Geniuses of the past were aristocratically tutored • Hacker News Board

Re: Geniuses of the past were aristocratically tutored

#421

Post by nwatson » Thu, Mar 17, 2022, 4:50 AM UTC

pier25 wrote: post #394

I could be totally wrong, but my hunch is that this is more related to the lowest hanging fruit rather than human capacity. Maybe scientific discoveries simply get exponentially harder. In painting, it's very rare for someone to make anything original these days. We won't have any more Picassos, etc, simply because they were the first to explore a new terrain. It's really not a matter of education, genetics, or talen…

Is useful, worthwhile knowledge in a "sparse" search space? If so it will take more and more effort to reach anything new, and we'll need generations-long moonshot efforts to force young kids to skip their childhoods to dedicate time to nothing more than making the next, say chemistry, discovery by the time they're 45. Many are accused of manufacturing B.S. search spaces to explore in English departments.

If worthwhile knowledge is in a "fractal" search space maybe there's hope. Those kids can still have a childhood and discover something new by the time they're 30, something worthwhile.

Another problem with modern genius might be that there are plenty of geniuses, but the proximity of their deep-in-the-fractal landscape is so far from what can be recognized and acknowledged by gatekeepers of genius sainthood that their work never comes to light. There also are probably lots of geniuses doing outsized work at relatively menial jobs in places where nobody can see it, and their work is taken for granted.

Re: Geniuses of the past were aristocratically tutored

#422

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Mar 17, 2022, 4:51 AM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Geniuses of the past were aristocratically tutored

#423

Post by Sander3Utile » Thu, Mar 17, 2022, 4:56 AM UTC

s-lambert wrote: post #380

betwixthewires wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not talking about watching videos on the internet. I'm talking about libgen, scihub, MITs entire curriculum for free on the internet, forums and chatrooms to discuss topics with others, and some videos on the internet. And that's just the free ones.

That's still not anywhere near the same though, a tutor is able to figure out what the student is missing through observation and also teach in a way that the student will learn fastest. Whereas any internet resource relies on the student being able to figure out what they themselves don't know and isn't tailor-made for them.

developments in education technology is actually driving to to do exactly that, personalized learning curriculum designed to expose the user at their own pace and using heuristics to create learning schedules

Re: Geniuses of the past were aristocratically tutored

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Post by known » Thu, Mar 17, 2022, 5:04 AM UTC

No post body was provided.

Re: Geniuses of the past were aristocratically tutored

#425

Post by twayt » Thu, Mar 17, 2022, 5:06 AM UTC

reddog wrote: post #355

I got to wonder how 11 year old Einstein, Von Neuman, Russell or Dawin would have turned out if they had been subjected to all the extremely compelling distractions that modern day kids encounter, aristocratic tutors and all. How much greek and latin would have been learned with a PS5 in the room? How much of Marcus Aurelius would have been read if young Russell had had a Instagram account and a magic glowing rectang…

The fact that we have more compelling distractions than survival is because we have largely solved all the problems required for us to thrive.

The genius of prehistoric times would have been to discover better ideas to survive or hunt.

The genius of the previous generation was to improve computation. We are here being distracted by TikTok precisely because of that.

The genius of the next generation would be something else important to the current time.

No matter what the context of the time is, genius will emerge.

The criteria of what genetics, skills and training you need to be a genius will definitely change to suit the time. Einstein, Von Neuman, Russell or Darwin are no longer going to be the geniuses of today the same way they wouldn't be the geniuses of the previous generation.

TLDR; Genius is an emergent phenomenon that is rooted in the valuable contemporary problems that need to be solved.

Re: Geniuses of the past were aristocratically tutored

#426

Post by twayt » Thu, Mar 17, 2022, 5:09 AM UTC

throwaway5486nv wrote: post #358

reddog wrote: post #355

I got to wonder how 11 year old Einstein, Von Neuman, Russell or Dawin would have turned out if they had been subjected to all the extremely compelling distractions that modern day kids encounter, aristocratic tutors and all. How much greek and latin would have been learned with a PS5 in the room? How much of Marcus Aurelius would have been read if young Russell had had a Instagram account and a magic glowing rectang…

Distraction is for less focused and less ambitious people. We don't have to look at Einstein level genius. Take a look at the competitive programming the kids there solve puzzles at such speed who are grown in the era of all the distractions. If one can not be genius in this era, there is no way they could have been genius in the past. The other way is not true due to access to knowledge in the past is very much rest…

If not being distracted is what is required to be a "genius" today, those that are inherently less likely to be distracted will emerge.

Re: Geniuses of the past were aristocratically tutored

#427

Post by twayt » Thu, Mar 17, 2022, 5:11 AM UTC

Yaina wrote: post #50

What's distinctly lacking in this piece is a definition of a genius. This article seems to define it to be an individual that is globally lauded for their scientific/artistic achievements. I'm sure there is a plethora of reasons why this doesn't happen anymore, it seems to me that this is a good thing, but it's no reason to conclude that we don't have intelligent people anymore.

Genius is counterfactual: "If this person did not exist, this thing wouldn't have been discovered or created."

Impossible to prove after the fact considering that in order for their discovery to be recognized, it has to be understood and somewhat built upon the ideas that are accepted today.

Re: Geniuses of the past were aristocratically tutored

#428

Post by _carbyau_ » Thu, Mar 17, 2022, 5:14 AM UTC

csomar wrote: post #62

I think most people here are missing the point. This is not about incremental progress but about breakthroughs. Religion was breakthrough. Electricity was a breakthrough. General Relativity was a breakthrough. The Internet was another breakthrough and now we are enjoying these things. A similar breakthrough today could be: Quantum mechanics, Fusion and a fully functional decentralized Internet (not to be confused wit…

I kind of agree with your War theory. But obviously the war itself doesn't make things happen. Rather it is that it aligns a bunch of things - money, desperation/motivation, smart people.

Maybe lack of a world war is a reason.

Maybe intellectual property law becoming common.

Maybe increasing awareness of the competing billions around us makes for different impulses IE Bezos-aspirations instead of scientific progress. If you have enough money, you can BUY the idea/smart person.

Maybe the glorification of sports/fashion/music/movies/games rather than science/knowledge.

Re: Geniuses of the past were aristocratically tutored

#429

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Mar 17, 2022, 5:16 AM UTC

mcguire wrote: post #298

defgeneric wrote: post #155

The quality of this thread is really disappointing. Conservatively, about 80% of the replies, criticisms, suggestions, re-framings, here are addressed in the article by the author. About 20% of the replies here are responding to the title alone (and therefore focused on Einstein/progress in hard science). The piece is about the kind of education the children of the aristocracy received and how it has disappeared enti…

I'm not particularly impressed with the quality of the article. The first question that comes to my mind that the article doesn't address is, how many geniuses did humanity miss because education was very, very limited. Second thought: history shows that the vast majority of aristocratically tutored students were very much not geniuses; this article is full of cherry-picking. Third, there's the "Where's Todays Beetho…

[deleted]

Re: Geniuses of the past were aristocratically tutored

#430

Post by twayt » Thu, Mar 17, 2022, 5:18 AM UTC

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #18

I've got plenty of theories but nothing solid. Einstein and the other Big Name Scientists at the time seemed to be part of a small intellectual elite; it feels like this group of intellectuals has since then increased, but since the big discoveries had already been made, they spend their time iterating on them. Similar discoveries made back then about the nature of reality and physics were all made around that time,…

"but since the big discoveries had already been made".

This is a tautology. At every point in history, all the big discoveries had already been made.