Live data from Hacker News

The Risk of Discovery

paulgraham.com

171–180 of 344 posts

Re: The Risk of Discovery

#171
post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" If you hear advice from a grandmother or elders, odds are that it works at ninety percent. On the other hand, in part because of scientism and academic prostitution, in part because the world is hard, if you read anything by psychologists and behavioral scientists, odds are it works at less than ten percent " Some of my favorite books of all time were Taleb's, but I have to say, his writing is the perfect demonstra…

Why are you using ℅ ("care of") instead of % ("percent")?

It's a Google Keyboard (GBoard) thing I think.

Re: The Risk of Discovery

#172

It's either ignorant or insulting to name theology in the same breath as alchemy. Theology is still an academic discipline and it doesn't even require a believe in the supernatural. Unless this is pg's attempt to insert himself into fight about "theology" vs. "religious studies".

Leaving aside alchemy, (which one can assume most people are fairly uninformed about), the whole notion that theology ought to be considered a waste of time in modern day belies a pretty surprising degree of ignorance. The study of God and religious ideas is equivalent to the study of human nature and the significance of existence itself. This is true regardless of which belief system you care to study. Even avoiding…

"The study of God" is useless, but the study of people believing in God or gods is useful and quite interesting. These are two different things! The theology of Newton was the former - he literally believed the Bible was the word of God, and by interpreting it he could foresee how the world would end. It was a waste of time because we know now the Bible is actually written by humans.

Re: The Risk of Discovery

#173
post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to disagree with the "or merit" part. For two reasons - the first being related to theology itself, and the other related to another field which is sometimes classified as being without scientific rigor - philosophy. One merit of theology is the study of religious traditions and whether or not they should continue or be discouraged for various reasons, as an example. Not only scientific pursuits have merit.…

Indeed, and thanks for the feedback, esp. in the form of pointing out the interpretation rather than assuming things or putting words in my mouth. I agree with everything you said. I think it would be good to make a distinction between the anthropology of religion and theology (the latter as the study of the "divine" itself, as though there's such a thing to study. Anthropology has merit for sure and even the practic…

I agree (and others do, too) that there should be a greater distinction between anthropological study of religion vs. theology - and it is argued by some that "religious studies" is more appropriate a classification of that than theology itself. I don't have too strong an opinion on the matter, personally, but still appreciate your clarification on what you meant. It's a muddy topic (as tends to be the case with anything surrounding religion).

Re: The Risk of Discovery

#174
post #123

It's either ignorant or insulting to name theology in the same breath as alchemy. Theology is still an academic discipline and it doesn't even require a believe in the supernatural. Unless this is pg's attempt to insert himself into fight about "theology" vs. "religious studies".

I find theology and alchemy very similar. Both go to great lengths to prove something that is highly desirable for a human (afterlife and cheap gold) but very unlikely if judged with a clear mind.

Alchemy was not about "cheap gold". It was the study of natural elements and transformation and purification of materials. It was a proto-science which later turned into mineralogy, chemistry and medicine. It was part science, part philosophy and part occultism.

Re: The Risk of Discovery

#175
post #32

I'm not sure that those lines of study were actually considered separate at the time. A century earlier than Newton's time, math and geometry were considered subfields of astronomy; and astronomy was considered the observation of the realm of the divine. Not only was there not a divide between physics and theology, people actually thought that math was a tool for studying theology (one of Copernicus' sources of incom…

Makes you wonder what the "software industry" will look like in 300 years.

Good ideas tend to split & bifurcate, until the original term is considered simply common sense and the parts people care about are individual subfields that were trivial when they started. Recall that "industry" used to refer to anything that was mass-produced in a factory, which, back in the 1820s, basically meant textiles. As the general techniques proved their worth, "industry" split into subfields, such that we got the "oil industry" and "steel industry" and "auto industry" and "aviation industry" and so on.

I think a similar process is happening with software, where the "software industry" is bifurcating into embedded software, social software, payment software, etc, much of it in support of an existing industry; "software is eating the world". I suspect that we're in the very early phases of this. In the early history of the industrial revolution, most industries were ways to produce existing goods (clothing, iron, tobacco, energy) dramatically more efficiently, much like how much software today is embedded in old-line industries' line-of-business apps. But starting around 1900, you started getting industries (electricity, aviation, pharmaceuticals) that were largely unrecognizable compared to their substitutes. You're seeing the very beginning of that now with specifically Internet- and cloud-based industries, but it likely has another century to go.

Re: The Risk of Discovery

#176
post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Leaving aside alchemy, (which one can assume most people are fairly uninformed about), the whole notion that theology ought to be considered a waste of time in modern day belies a pretty surprising degree of ignorance. The study of God and religious ideas is equivalent to the study of human nature and the significance of existence itself. This is true regardless of which belief system you care to study. Even avoiding…

"The study of God" is useless, but the study of people believing in God or gods is useful and quite interesting. These are two different things! The theology of Newton was the former - he literally believed the Bible was the word of God, and by interpreting it he could foresee how the world would end. It was a waste of time because we know now the Bible is actually written by humans.

This is my experience, and I think a lot of (devout, conservative) theologians believe this -- although that definitely express it in different language! Look at critiques of seminary programs as being "too academic", for example. The "academic" subjects are basically anything and everything that doesn't over-lap with human psychology or business (apologetics and church history, for example).

Re: The Risk of Discovery

#177
post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe they just believe in Thiel's free speech rights.

Peter Thiel isn't a regular guy with an imaginative twitter stream. He's an influential and highly connected billionaire. This has nothing to do with free speech.

Billionaires don't have rights to free speech?

Re: The Risk of Discovery

#178
post #32

I'm not sure that those lines of study were actually considered separate at the time. A century earlier than Newton's time, math and geometry were considered subfields of astronomy; and astronomy was considered the observation of the realm of the divine. Not only was there not a divide between physics and theology, people actually thought that math was a tool for studying theology (one of Copernicus' sources of incom…

Quite so. What we now call natural science was all mixed together with supernatural, occult sciences. The two were separated only as a result of centuries of careful thought, plus the fact that the natural sciences made enormous progress, whereas the occult sciences just kept going around in the same circles.

Re: The Risk of Discovery

#179
> Newton made three bets. One of them worked. But they were all risky.

Risky? What is the definition of risk? What was the downside to Newton making these 'bets'? What was the risk of Andressen deciding in college to think that what he did was the right way to go? And importantly (and my point) wouldn't the exact same action by a tenured professor be more of a risk?

Let's take the risk that Donald Trump took vs. Hillary Clinton. Trump is hated by many now and would be regardless of whether he won or lost the election (in many ways decimated his brand). The same is not true for Hillary even though she did take a reputation hit it's nowhere near what Trump (with his rhetoric) took. So same thing "run for President" different people different levels of risk.

Re: The Risk of Discovery

#180

When people say that Newton studied alchemy, what they actually mean was that he studied chemistry. He was studying what happens when you do different things to different elements. Sure he used the language of the time, but he was fundamentally doing chemistry. And the dream of the alchemists -- to turn base materials into gold -- was ultimately more or less realized when Henri Moissan created the first artificial di…

The difference between alchemy and modern chemistry is alchemy is based on a mystic, supernatural view of reality, whereas chemistry assumes reality is basically natural. That makes a huge difference, and chemistry would never have gotten very far if it had stuck with the old metaphysics.
Post reply on HN