implicit point being that if you have the right problem, it will keep showing you where to look.
Thanks for this clarification. Yes, agreed. There seem to be two sets of problems @DavidDeutschOxf and I are talking about here.
Still dead wrong on lack of stimulation being easy to detect though. :*)
Even once detected, there’s a problem of how to find a problem.
Select. We all have lots of problems already.
I’ll just do whatever the laws of physics mandate.
citations™: we get it, you read
Also I'd like to rank the preexisting reading you...then just read the top ten percent
This is a constant tension for me. Historically I've defaulted to collecting as much information as possible before starting. I've been making a concerted effort do less background research and just dive in sooner. More production, less consumption
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