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The Risk of Discovery

paulgraham.com

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Re: The Risk of Discovery

#11

Post by cobbzilla »

cfmcdonald wrote: post #4

Sorry, Newton didn't "make bets", he was not a Silicon Valley VC. He worked on problems that he found interesting and that he believed would reveal eternal truths established and maintained by God.

Please don't get stuck on semantics. When you decide to take a longer route because you think there will be less traffic, you "make a bet". You "make a bet" by deciding to go to college instead of straight into the working world. Anywhere there is a decision to be made with uncertain outcomes, you "make a bet". It doesn't have to be about money, although it often is.

Re: The Risk of Discovery

#12

Post by mmwako »

Loved the insight, but I don't agree with the conclusions. Maybe Newton was just genius all along, and we have yet to discover the "hugeness" of alchemy and theology.

Re: The Risk of Discovery

#13

Post by rl3 »

skolos wrote: post #8
aaron-lebo wrote: post #3

I'm not seeing what the risk was. He was taking a chance that he was wrong, yes, but that was just science. Risk suggests a danger. But what was it?

Here "risk" is opportunity cost. You can spend all you life in theology and die unknown. Newton is famous only because of physics, the other fields were waste of his time. There are countless people who spend their life perusing projects that do not produce anything valuable. And then there are few that win Nobel.

>There are countless people who spend their life perusing projects that do not produce anything valuable.

It can't be understated how painful that has to be from their perspective.

I suppose a similar story is where they do produce something of value, but it's incremental in nature. Incremental advancements usually don't receive much recognition.

Re: The Risk of Discovery

#14

Post by rguzman »

also, i have the impression that alchemy's bad reputation is a bit undeserved. IIRC some alchemists believed matter was made of fundamental components and followed the scientific method well. so, that bet may be less risky than we perceive it now. this only makes pg's point stronger: it'd be the most interesting for a biography of Newton to talk about alchemy.

Re: The Risk of Discovery

#15

Post by aaron-lebo »

cobbzilla wrote: post #11
cfmcdonald wrote: post #4

Sorry, Newton didn't "make bets", he was not a Silicon Valley VC. He worked on problems that he found interesting and that he believed would reveal eternal truths established and maintained by God.

Please don't get stuck on semantics. When you decide to take a longer route because you think there will be less traffic, you "make a bet". You "make a bet" by deciding to go to college instead of straight into the working world. Anywhere there is a decision to be made with uncertain outcomes, you "make a bet". It doesn't have to be about money, although it often is.

But none of that has to do with Newton. Was alchemy or physics the long route? Only Newton knows and he's dead.

Not trying to be dense here, I just don't see the insight. How is what you are saying any different than "you don't know what's going to happen" without Newton attached to it?

Re: The Risk of Discovery

#17

Post by psyc »

cfmcdonald wrote: post #4

Sorry, Newton didn't "make bets", he was not a Silicon Valley VC. He worked on problems that he found interesting and that he believed would reveal eternal truths established and maintained by God.

Every decision you make with incomplete information is a bet.

Re: The Risk of Discovery

#18

Post by kowdermeister »

> Newton made three bets. One of them worked. But they were all risky.

Except it was three:

- Optics

- Gravitation and mechanics

- Mathematics

There are many scientists out there who spend a lifetime on theories that turn out to be bogus, but calling it a bet is entirely missing the point.

Re: The Risk of Discovery

#19

Post by cobbzilla »

aaron-lebo wrote: post #15
cobbzilla wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't get stuck on semantics. When you decide to take a longer route because you think there will be less traffic, you "make a bet". You "make a bet" by deciding to go to college instead of straight into the working world. Anywhere there is a decision to be made with uncertain outcomes, you "make a bet". It doesn't have to be about money, although it often is.

But none of that has to do with Newton. Was alchemy or physics the long route? Only Newton knows and he's dead. Not trying to be dense here, I just don't see the insight. How is what you are saying any different than "you don't know what's going to happen" without Newton attached to it?

When you write "Was alchemy or physics the long bet?" it seems you concede that Newton made a bet, and that it didn't involve money. That was my only point: We all make decisions that involve some amount of guesswork on risk vs reward, and it's not always about money.

For sake of argument, let's say Newton's reward was the advancement of human knowledge. He made some high-risk bets that didn't pay off (alchemy, theology), and some that did (physics, calculus).

All PG is saying is that when we look at famous historical figures, after centuries of deification, we tend to focus only on the bets that paid off, and ignore all the failures. But those failures are crucially important to who these figures were as people, and it does them (and ourselves) a disservice to only focus on the successes.

Re: The Risk of Discovery

#20

Post by apeace »

mmwako wrote: post #12

Loved the insight, but I don't agree with the conclusions. Maybe Newton was just genius all along, and we have yet to discover the "hugeness" of alchemy and theology.

I think what you're saying compliments the conclusions made by PG.

If you think alchemy might have promise, go and study it! You'll be taking a risk, but it might just change the world (and put you in the history books).

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