"And lastly, something I’ve been wondering: is it possible to fake experience by getting advice?"
It must be hard, because so few people seem to do it. The history of humanity would look different if we didn't all seem to have to repeat the same mistakes.
I suppose at a hypothetical extreme you could be a Chinese Room-like puppet of the advisor. But in real life you have to generalize at some point. Behind the words of the advice is the understanding, which is the hard part. Understanding doesn't even necessarily follow from one's own experience. It takes the hard but irreplaceable work of reflection. One can try to reverse engineer understanding from advice, but regardless we can say that while experience may not be necessary, advice is not sufficient.
(In some vague sense of work-dimensionality: advice < understanding <= experience.)
It must be hard, because so few people seem to do it. The history of humanity would look different if we didn't all seem to have to repeat the same mistakes.
I suppose at a hypothetical extreme you could be a Chinese Room-like puppet of the advisor. But in real life you have to generalize at some point. Behind the words of the advice is the understanding, which is the hard part. Understanding doesn't even necessarily follow from one's own experience. It takes the hard but irreplaceable work of reflection. One can try to reverse engineer understanding from advice, but regardless we can say that while experience may not be necessary, advice is not sufficient.
(In some vague sense of work-dimensionality: advice < understanding <= experience.)