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Very well-written article. I had no idea Ernst Mach had a mystical experience that he based his theories on. Very interesting. “On a bright summer day in the

Very well-written article. I had no idea Ernst Mach had a mystical experience that he based his theories on. Very interesting. “On a bright summer day in the open air, the world with my ego suddenly appeared to me as one coherent mass of sensations,” he later wrote. He felt, in that moment, there was no reality sitting “out there,” independent of his sensations, and likewise that there was no self sitting “in here,” independent of its sensations. He grew certain that there could be no real difference between mind and matter, between perceiving subject and perceived object. “This moment was decisive for my whole view,” he wrote.

UweSchmidt 10y ago
Wish I had a circle of academically awesome, out-of-the-box thinking friends. Does such a thing even exist? All the smart people I know are busy working hard, no one is coming up with wild stuff "on a bright summer day in the open air" any more it seems.
- SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
  Yes, it definitely does. The problem is that it happens in little cliques of 2-3 people, and it's hard to meet a new clique. (I mostly do intoxicated at parties.) I've been thinking of trying to organize "Work in Chalk" parties or something next summer, where we can all go hang out and work on our theories in sidewalk chalk at the park. (I used to do homework this way in uni.) It's just hard to guage how many people would be interested and how to reach them.
  - judahmeek 10y ago
    Create a Meetup for interested parties, perhaps? Then you can have small groups of participants pare off each month for weekly meetings.
- duncancarroll 10y ago
  I know what you mean. I think there are a few problems here: 1. There's a fine line between open-minded and irrational, and unfortunately a lot of people end up crossing it. This becomes a negative feedback loop wherein more and more people don't want to risk their reputations by sounding like they identify with irrational / fringe groups or ideas. 2. It's easy to identify genius in retrospect, but prior to being validated, people who really think ahead of their time are by definition in the minority, so they either have to get used to being laughed at / criticized, or give up. So I guess I would say, keep looking for peers who are open-minded but not irrational. I went to Carnegie-Mellon (`03) and knew hundreds of bright people there, but only 1 or 2 who I considered to be able to think out of the box, as you say. They're people worth finding, though!
  - theoh 10y ago
    I'm not sure a ban on irrationality is exactly what you want. Even psychosis can be a very creative and valuable moment of insight or growth, and people inclined to (admittedly unreliable) irrational thought need to be supported by others rather than shunned. See also this recent article: http://arstechnica.co.uk/science/2016/11/election-ourage-moral-rationality-study/ http://arstechnica.co.uk/science/2016/11/election-ourage-mor... Also, HN in particular can have a kneejerk objectivist flavour that discourages intuitive, unconventional discussion. Dismissing people who seem irrational is not a good way to encourage healthy cognitive diversity, and we could do with less of it.
    - duncancarroll 10y ago
      Sure; I think you may have read my comment wrong, I'm talking about people who, for example, think they're channelling the Archangel Gabriel or that they can materialize objects into existence, or make other totally unfounded claims. The point I was making was that those people do a disservice to open discussion because nobody wants to be painted with that brush, so it ends up becoming an HN-type situation where, as you rightly pointed out, there is a resistance to new ideas. There's probably a formal-discourse type term for it.
- tdb7893 10y ago
  Most of the brightest people I know you can't tell just by casually talking to them so in my past when I tried to find out of the box thinkers what I mainly found was pretentiousness. I'm not saying it's inevitable or even that some pretentiousness is always a bad thing but it would definitely be something that you would need to look out for.
- Florin_Andrei 10y ago
  I still vividly remember that kind of atmosphere back in my Physics college days. Then I switched to the computer industry when I finished my studies, and the atmosphere suddenly changed.
- alimw 10y ago
  Just because I have never been made aware of one, it never caused me to doubt the existence of these circles ... just the existence of my own genius :)
Florin_Andrei 10y ago
> I had no idea Ernst Mach had a mystical experience that he based his theories on. Very interesting. This is a lot more common than most people realize.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- Retra 10y ago
  Well, some of us have those experiences, but we don't go around pretending the whole universe has revealed great secrets to us because our brain chemistry went awry for 45 seconds.
walter_bishop 10y ago
"Ernst Mach had a mystical experience", It's interesting to put that quote in context: "I have always felt it as a stroke of good fortune that early in life, at about the age of fifteen, I lighted, in my fathers library, on a copy of Kant's Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics. The book made at the time a powerful and inextinguishable impression on me, the like of which I never afterwards experienced in any of my philosophical reading. Some two or three years later the superfluity of the thing in itself abruptly dawned upon me. On a bright summer day in the open air, the world with my ego suddenly appeared to me as one coherent mass of sensations, only more strongly coherent in the ego. Although the actual working out of this thought did not occur until a later period, yet the moment was decisive for my whole view. I still had to straggle long and hard before I was able to retain the new conception in my special subject. With the valuable parts of physical theories we necessarily assume a good dose of false metaphysics, which it is very difficult to sift out from what should be preserved, especially when those theories have become very familiar to us. At times, too, the traditional, instinctive views would arise with great power and place impediments in my way. Only by alternate studies in physics and the physiology of the senses, and by historico-physical investigations (since about 1863) and after having endeavoured in vain to settle the conflict by a physico-psychological monadology (in my lectures on psychophysics...) have I attained to any considerable stability in my views." from 'the Analysis of Sensations'
- duncancarroll 10y ago
  Ah yes, I would probably not call that a mystical experience per se then; more like a stroke of insight. Thanks for sharing the entire quote.
agumonkey 10y ago
About Mach relativism, I often wonder if the relativity of measure and geometry should be made explicit early on for children. I was partly confused as a kid, and most my peers were completely eluded.

