From the article: [...] [...] When formulating the answer to a question, aiming for the upper tiers usually produces more helpful, more useful, and more interesting results.
From the article:
There's this thing that happens on Stack Exchange sometimes. A somewhat-clueless person will show up and ask a half-baked question about something they are thinking about. Their question is groping toward something sensible but won't be all the way there, and then several people will reply saying no, that is not sensible, your idea is silly, without ever admitting that there is anything to the idea at all.
[...]
[...] mathematically half-baked questions also deserve better answers. A similar classification of answers to “can we do this” might look like this:
Yes, that is exactly what we do, only more formally. You can find out more about the details in this source…
Yes, we do something very much like that, but there are some significant differences to address points you have not considered…
Yes, we might like to do something along those lines, but to make it work we need to make some major changes…
That seems at first like a reasonable thing to try, but if you look more deeply you find that it can't be made work, because…
I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question
[...]
This is a sort of refinement of the opposition of “yes, and…” versus “no, but…”, with the tiers something like:
Yes, and…
Yes, but…
Perhaps, if…
No, but…
No, because…
I am embarrassed for you
When formulating the answer to a question, aiming for the upper tiers usually produces more helpful, more useful, and more interesting results.
I can definitely relate to this, not just in math. Nobody can force you to go online and answer questions (I mean, maybe in certain jobs, but if you get payed to do it, the standards for answer...
I can definitely relate to this, not just in math. Nobody can force you to go online and answer questions (I mean, maybe in certain jobs, but if you get payed to do it, the standards for answer quality should be even higher) so you might as well put some effort in it. A part of every answer is trying to figure out what the person asking actually meant.
Figuring out the right question is hard and often requires knowing aspects of the answer. A lot of problems become trivial the moment you can actually find the right question. So an attempt to spread knowledge often involves helping with formulating the question.
Totally this. In science, questions and hypothesis have to go through near-endless cycles of answering followed by refinement of the question or hypothesis until you can generate an answer (a...
Totally this. In science, questions and hypothesis have to go through near-endless cycles of answering followed by refinement of the question or hypothesis until you can generate an answer (a model) that is powerful or useful enough to apply in the real world. But people don't often share their initial "dumb" questions or half-baked hypothesis after the fact, we only see the penultimate hypothesis.
Sorry, it's a lame pop culture reference to Hitchhiker's Guide of the Galaxy! It's generally a joke, but, as a lot in the books, it's actually really smart science fiction. If you genuinely...
Sorry, it's a lame pop culture reference to Hitchhiker's Guide of the Galaxy! It's generally a joke, but, as a lot in the books, it's actually really smart science fiction. If you genuinely haven't read it, I actually don't want to spoil it!
Spoilers
They build a supercomputer and let it calculate the meaning of life for 7 million years. At the end, the computer spits out the number 42. In response they build an even larger supercomputer – to find the right *question.*
Hahaha, yes! I think that illustrates the point very well. The phrasing of a question is a crucial constraint on how we can seek out an answer and what the answer could be. In some ways, questions...
Hahaha, yes! I think that illustrates the point very well. The phrasing of a question is a crucial constraint on how we can seek out an answer and what the answer could be.
In some ways, questions are more important than answers, especially if the answers are not immediately obvious.
From the article:
[...]
[...]
When formulating the answer to a question, aiming for the upper tiers usually produces more helpful, more useful, and more interesting results.
I can definitely relate to this, not just in math. Nobody can force you to go online and answer questions (I mean, maybe in certain jobs, but if you get payed to do it, the standards for answer quality should be even higher) so you might as well put some effort in it. A part of every answer is trying to figure out what the person asking actually meant.
Figuring out the right question is hard and often requires knowing aspects of the answer. A lot of problems become trivial the moment you can actually find the right question. So an attempt to spread knowledge often involves helping with formulating the question.
Totally this. In science, questions and hypothesis have to go through near-endless cycles of answering followed by refinement of the question or hypothesis until you can generate an answer (a model) that is powerful or useful enough to apply in the real world. But people don't often share their initial "dumb" questions or half-baked hypothesis after the fact, we only see the penultimate hypothesis.
Let's also not forget the whole "42" fiasco, that was a major embarrasement!
I'm intrigued. What is the "42 fiasco"?
Sorry, it's a lame pop culture reference to Hitchhiker's Guide of the Galaxy! It's generally a joke, but, as a lot in the books, it's actually really smart science fiction. If you genuinely haven't read it, I actually don't want to spoil it!
Spoilers
They build a supercomputer and let it calculate the meaning of life for 7 million years. At the end, the computer spits out the number 42. In response they build an even larger supercomputer – to find the right *question.*Hahaha, yes! I think that illustrates the point very well. The phrasing of a question is a crucial constraint on how we can seek out an answer and what the answer could be.
In some ways, questions are more important than answers, especially if the answers are not immediately obvious.