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The Risk of Discovery

paulgraham.com

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Re: The Risk of Discovery

#61

Post by rl3 »

js8 wrote: post #31
rl3 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

The comment I was replying to was explicitly in context of projects. Not merely wasting life, but wasting life in pursuit of something.

The motivation for most people when they pursue something is to succeed, and their efforts to have mattered.

Re: The Risk of Discovery

#62

Post by galdosdi »

sidlls wrote: post #59

It's amusing that he uses a modern chauvinism ("making a bet") in this way, while noting that some of Newton's "bets" were only "wasteful" (risky, bad, whatever) when viewed through the lense of modern knowledge. He has a good point, put poorly, and without good support in his chosen example.

What do you mean by calling the phrase "making a bet" a chauvinism? It just seems like a figure of speech. Gambling has existed for a very long time.

(I don't mean to disagree or agree with you, just genuinely don't know what you mean, might end up going either way after you explain your cryptic (to me) remark)

Re: The Risk of Discovery

#63

Post by state_less »

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…

It is also important to recognize that Newtons time had come. Newton doesn't make those discoveries 1000 years before or after. Our thoughts are placed in time, just as much as this message is in response to the timing of the authors post.

In addition, It's not too infrequent that you'll find another scientist who wrote about the same thing 30 years earlier, or in Newton's case with Leibniz, concurrent.

Rarely do we take a big view of the species, a creature that has been alive and thinking much longer than us, winding its way through time.

Re: The Risk of Discovery

#64

Post by nehushtan »

But... isn't it true that at Newton's theology was at the foundation of his physics? The idea of a single deity whose intelligence crafted a rational world, the laws of which it is man's duty to uncover, is certainly not incidental to his discoveries.

Re: The Risk of Discovery

#65

Post by beachy »

skolos wrote: post #50
beejiu wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

As show very tangibly by Apple recently opening up and allowing their AI researchers to publish.

https://www.engadget.com/2016/12/26/apple-publishes-first-ai...

> AI is an increasingly competitive field, and Apple's past reluctance to contribute to scientific knowledge may have scared away potential hires who wanted their discoveries recognized. If papers like these become relatively commonplace, Apple might have an easier time attracting the talent it needs for self-driving car platforms, Siri and other AI-based projects.

Re: The Risk of Discovery

#66

Post by kordless »

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.

> Please don't get stuck on semantics.

That's a blaming statement used to indicate someone is being pedantic, which can then be used to "prove" them wrong by the followup. All of your counter examples are based on the obtaining a better position, which is all about dealing with globalized suffering (money is stored work and work is a unit of causality and suffering is a result of causality).

Newton presumably pursued understanding the unknown, which means he chose his own suffering/work that was different from any objective based on making bets to get ahead in life at the time.

I think it's entirely fair to point out that Newton wasn't betting at the time. He was discovering purely for the sake of discovery.

Re: The Risk of Discovery

#67

Post by _xhok »

1337p337 wrote: post #58
_xhok wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well, PG presents them as different bets, one of which paid off. They were the same essential bet from Newton's perspective. For example, books on physics at the time referred to religion heavily, sometimes as a cornerstone of an argument. Even Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica says "Collocavit igitur Deus Planetas in diversas distantiis à Sole, ut quilibet pro gradu densitatis calore Solis majore…

That's a very interesting insight, but isn't it also true that Newton decidedly left theology out of calculus and mechanics? What distinguished his three laws was that he chose not to explain, for example, the motion of something by its "ferver" or "jubilance," as his predecessors did. People at the time may not have treated the fields so separately, but Newton did.

Edit: I just ran the quote through Google Translate. Still, merely casting God as being ultimately responsible is a step forward from interweaving theology throughout your physical theories.

Re: The Risk of Discovery

#68

Post by cobbzilla »

kordless wrote: post #66
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.

> Please don't get stuck on semantics. That's a blaming statement used to indicate someone is being pedantic, which can then be used to "prove" them wrong by the followup. All of your counter examples are based on the obtaining a better position, which is all about dealing with globalized suffering (money is stored work and work is a unit of causality and suffering is a result of causality). Newton presumably pursued…

Are you denying he had any choice in what areas of discovery to pursue? And that there were no trade-offs involved? If not, then you are stuck on semantics.

Re: The Risk of Discovery

#69

Post by api »

I've been saying this for years: science is far too conservative, dogmatic, and risk-averse.

The reality is that genius minds are intellectually fearless. Newton was into alchemy and fringe theology. Edison tried to build a machine to contact the dead. Many of the great minds of the 60s who at least envisioned everything you're using now were into all kinds of "crazy" stuff: parapsychology, psychedelic consciousness expansion, shamanism, etc.

Was some of that stuff silly? Sure. Was some or even most of it a dead end? Sure. But that's not the point. The point is that great minds fear no idea.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSolPNn0G7M

Re: The Risk of Discovery

#70

Post by svachalek »

cobbzilla wrote: post #45
paganel wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.poetryf…

After reading the "poem guide" there I have to agree, WOW. My mind is blown. Despite destroying what it meant to me for 30 years, the older me appreciates the poem even more for its subtlety.
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