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The Risk of Discovery

paulgraham.com

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Re: The Risk of Discovery

#41

Post by _xhok »

1337p337 wrote: post #21
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.

There wasn't quite the sharp division of disciplines, either. Thinking about it that way comes from the public school system (which the author ought to know, because if I'm not mistaken, he mentioned that in a previous essay). Mathematics (which didn't warrant a mention as a bet that paid off in a blurb about the guy that invented calculus), metaphysics, and the natural sciences were all areas of study, but they were…

I think you are agreeing with the author, who is trying here to refute the misconception that Newton was simultaneously a brilliant, grounded, impartial truth seeker who discovered physics and a batshit conspiracist who dabbled in alchemy and theology.

Re: The Risk of Discovery

#42

Post by imgabe »

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.

He wagered his time. Everything you choose to work on means you're not working on something else. So by choosing to work on something, you're necessarily "betting" that it's going to be more fruitful than the infinitely many other things you could be doing.

Expending resources, whether time or money, on something with an uncertain outcome is a bet. I'm not sure what the objection is to using that term. Nobody said Newton was a Silicon Valley VC.

Re: The Risk of Discovery

#43

Post by FreeFull »

rwj wrote: post #30
1337p337 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There wasn't quite the sharp division of disciplines, either. Thinking about it that way comes from the public school system (which the author ought to know, because if I'm not mistaken, he mentioned that in a previous essay). Mathematics (which didn't warrant a mention as a bet that paid off in a blurb about the guy that invented calculus), metaphysics, and the natural sciences were all areas of study, but they were…

guy that co-invented calculus...

I'd say co-invented would apply more if he worked together with Leibniz on it. Instead, they both invented it independently, around the same time (with differing notation, but both gave the means to reach the same results).

Re: The Risk of Discovery

#44

Post by beejiu »

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.

> die unknown

Is this really the motivation for anyone?

Re: The Risk of Discovery

#45

Post by cobbzilla »

paganel wrote: post #37
psyc wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 tha…

Indeed! And how about that classic Robert Frost poem, "The Road Not Taken" [1]

Edit: WOW, after reading the commentary on the poem, I never realized how wrong I was. The poem is a joke, he's saying it didn't really matter which path he took. All these years I took it so seriously, which apparently is a common mistake dating back to the very first time the poem was read in front of an audience.

[1] https://www.poetryfoundation.org/resources/learning/core-poe...

Re: The Risk of Discovery

#46

Post by [deleted] »

curun1r wrote: post #27

There are plenty of discoverers who incurred some level of risk and lost in a way that isn't covered up by history. Marie Curie's discovery killed her. Tesla's genius manifested not only in groundbreaking discovery, but also mental illness and isolation. And just ask Elisha Gray about the risks of discovery. But, yes, history has a survivorship bias. But that's literally one of the oldest observations made. It's ofte…

[deleted]

Re: The Risk of Discovery

#47

Post by [deleted] »

ritchiea wrote: post #39
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.

[deleted]

Re: The Risk of Discovery

#48

Post by js8 »

I find it funny that capitalism requires what is essentially an irrational behavior. It seems to me that big public corporations, which avoid risk, and only buy startups once they have been established, are the rational actors. On the other hands, three guys in the garage doing a startup often do it not because they calculate expected profits, but because they want to do it for other than monetary reasons - typically to show that things can be improved and done differently. And so they are willing to take huge, irrational risks.

Re: The Risk of Discovery

#49

Post by balsam »

lmkg wrote: 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…

PG wants to make startups/hackers surpass earth-shattering thinkers, by considering the differences in the existential risks taken by each. Newton was betting (in PG's interpretation) that he would not go crazy or be seen as crazy. The existential risk for thinkers. Now to make scummy => crazy, where "=>" can also mean "greater or equals to".

Re: The Risk of Discovery

#50

Post by skolos »

beejiu wrote: post #44
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.

> die unknown Is this really the motivation for anyone?

This is one of the main motivators in science. People do science trying to discover something no one knows and be recognized for that. Very few would be still motivated if you leave just discovery part and drop recognition.
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