Grilled
I spent two and quarter hours giving what was supposed to be an hour and a half presentation to the lab group (my adviser for my independent study and his grad students) because they needed an extra hour to grill me over the details of how I should salvage the results of my experiment, which has gone awry, which they insist is normal. (I believe them. The most generalizable rule of real progress in real domains that I've seen is that it is built, iteration after iteration, off of failure and revision. Perhaps what these cycles cultivate is a particular virtue: the ability to rise up again. Only after training ourselves to vertically accelerate fast enough--zero to sixty in half a second--can we reach escape velocity, bursting through the stratosphere and into a greater, wider orbit.)
Subjectively, the experience was grueling partly because it demanded on-line analysis of my intentions as I spoke. When the motivation for my hypothesis was challenged, was I defending it out of pride, or out of intellectual commitment to its truth? When I resisted the professor's recommendation that I should completely change the direction of my project, why was I feeling so attached to my original goal--stubbornness, or because I thought there was still value in my original thesis? (Incidentally, Jake Halevi believed that our ability to choose which of two motivating factors was the reason why we took some action was something unaccountable by naturalistic psychology, and hence evidence that we have been given free will by God. I didn't see this at all: as the reasons for my motivation shifted as I purified them on the spot, I felt great psychological shifts within me. Emotions, dispositions, all their attending changes in the body, in digestion, in perspiration, in adrenaline. These motivations were all of this earth; no question of that.)
I believe I held my own, righteously. I fought hard for my case and, once it was absorbed at long last by the people in the room, I was able to step back and take their advice of what to do next. Write up what I have, don't gather any more data. The professor, a critical man with a critical mind, keeps reminding me that there is no shame in that.
Afterwards, he asks me what I'm doing next year, and insists that I am making a mistake by not going immediately to grad school. Again, I'm on the defensive for another fifteen minutes. What am I looking for? "Praxis practice"--that's my response. "What's that supposed to mean?" I explain, as best I can. "Ah, you won't find that. You'll find politics, you'll get sucked in. You'll find it hard to break back into academia. You'll feel stuck." And there I am trying to justify my life, but with an inner pride, because I know that this is in fact a deep complement from one who does not give them easily.
Ultimately, I rein him in. "The problem is that we professors have no sensitivity to base rates." Departmental jargon, but a common and living language. "We just project our own life experiences onto our students, because that's all we've got."
One thing about them cognitive scientists: they know themselves. That's their job.
I'm a better, stronger person after today.
p.s. LJ's spell-checker does not know the word "praxis." It recommends: Proxies, Precis, Pyrex's, Pyrexes, Proxy's, Prigs, Precise, Preexist, Praises, Roxi's, Pixies, Paresis, Rx's, Borax's, Trixi's, Rex's, Pixes, Pox's, Poxes, Proxy, Pyx's, Pyxes, Piracy's, Prig's, Trix's, Prefix's ...
Subjectively, the experience was grueling partly because it demanded on-line analysis of my intentions as I spoke. When the motivation for my hypothesis was challenged, was I defending it out of pride, or out of intellectual commitment to its truth? When I resisted the professor's recommendation that I should completely change the direction of my project, why was I feeling so attached to my original goal--stubbornness, or because I thought there was still value in my original thesis? (Incidentally, Jake Halevi believed that our ability to choose which of two motivating factors was the reason why we took some action was something unaccountable by naturalistic psychology, and hence evidence that we have been given free will by God. I didn't see this at all: as the reasons for my motivation shifted as I purified them on the spot, I felt great psychological shifts within me. Emotions, dispositions, all their attending changes in the body, in digestion, in perspiration, in adrenaline. These motivations were all of this earth; no question of that.)
I believe I held my own, righteously. I fought hard for my case and, once it was absorbed at long last by the people in the room, I was able to step back and take their advice of what to do next. Write up what I have, don't gather any more data. The professor, a critical man with a critical mind, keeps reminding me that there is no shame in that.
Afterwards, he asks me what I'm doing next year, and insists that I am making a mistake by not going immediately to grad school. Again, I'm on the defensive for another fifteen minutes. What am I looking for? "Praxis practice"--that's my response. "What's that supposed to mean?" I explain, as best I can. "Ah, you won't find that. You'll find politics, you'll get sucked in. You'll find it hard to break back into academia. You'll feel stuck." And there I am trying to justify my life, but with an inner pride, because I know that this is in fact a deep complement from one who does not give them easily.
Ultimately, I rein him in. "The problem is that we professors have no sensitivity to base rates." Departmental jargon, but a common and living language. "We just project our own life experiences onto our students, because that's all we've got."
One thing about them cognitive scientists: they know themselves. That's their job.
I'm a better, stronger person after today.
p.s. LJ's spell-checker does not know the word "praxis." It recommends: Proxies, Precis, Pyrex's, Pyrexes, Proxy's, Prigs, Precise, Preexist, Praises, Roxi's, Pixies, Paresis, Rx's, Borax's, Trixi's, Rex's, Pixes, Pox's, Poxes, Proxy, Pyx's, Pyxes, Piracy's, Prig's, Trix's, Prefix's ...