I = W/T?

post by HNX · 2024-10-12T15:15:36.806Z · LW · GW · 2 comments

This is a question post.

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    0 FinalFormal2
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What are some of the most deep, profound, meaningful, impactful; ideas, notions, concepts, viewpoints, and considerations, relative to the amount of time an average layman would need to wrap 'eir head around them? Chain of thoughts so far:

  1. not all ideas are created equal
  2. some ideas are clearly better than others
  3. among the ideas, that are clearly better than others, there is a (+/-) clear order

  4. the order of ideas, ordered by their respective impact, can further be enhanced, EA-wise, by considering the amount of time it would take to get acquainted with:

    1. the idea itself
    2. its own foundation
    3. its practical implications

     

To anyone, who has been here long enough to tell, is there:

  1. a set of all the candidates, pre-vetted or otherwise, for the (3), around here?
  2. an order in which, at least some of, the elements within this set, are ranked by (2), or impact, or their overall contribution as per standards of rationalism and/or EA?
  3. an order in which the list above would be refined, if time-to-learn was considered?

The sequences, essays, codex seem to be the prime candidates.

Are they, though?

Do they distill each individual idea down to its most fruitful essence, taking into consideration an average attention span of a new-blood, embarking upon LW/EA?

Or are they more of general thoughts and opinion pieces? Not to discard their overall importance, either. Just brainstorming the addition of the time variable into the equation. To reduce it to the barest possible terms, we could say:

I = W / T

Where 'I' is the (potential) impact of the idea itself, the 'W' is the wisdom, knowledge, understanding imparted by it, and 'T' is the amount of time required to 'grok' it.

Which ideas would rank the highest/lowest?

Realized after posting that T is not unary. A better equation would be:

Where  is the time-to-understand and  is the time-to-implement.

Answers

answer by FinalFormal2 · 2024-10-12T17:45:55.778Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

E = MC^2 + AI

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comment by RHollerith (rhollerith_dot_com) · 2024-10-14T03:52:48.684Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Why do you multiply time-to-understand by time-to-implement rather than add them?

Replies from: HNX
↑ comment by HNX · 2024-10-14T08:06:57.472Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Fair point. Didn't think it through that much when I first drafted it. Still, multiplication has its time and place - at least for a portion of them.

You can categorize an "idea", broadly speaking, into one of the two: a one-off change in state (e.g. any project), or a repeated execution of a particular behavior (e.g. building a new habit).

For a project, addition may be more suitable. Could you say the same about habits, though?