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Feynman’s Breakthrough: Disregard Others

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Re: Feynman’s Breakthrough: Disregard Others

#41

Post by erasmuse »

Insanity wrote: post #11

It was a pleasure to read, but of course it should be taken with a grain of salt and not applied to every field :-) Imagine being in a software team and disregarding what others are doing? Screw the rest of the team, I'll work on my own better solution and ignore the parts that are already working well! You might end up with a good solution to the problem, but you'll also manage to piss off a lot of people ^^ A more…

>Imagine being in a software team and disregarding what others are doing?

I think the application of 'disregard others' to this case would be to ignore what other software teams working on the same problem are doing.

Re: Feynman’s Breakthrough: Disregard Others

#42

Post by peg_leg »

This goes for everyone - not just geniuses. The burger flipper at your favorite fast food joint needs to concentrate on his own work, disregarding what the particular tasks of the counter-worker is. An office worker needs to concentrate on their own Excel workbook, disregarding the type or quality of other people's work.

One can't be at peak productivity or creativity while constantly comparing their work to others. A very basic trap that even Nobel Prize winners get stuck in apparently.

Re: Feynman’s Breakthrough: Disregard Others

#43

Post by srean »

mannykannot wrote: post #30
srean wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Imagine being in a software team and disregarding what others are doing? Screw the rest of the team, I'll work on my own better solution and ignore the parts that are already working well! If you are competent, have a realistic estimate of your competence, this might not be a bad idea if what you need is a purely technical solution. In many big organizations (lets leave them nameless) most of your time might be goi…

Unfortunately, for every one who is that person in that situation, there are several who merely think they are, at least in my experience (the most common form seems to be the covert rewriter whose work is more 'pure', 'object-oriented | functional', 'general', 'flexible', 'performant', 'reusable', or my favorite, 'simple' (for some definition of 'simple') than will ever be needed, at the cost of considerable additio…

Not only do I agree with you, I think it might actually be worse. Seen enough primadonnas who think they can walk on water and have.

Re: Feynman’s Breakthrough: Disregard Others

#45

Post by omegant »

watwut wrote: post #23
omegant wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it works for everybody but you need to be brave or crazy enough to apply it. If you pay attention to what the others are doing, you are working inside what is socially acceptable in your group and usually you are not going to go against the stablished truth. Hence you will not be able to add any breakthrough to your area of expertise. Feynman as the post says, experienced this social anxiety once he had the f…

It depends on your social status and general situation a lot - some people get punished hard when they disregard others and are in no position to do it. Others can get away with that mostly. A lot depends on whether at least portion of people is willing to give you benefit of the doubt or whether someone criticizing you as always taken at a face value.

Most people is going to be criticized if they step out of the beaten path. Powerful people in any field is not keen to radical change that could make them superfluous rather fast. Then there all those who want to be seen as worthy by the powerful that will parrot their opinions.

I don't think I would dare to introduce radically new stuf (I'm no scientist so it's easy for me to make this statement), at least in the area that puts food on the table, and this is what most people do. It's natural.

You need to be antisocial or obsessed or have no need to public suport due to a special situation(rich, political suport, personal inconditional suport from the boss, being an outsider).

Most of them will be wrong just the same and considered cranks, made fun off and forgotten.

We still need this kind of people even if we wont be like them.

Re: Feynman’s Breakthrough: Disregard Others

#46

Post by Klockan »

akvadrako wrote: post #40
wiz21c wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everybody can do that. Note that there's no loop between 2 and 3.

There is obviously a missing step though, which is to break the problem down into manageable chunks. That's the only way anyone can do it.

That's a part of step 2.

Re: Feynman’s Breakthrough: Disregard Others

#47

Post by ghthor »

bsmithers wrote: post #27

It's interesting that a few people are relating this to team work. I think that is a misinterpretation. By 'others' I would infer something more like 'competitors', though I mean that relatively loosely. Essentially, ignore what other labs are working on and focus on your own (group's) works. My own PhD supervisor had a similar attitude, though it runs against how many others approach a problem I feel. For example, I…

This is also critical for software engineering as well. Large organizations, especially older ones that sort of missed the software revolution will get bogged down in making sure they're software engineers don't recreate an existing project within the company. This thought process ruins creativity and motivation. It's more beneficial to recreate the same thing 4 times over, now you have a team of domain experts 4x the size and you can take that expertise and factor out the shared patterns into a service or a product. Trying to do it the other way around is a recipe for failure.

Re: Feynman’s Breakthrough: Disregard Others

#50

Post by boomlinde »

akvadrako wrote: post #40
wiz21c wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everybody can do that. Note that there's no loop between 2 and 3.

There is obviously a missing step though, which is to break the problem down into manageable chunks. That's the only way anyone can do it.

Perhaps considered a natural effect of thinking hard about it
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