Research as Understanding
Metadata
Highlights
- research is simply a continuation of something we already naturally do: learning. Learning happens when you understand something that someone else already understands. Research happens when you understand something that nobody else understands yet.
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Research, I realized, is what happens as a byproduct when you try to understand something and hit the bounds of what humanity currently knows.2 At that point, there’s suddenly no one who can tell you the answer.
- Put another way, the generating function for novel work is trying really hard to deeply understand something until you pass through the edge of current human understanding, and then continuing imaginatively onwards.