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What Problems to Solve (1966)

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Re: What Problems to Solve (1966)

#11
post #8

This echoes what I have thought about my career. What to work on. I've been blessed to have a good paying career in software engineering, but I've never really felt passionate about the products I work on. At the end of the day, my job is a paycheck. I do feel joy solving problems for others, improve society, be able to answer colleagues questions when they "come to my office". My family is happy that I can provide a…

I’m in a similar career situation and I am trying to beat my ego into submission to adopt a similar mindset

Re: What Problems to Solve (1966)

#12
His words and advice are truly inspiring and I agree with him.

However, things have changed a lot. Nowadays we're bombarded with ideas and incredible "opportunities" of stuff we can make. It's almost like ideas are shoved into people's heads.

So, I have to add to Mr. Feynman's words an update:

_Be sure that the thing you want to solve is really the thing YOU want to solve_

This is specially true for software development and closed platforms. Sometimes, software vendors have this way of making developers work for free for things they won't get back, ever. They'll do conferences, and attract people, and show you all those nice tools you can use to solve problems (as long as you use their paid platform).

Don't fall for that shit. Remember Twitter and Reddit closing their APIs, platforms being discontinued, companies cannibalizing successful apps by independent developers. Those people wanted to solve problems, and they got scammed.

Re: What Problems to Solve (1966)

#13
post #8

This echoes what I have thought about my career. What to work on. I've been blessed to have a good paying career in software engineering, but I've never really felt passionate about the products I work on. At the end of the day, my job is a paycheck. I do feel joy solving problems for others, improve society, be able to answer colleagues questions when they "come to my office". My family is happy that I can provide a…

In keeping with the list preceding "climate change", consider changing it to:

"...advance AI, change climate."

Re: What Problems to Solve (1966)

#14
Thanks a lot for posting this. I highly recommend having a look into the mentioned flexagons. This is a child toy where Feynman laid the mathematical background and it is very fascinating toy which you can easily build yourself. Try it out - it is really fun. No child required except yourself :)

Re: What Problems to Solve (1966)

#15
> You will get the pleasure of success, and of helping your fellow man, even if it is only to answer a question in the mind of a colleague less able than you.

> innumerable problems that you would call humble, but which I enjoyed and felt very good about because I sometimes could partially succeed.

> You met me at the peak of my career when I seemed to you to be concerned with problems close to the gods.

As problem solvers, we need encouragement to face the difficulties that lie in exploring problems. We need to believe that it can be solved but more so that WE/I can solve it. We need to raise our egos to healthy amounts (not sure what is the precise definition of healthy) so we don't back down or give up. And Mr. Feynman alludes to this with "the pleasure of success", "helping your fellow man", "answer a question in the mind of a colleauge", "I enjoyed ... because I sometimes could partially succeed", and "problems close to the gods".

I am exploring (and absolutely denouncing) this egotism for it leads to frustration, disconnection, illusion, entitlement, and shielding. I feel that (good) school/university/work environments raise ego levels (with "good job!") and aloof you from _........ (which is a utopian place with a healthy encouragement to do more work and work harder to a point where it does not overwhelm you).

The identify of this _........ place keeps occuring to me and flees from me as quickly as it occurs to me. If there is anyone who works without ego, please let me know.

Re: What Problems to Solve (1966)

#19
“studying the Coherence theory with some applications to the propagation of electromagnetic waves through turbulent atmosphere… a humble and down-to-earth type of problem.” -> Ended up being a very important (and largerly solvable!) problem in ground-based astronomy
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