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Is there a tension between creativity and accuracy? – Michael Nielsen

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On Twitter, I’ve been chatting with my friend Julia Galef about tensions between thinking creatively and thinking in a way that reduces error. Of course, all other things being equal, I’m in favour of reducing error in our thinking! However, all other things are not always equal. In particular, I believe “there’s a tension, too, between behaviours which maximize accuracy & which maximize creativity… A lot of important truths come from v. irrational ppl.” Julia has summarized some of her thinking in a blog post, where she disagrees, writing: “I totally agree that we need more experimentation with “crazy ideas”! I’m just skeptical that rationality is, on the margin, in tension with that goal.” Before getting to Julia’s arguments, I want to flesh out the idea of a tension between maximizing creativity and maximizing accuracy. Consider the following statement of Feynman’s, on the need to fool himself into believing that he had a creative edge in his work. He’s talking about his early

On Twitter, I’ve been chatting with my friend Julia Galef about tensions between thinking creatively and thinking in a way that reduces error. Of course, all other things being equal, I’m in favour of reducing error in our thinking! However, all other things are not always equal. In particular, I believe “there’s a tension, too, between behaviours which maximize accuracy & which maximize creativity… A lot of important truths come from v. irrational ppl.” Julia has summarized some of her thinking in a blog post , where she disagrees, writing: “I to

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