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"He who despises himself still nonetheless respects himself as one who despises" --Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil
(:
Not to disagree with anything in particular I would like to make a case for for another option for seeking truth that is highly undervalued these days: thorough non-discussion and non-collaboration.
The search for good hypotheses can be very difficult. Often breakthroughs require deep conceptual insights. Consider for example Special and General Relativity, interpretations of probability, and I would argue Quantum Theory and artificial general intelligence are in need of such things. Collaboration--even good collaboration--has at least two problems in regard to deep conceptual insight:
These insights may take years of thought and much energy maintaining focus for such a long period of time. Keeping in touch with a discussion can impose a large cost in focus, energy and time.
Discussion and collaboration require communication but that can only occur to a greater or lesser extent when concepts and meaning of language used is roughly settled upon. Novel conceptual insights require by definition a change in concepts and meaning. These changes often cannot easily be communicated without a large amount of work outside of the discussion.
In order to seek truth we must consider the kinds of answers we expect might be necessary. If we consider normal methods and concepts are appropriate and we just need a lot of brainpower, then collaboration can be great. If however we need new concepts, an individual approach may be more appropriate.
The situation reminds me of another one: imposter syndrome.