About evaluating something from the “I know” or from the awareness of all that “I don’t know”.
Let’s tell a story.

A person like you was walking through the woods one sunny morning, listening to the still incomprehensible but pleasant songs of the birds, and rejoicing in the fresh smells of the forest.
Suddenly!. A Martian doing friluftsliv like you collide with you!
Green skin, 2 twinkling antennae, big startled eyes, small nose and mouth, and it reaches your navel.
Let’s talk about 2 types of people:
The first says, “I don’t believe it,” like the typical professional or scientist when presented with something totally new and/or disruptive.
The second says: “Awesome, tell me more!”.
The first are the old classical teachers who, only after death, the students with the new paradigms can move forward and the new knowledge becomes considered as normal and as: “everybody knows that”.
The latter are the wise and eternal learners of all times and cultures.
We were talking a few days ago with a mentor and some friends and this topic came up, commenting with the mentor as our 2 friends said “what? how? really? isn’t it a metaphor?”.
We were not talking about QOM and a soft AGI (for next year!) just what a Dzogchen practitioner is capable of after 20 years of study and practice as a scientist and engineer postdoc in the west makes rockets, puts robots on Mars and is able to do heart transplants. (Dzogchen is considered the most advanced technique in Tibetan Buddhism).
I only had a few minutes, so I could not explain in detail the 20 years of practice and learning that the monks do, so I only mentioned one of the classic results after those 20 years: “The Rainbow Body Manifestation”. My two friends, totally amazed and incredulous, commented on that.
The mentor, just smiled in admiration and with a “wow!” expression. I told them how even though we were sitting at that table talking about it, at the same time, a lot of things were happening on the planet that we had no idea about and yet they were still happening.
The Martian doesn’t disappear, he’s still here. You too for her. An understanding is happening. Fear? surprise? curiosity? understanding of the interbeing and smiling and saying “hello!” in Martian and Terrestrial? or just a scream of fear and running in the opposite direction as fast as you can running away from your favorite unconscious imaginary dragon?
If you are free of fear fantasies, you stay and enjoy an extraordinary experience. So does the Martian.
If you are relax with not knowing -like any wise scientist and you can copy them- you relax and ask for more information. “Tell me more!”
Personally I speak little, only if I am asked. I always like to ask and learn about people and everything learning what I don’t know, especially if the other is a professional (does not imply being a postdoc).
One of my friends had to leave, and he left confused about how a phenomenon like the rainbow body was possible. Today he wrote to me asking for more information. I suggested some books, and the first 3 meetings of the Mind&Life dialogues.
With my other friend and the mentor we continue talking.
The Mentor mentioned a common doubt that comes up with QOM.
“Why you and not the big techs, with thousands of scientists, billions of dollars and lots of resources?”
I replied: “Well, apparently, I am in the same situation as Einstein before he published his paper on the photoelectric effect, which is when Quantum Mechanics was born. I am not Einstein, I am just me. I was just lucky enough to be at the right time and to know and have the experience of some specific knowledge to solve the AI and AGI problem. Because of the disruptiveness, I think it’s the same situation that happened with Quantum Physics.”
He smiled wisely again.
A day later I realized the equivalence of our startup to the paper that Enstein published and started that revolution. Our equivalent of that paper is our QOM parsing, and algorithms.
Just as only physicists understand the paper, only computational linguists understand our parsing and algorithms (or any computer scientist).
The Mentor agreed and now, our first investor is being formally contacted.
At some point in the race, the Martian stops and reflects:
“Why am I running? This person is running in the opposite direction just as fast as I am. Okay, okay, we both get scared, that’s normal, but does it make sense to get scared? … no. So what’s it really like?”…, and he slowly walked back to see if he could find that person and continued his friluftsliv.
The person did the same, pondered, realized he had no idea about Martians, but seemed very amused, so also approached. In the end they said “hi!”, chatted up a lot, and set up your business, experiment, favorite earth-martian investment and live happy forever.