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Marco Giancotti

  • Joined Aug 21, 2023
  • In Mass-Producing the Mistake Minimizer
  • In Mass-Producing the Mistake Minimizer
  • In Mass-Producing the Mistake Minimizer

    i've read this a few weeks with neutral attitude, now i've looked in for words like pollution, ecology, environment , sound noise, should this words be omnipresent in every scientific presentation ?i don't know , maybe, or this are already well known and by default already known knowledge among the readers

    • In Mass-Producing the Mistake Minimizer

      Marco Giancotti

      Der Linen Blackbird,

      ...I am just slowly catching up on all the discussions here, but wanted to drop you a brief comment to your last reply that I definitely agree that we all should spend much more time on thinking how to explain the things we found than just looking at it from a single angle, which is mostly the one that our 5 next colleagues can follow. I myself am also quite active in outreach and this is exactly my motivation to do it: these people out there ask totally different questions than my peers and it is often the most "naive" questions that are so hard to answer. Besides this, we usually have one way of explaining a finding but trying to cast it into different words or changing the viewing angle yield a deeper understanding than just giving the same expert-talk over and again. Yet, if we want to foster this culture among the next generation of scientists, we need more people who are willing to change their viewing angle, reach out to establish interdisciplinary collaborations, and are given the time and the opportunities to be more creative and innovative. Hence, institutions should provide less hamster wheels of admin and all other kinds of tasks but promote creative and innovative thinking by giving people more freedom and time to explore. (In some cases, I think, it would already suffice to reduce the work load of duties to free people's minds)

      Best wishes,
      Beige Bandicoot.

        • In Mass-Producing the Mistake Minimizer

          Aleksandr Maltsev

          Dear Purple Yak,

          thanks for that inspiring comment, I totally agree that popularisation of science could greatly help to gain a deeper understanding. As Feynman once said, if you can't explain something in simple terms, you don't understand it. But it takes quite a broad overview and expertise and a separation between what's actually necessary and what is only sufficient to understand a certain phenomenon. Thus, I think, the approach of hierarchical knowledge gain that I sketch in my essay could be very useful to reach that goal and find better explanations everybody can understand, or at least, partition a complex phenomenon into its parts to identify those fundamentals that can become general knowledge and the more complex details that are rather for experts in the field. (should have mentioned that as well, but it took this discussion to bring me to that insight! 🙂 )

          Bests,
          Beige Bandicoot.

          • In Mass-Producing the Mistake Minimizer

            Marco Giancotti Your essay is the only one whose success I control. I'm surprised at the lack of attention.
            Everyone knows: The system is not capable of reforming itself. The withering away of the old gives way to the new - evolution and involution. Currently, acceleration is created by changing external conditions. External conditions change, those who pay. In all processes, everything depends on people. The essay proposes to influence science not only with money, but also by expanding the popularization of knowledge (information that is understandable). Popularization will require explanations of purpose and meaning, destroying the "fog" of the need for research, for research (Example. Why find thousands of exoplanets now. Without engineers, science will not reach exoplanets. Without verification, information becomes verbiage, and verbiage, information). If the providers of money demand conditions for popularization, it will be easier to see the naked king.
            Why did I write this? Knowledge creates a worldview - understanding. Understanding is harder to destroy than information. As a result, past knowledge negates information that can change the worldview.
            I have come across this fact. As a mistake, in my essay, I was presented with the classical definition of temperature. Knowledge of the classics allows one to ignore the fact of changes in knowledge about the nature of radiation, electrons and energy. Popularization will make it possible to overcome the excess of fundamentalism in science.

              • In Mass-Producing the Mistake Minimizer

                Marco Giancotti Hi LinenBlackbird!

                thanks a lot for your essay, indeed a very good read and, as resonates with my own view. It is not "aiming low" but rather a more positive way of pursuing science. Having too high an expectation that gets disappointed over long times or in many attempts to reach it, is frustrating and I doubt that many people would want to continue if science were completely pursued in that manner. But starting out with the goal to just improve things as good as it gets is a much more motivating and encouraging path!

                Concerning AI, I think we are by far not there yet that such artificial neural networks could give answers to "why...?"-questions that human neural networks pose. AI is a good tool for data mining and exploration, but it may only get us down to a level to find correlations. To make causal inferences or even come up with a creative abductive reasoning to explain a natural phenomenon still seems a very long way to go.

                Cheers,
                the beige bandicoot.

                  • In Mass-Producing the Mistake Minimizer

                    Steven Andresen
                    "You talk about how science the mistake minimizer isn't accessible to the masses, and I cant help but wonder if recent advances in AI can serve as a translator that solves this problem."
                    I would like to hope that AI will eliminate the routine in science (such as ArXiv when published). But the world is dichotomous and the result may be different.

                    • In Mass-Producing the Mistake Minimizer

                      Hi LinenBlackbird

                      I'm one of those charged with reviewing your essay, and I like it very much. Its well written, the points are clear and I agree. I read your essay about a week ago and am halfway through reading it again before I conclude my review. But its a given I'll issue you a top score.

                      You talk about how science the mistake minimizer isn't accessible to the masses, and I cant help but wonder if recent advances in AI can serve as a translator that solves this problem. Chat GPT 4 can not only understand scientific bargains but also summarize the knowledge in simplified form. This could be a gateway for average people to gain access to the walled garden of science. My essay is about how AI may be a benefit to science, so I've already been thinking about this.

                      Science defined as a mistake minimizer. I take your point well. It might be that there is no better definition for now. However scientists have ego's and I wonder if such a modest mission statement will suit their self-image. 😉 I'm guessing they/we see our role in the acquisition of knowledge in a grander light. Maybe a rebranding? I'm just joking. Me personally, I'm modest and the mistake minimizer branding suits me well. Unless of course we do get a handle on the ultimate truths of the universe, and can then make the pursuit of ultimate truths our defining asperation. Never say never.

                      I'm not done reading your essay again so I'll make further comments soon.
                      Swan

                      • In Mass-Producing the Mistake Minimizer