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")?
The Risk of Discovery
171–180 of 344 posts
Re: The Risk of Discovery
#172It'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…
Re: The Risk of Discovery
#173Earlier 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…
Re: The Risk of Discovery
#174It'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.
Re: The Risk of Discovery
#175I'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…
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
#176Earlier 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.
Re: The Risk of Discovery
#177Earlier 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.
Re: The Risk of Discovery
#178I'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…
Re: The Risk of Discovery
#179Risky? 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
#180When 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…