> What does "am familiar" mean? You have heard "of" them, or you have read their work?
Somewhere in between. I read about his concepts from secondary sources. In college, as a part of a project, we built a crude conditioning chamber. The thing I remembered the most was that handling lab animals is difficult, especially if you're not trained to do it.
Which of Skinner's experiments have you tried to replicate?
> With Skinner, even if you just read a biography, I would imagine that it's hard that one would not want to Google more about his stuff.
I'm not a big fan of biographies. One of the few I enjoyed was Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman, but it's more of a collection of anecdotes. And even then I was more interested in the environment the stories took place in rather than Mr. Feynman himself. (As an aside, I'm going to read the biography you recommended.)
I'm more of a "separate art from the artist" kind of person. Or rather "ideas should stand on their own". Sure, I lose a lot of context by discarding the person behind it. But if it's necessary, then it means the original idea wasn't explained clearly enough.
Because you talked a lot about Skinner's photo, I looked it up. He looks unremarkable. I don't know what to make of it. If you show me his photo again in six months, I won't remember it. His ideas would be the same if he was bald, wore a monocle, had a beard, or if I've seen his picture taken 20 years earlier. It has no effect on his body of work.
We don't have photos of ancient philosophers. It doesn't make their ideas inferior or incomplete.
> Like in programming, where you may go from using someone else's paid API to using an open source library. It increases your understanding of the problem space, makes you feel more confident in your abilities, and, most important of all, makes you appreciate the work of all those that came before you.
I haven't thought about it, but it sounds reasonable. It still doesn't push me to learn about their personal lives or find their photos.
There are people in my life that I'm interested about on a personal level. My family. My friends. My neighbors. They are important to me. I'm happy to see their photos.
> A book on today's bestseller list about behavior modification that's written by an author who, apparently, has never even read a biography of Skinner, or watched a single interview with him, is the very opposite. Great packaging; zero original work.
> Skinner, to me, is Zero to One. Self-Help books repackaging his ideas are One to Many. It's totally fine that this second category exists. Yet if people struggle with the second category of material, I want to encourage them to go looking closer to the source.
This is interesting and it's worth exploring. You seem knowledgeable about it. Have you thought about writing more about this gap? Perhaps even bridging it yourself. It would do a lot of service to the OGs of the field.
Somewhere in between. I read about his concepts from secondary sources. In college, as a part of a project, we built a crude conditioning chamber. The thing I remembered the most was that handling lab animals is difficult, especially if you're not trained to do it.
Which of Skinner's experiments have you tried to replicate?
> With Skinner, even if you just read a biography, I would imagine that it's hard that one would not want to Google more about his stuff.
I'm not a big fan of biographies. One of the few I enjoyed was Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman, but it's more of a collection of anecdotes. And even then I was more interested in the environment the stories took place in rather than Mr. Feynman himself. (As an aside, I'm going to read the biography you recommended.)
I'm more of a "separate art from the artist" kind of person. Or rather "ideas should stand on their own". Sure, I lose a lot of context by discarding the person behind it. But if it's necessary, then it means the original idea wasn't explained clearly enough.
Because you talked a lot about Skinner's photo, I looked it up. He looks unremarkable. I don't know what to make of it. If you show me his photo again in six months, I won't remember it. His ideas would be the same if he was bald, wore a monocle, had a beard, or if I've seen his picture taken 20 years earlier. It has no effect on his body of work.
We don't have photos of ancient philosophers. It doesn't make their ideas inferior or incomplete.
> Like in programming, where you may go from using someone else's paid API to using an open source library. It increases your understanding of the problem space, makes you feel more confident in your abilities, and, most important of all, makes you appreciate the work of all those that came before you.
I haven't thought about it, but it sounds reasonable. It still doesn't push me to learn about their personal lives or find their photos.
There are people in my life that I'm interested about on a personal level. My family. My friends. My neighbors. They are important to me. I'm happy to see their photos.
> A book on today's bestseller list about behavior modification that's written by an author who, apparently, has never even read a biography of Skinner, or watched a single interview with him, is the very opposite. Great packaging; zero original work.
> Skinner, to me, is Zero to One. Self-Help books repackaging his ideas are One to Many. It's totally fine that this second category exists. Yet if people struggle with the second category of material, I want to encourage them to go looking closer to the source.
This is interesting and it's worth exploring. You seem knowledgeable about it. Have you thought about writing more about this gap? Perhaps even bridging it yourself. It would do a lot of service to the OGs of the field.