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The genuine polymath is still one in a million

spectator.co.uk

21–30 of 67 posts

Re: The genuine polymath is still one in a million

#21
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the past few decades, we've absorbed them into adtech.

Only in HN is the notion that the "geniuses" of this generation are working for the FAANGs, sure, some may be, but I am willing to bet 99% of them are not.

I think his comment was implying that such individuals would have naturally gravitated toward the highest-paying jobs and thus adtech. The subtext being that we waste the brightest minds of our generation on trivial and useless jobs.

Re: The genuine polymath is still one in a million

#22
post #16

One thing that struck me at an exhibit of Leonardo's notebooks is how totally wrong he was about so many things. It wasn't mentioned in the exhibit but for every one thing he was correct about, it seemed like there were many many, dozens perhaps, that he was completely incorrect about. Some of the ideas seem preposterous now, although it's difficult to view them appropriately as they would have been at the time. This…

Of course he was wrong more often than he was right, he was a human being.

Re: The genuine polymath is still one in a million

#23
We're standing on the shoulders of giants - so many giants in fact, that it's quite possible to spend a lifetime just climbing upward these days. By comparison, in Leonardo's time, a curious mind would almost certainly have to jump laterally to find something to hold its attention.

Re: The genuine polymath is still one in a million

#26
post #16

One thing that struck me at an exhibit of Leonardo's notebooks is how totally wrong he was about so many things. It wasn't mentioned in the exhibit but for every one thing he was correct about, it seemed like there were many many, dozens perhaps, that he was completely incorrect about. Some of the ideas seem preposterous now, although it's difficult to view them appropriately as they would have been at the time. This…

I noticed the same thing in one of Aristotle's books, where he tries to catalog his encyclopedic knowledge of natural phenomena. It might just be a sign of an earlier intellectual era.

Re: The genuine polymath is still one in a million

#27
post #6
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was about to say that. If a genuine polymath were 1 in a million we should have 7000 von Neumanns right now.

You know we might just have 7000 von Neumanns among us, but may be unable to recognize them. The vast majority of 7+ billion people on the planet are unknown to everyone some except family and a couple of friends. The adage "Popular does not equal good" has never been more relevant.

> The adage "Popular does not equal good" has never been more relevant.

Eh, it depends. It's not true that popular ==> good, but I think there are plenty of areas where it's more true than it used to be that good ==> popular. For example, many more people now have a much better chance to get an education and demonstrate aptitude in some area. And better communication means talent is better matched to opportunity.

That's not to say we're really optimizing human potential. That doesn't even seem close to true. But I think we're doing a lot better than we were even 50 years ago.

Re: The genuine polymath is still one in a million

#28
post #16

One thing that struck me at an exhibit of Leonardo's notebooks is how totally wrong he was about so many things. It wasn't mentioned in the exhibit but for every one thing he was correct about, it seemed like there were many many, dozens perhaps, that he was completely incorrect about. Some of the ideas seem preposterous now, although it's difficult to view them appropriately as they would have been at the time. This…

I was told by a doctor that in his 1980s biology class, the professor opened by saying, "half of what I'm going to teach you is wrong - we just don't know which half".

I imagine it's similar with Leonardo, and likely with our own state-of-the-art knowledge. We are all broken clocks, and the trick is to figure out which part of our knowledge is wrong.

Re: The genuine polymath is still one in a million

#29
post #28
post #16

One thing that struck me at an exhibit of Leonardo's notebooks is how totally wrong he was about so many things. It wasn't mentioned in the exhibit but for every one thing he was correct about, it seemed like there were many many, dozens perhaps, that he was completely incorrect about. Some of the ideas seem preposterous now, although it's difficult to view them appropriately as they would have been at the time. This…

I was told by a doctor that in his 1980s biology class, the professor opened by saying, "half of what I'm going to teach you is wrong - we just don't know which half". I imagine it's similar with Leonardo, and likely with our own state-of-the-art knowledge. We are all broken clocks, and the trick is to figure out which part of our knowledge is wrong.

They say that about advertising spend too. I think it was David Ogilvy but I'm too lazy to look it up.

Re: The genuine polymath is still one in a million

#30
post #16

One thing that struck me at an exhibit of Leonardo's notebooks is how totally wrong he was about so many things. It wasn't mentioned in the exhibit but for every one thing he was correct about, it seemed like there were many many, dozens perhaps, that he was completely incorrect about. Some of the ideas seem preposterous now, although it's difficult to view them appropriately as they would have been at the time. This…

Same goes for Isaac Newton. He’s practically been elevated to godhood for his contributions to calculus and physics. What about his occult studies, alchemy, and chronology [1]? It seems only historians (academic and amateur), Newton buffs, and compulsive Wikipedia clickers know or care about these weird ideas that were so important to Newton.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton%27s_occult_studie...

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