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The Risk of Discovery

paulgraham.com

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Re: The Risk of Discovery

#31

Post by js8 »

rl3 wrote: post #13
skolos wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

Why? Somebody can play videogames all day, because it's fun, and then die all of sudden. They didn't produce anything valuable, and yet, they didn't feel bad about it.

It's only painful if you rethink it, and basically say, I should have spent my time doing something else. Which is a paradox of choice.

Re: The Risk of Discovery

#32

Post by lmkg »

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 income was computing astrology charts for royalty).

I say this to reinforce Paul's statement, "But that's because we know how things turned out." "How things turned out" includes reclassification of what he was working out as belonging to different fields. I suspect that at the time, he didn't consider himself to be moving from one field to another but rather to trying to build upon his previous work.

Re: The Risk of Discovery

#33

Post by cobbzilla »

cfmcdonald wrote: post #28
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.

I didn't 'make a bet' by going to college, it was the assumed thing in my family, it was culturally ingrained that I would go to college. This way of looking at life as a series of 'bets' that one makes is it's own particular kind of culture, one that Newton did not belong to. Newton didn't investigate alchemy and theology because he was trying to diversify his fame investment portfolio. To see him this way is to do…

I'd say that asserting Newton had no choice does him a greater disservice. Call them bets, choices or decisions; there were opportunity costs involved, paths to choose, and he chose some that worked out and some that didn't.

Re: The Risk of Discovery

#34

Post by runesoerensen »

kowdermeister wrote: post #18

> 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.

> Except it was three

Maybe he's referring to the bets Newton (somewhat implicitly) made by dedicating time to physics/science as well as alchemy and theology.

Re: The Risk of Discovery

#35

Post by balsam »

kowdermeister wrote: post #18

> 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.

Newton was betting that he would not go crazy or be seen as crazy. The existential risk for thinkers.

Re: The Risk of Discovery

#36

Post by saalweachter »

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.

As an aside, I regularly run into people today -- nearly 400 years later -- who primarily know Pascal, a contemporary of Newton, as a theologian.

Re: The Risk of Discovery

#37

Post by paganel »

psyc wrote: post #17
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.

Judging that way each and every one of our actions (including me writing this comment) is a bet, because AFAIK we still live in a world where we do not have "complete information". From time to time I think about one of Mark Twain's short novels which I read as an adolescent, where a lady decides to take the left road instead of the one on the right (or vice-versa) when she reaches a road-junction, and because of that single decision her life changes dramatically.

Re: The Risk of Discovery

#39

Post by ritchiea »

kowdermeister wrote: post #18

> 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.

How is calling it a bet missing the point? As a scientist investigating a phenomenon in the natural world, assuming you wish to make a new contribution to your field, you are betting your time that you will both arrive at a new understanding of your subject matter and also be the first to do so.

Re: The Risk of Discovery

#40

Post by [deleted] »

balsam wrote: post #35
kowdermeister wrote: post #18

> 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.

Newton was betting that he would not go crazy or be seen as crazy. The existential risk for thinkers.

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