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guslIn Feb 2006, I wrote:
This is still true. Whenever my knowledge base and my intuition seem to disagree about something, I feel a strong urge to go fix it before doing anything else. This means that I can be slower than my peers, but also that I tend to develop a stronger foundation. I naturally chew on ideas for a long time (sometimes while I sleep!), which occasionally leads to Eureka moments. Perhaps this is extreme P.
I'm also a relational thinker: I like reusing my knowledge, via analogies, though I often insist that analogies be precise (i.e. far-reaching), or at least explicit about their scope. Translating ideas between different fields is fun.
Given the above, and my desire for clear unambiguous notation, and my love of expressing things in lambda-calculus, and my occasional dreams about automated reasoning, I've given myself the label of "formalist". But I don't know if it's a good label.
In any case, does this cognitive style mean that I don't like hacking or that I can't be a good hacker?
I think the answer is no. I enjoy hacking when it gets stuff to work, although sometimes I will dream of redesigning the whole system, so that the "hack" can be expressed naturally and elegantly (making it no longer a "hack"). OTOH, the creative art of coming up with simple effective hacks has an aesthetic of its own. Being a formal-minded person just means that I like my hacks to be explicit about what they do.
The message I get from some people is: "you're a formalist, therefore you probably wouldn't do well in messy fields". To take the implication a little further, this is saying that I can only do well in easy fields. But I think the correct conclusion is that I probably wouldn't do well, if I worked alone, in competitive fields that move super-fast (where it's easy to get scooped).
<< Since I like my knowledge network to be dense / tight (i.e. certain), ignoring foundational questions and paradoxes is totally against my cognitive style >> (original)
This is still true. Whenever my knowledge base and my intuition seem to disagree about something, I feel a strong urge to go fix it before doing anything else. This means that I can be slower than my peers, but also that I tend to develop a stronger foundation. I naturally chew on ideas for a long time (sometimes while I sleep!), which occasionally leads to Eureka moments. Perhaps this is extreme P.
I'm also a relational thinker: I like reusing my knowledge, via analogies, though I often insist that analogies be precise (i.e. far-reaching), or at least explicit about their scope. Translating ideas between different fields is fun.
Given the above, and my desire for clear unambiguous notation, and my love of expressing things in lambda-calculus, and my occasional dreams about automated reasoning, I've given myself the label of "formalist". But I don't know if it's a good label.
In any case, does this cognitive style mean that I don't like hacking or that I can't be a good hacker?
I think the answer is no. I enjoy hacking when it gets stuff to work, although sometimes I will dream of redesigning the whole system, so that the "hack" can be expressed naturally and elegantly (making it no longer a "hack"). OTOH, the creative art of coming up with simple effective hacks has an aesthetic of its own. Being a formal-minded person just means that I like my hacks to be explicit about what they do.
The message I get from some people is: "you're a formalist, therefore you probably wouldn't do well in messy fields". To take the implication a little further, this is saying that I can only do well in easy fields. But I think the correct conclusion is that I probably wouldn't do well, if I worked alone, in competitive fields that move super-fast (where it's easy to get scooped).