Richard Feynman famously wrote:
“You have to keep a dozen of your favorite problems constantly present in your mind, although by and large they will lay in a dormant state. Every time you hear or read a new trick or result, test it against each of your twelve problems to see whether it helps. Every once in a while there will be a hit, and people will say, ‘How did he do it? He must be a genius!”
I love this, it doesn’t have to only about science, here are some of the problems I am thinking about:
- How can a computer represent a concept from “multiple points of view“?
- How could a computer represent compositionality?
- How could a computer represent casualty?
- How could a computer have a grounded/embodied representation?
- How could a computer represent concepts?
- What is the core algorithm of human intelligence?
- How could a computer represent emotions?
- How could grid cells be used in a computer?
- how can a computer program represent multiple changing abstract goals (not current reinforcement learning) ?
- is AGI possible in a computer?
For non-science questions, I am always thinking about:
- how can I consistently maintain my health?
- how can I always be at calm and peaceful state?
- How can I help more people?
Make sure you always write down your questions and periodically review them. I use this blog as a zettelkasten to help me think about these problems.