UweSchmidt 10y ago

Wish I had a circle of academically awesome, out-of-the-box thinking friends. Does such a thing even exist? All the smart people I know are busy working hard, no one is coming up with wild stuff "on a bright summer day in the open air" any more it seems.

SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
Yes, it definitely does. The problem is that it happens in little cliques of 2-3 people, and it's hard to meet a new clique. (I mostly do intoxicated at parties.) I've been thinking of trying to organize "Work in Chalk" parties or something next summer, where we can all go hang out and work on our theories in sidewalk chalk at the park. (I used to do homework this way in uni.) It's just hard to guage how many people would be interested and how to reach them.
- judahmeek 10y ago
  Create a Meetup for interested parties, perhaps? Then you can have small groups of participants pare off each month for weekly meetings.
duncancarroll 10y ago
I know what you mean. I think there are a few problems here: 1. There's a fine line between open-minded and irrational, and unfortunately a lot of people end up crossing it. This becomes a negative feedback loop wherein more and more people don't want to risk their reputations by sounding like they identify with irrational / fringe groups or ideas. 2. It's easy to identify genius in retrospect, but prior to being validated, people who really think ahead of their time are by definition in the minority, so they either have to get used to being laughed at / criticized, or give up. So I guess I would say, keep looking for peers who are open-minded but not irrational. I went to Carnegie-Mellon (`03) and knew hundreds of bright people there, but only 1 or 2 who I considered to be able to think out of the box, as you say. They're people worth finding, though!
- theoh 10y ago
  I'm not sure a ban on irrationality is exactly what you want. Even psychosis can be a very creative and valuable moment of insight or growth, and people inclined to (admittedly unreliable) irrational thought need to be supported by others rather than shunned. See also this recent article: http://arstechnica.co.uk/science/2016/11/election-ourage-moral-rationality-study/ http://arstechnica.co.uk/science/2016/11/election-ourage-mor... Also, HN in particular can have a kneejerk objectivist flavour that discourages intuitive, unconventional discussion. Dismissing people who seem irrational is not a good way to encourage healthy cognitive diversity, and we could do with less of it.
  - duncancarroll 10y ago
    Sure; I think you may have read my comment wrong, I'm talking about people who, for example, think they're channelling the Archangel Gabriel or that they can materialize objects into existence, or make other totally unfounded claims. The point I was making was that those people do a disservice to open discussion because nobody wants to be painted with that brush, so it ends up becoming an HN-type situation where, as you rightly pointed out, there is a resistance to new ideas. There's probably a formal-discourse type term for it.
tdb7893 10y ago
Most of the brightest people I know you can't tell just by casually talking to them so in my past when I tried to find out of the box thinkers what I mainly found was pretentiousness. I'm not saying it's inevitable or even that some pretentiousness is always a bad thing but it would definitely be something that you would need to look out for.
Florin_Andrei 10y ago
I still vividly remember that kind of atmosphere back in my Physics college days. Then I switched to the computer industry when I finished my studies, and the atmosphere suddenly changed.
alimw 10y ago
Just because I have never been made aware of one, it never caused me to doubt the existence of these circles ... just the existence of my own genius :)

Florin_Andrei 10y ago

> I had no idea Ernst Mach had a mystical experience that he based his theories on. Very interesting. This is a lot more common than most people realize.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
Retra 10y ago
Well, some of us have those experiences, but we don't go around pretending the whole universe has revealed great secrets to us because our brain chemistry went awry for 45 seconds.

walter_bishop 10y ago

"Ernst Mach had a mystical experience", It's interesting to put that quote in context: "I have always felt it as a stroke of good fortune that early in life, at about the age of fifteen, I lighted, in my fathers library, on a copy of Kant's Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics. The book made at the time a powerful and inextinguishable impression on me, the like of which I never afterwards experienced in any of my philosophical reading. Some two or three years later the superfluity of the thing in itself abruptly dawned upon me. On a bright summer day in the open air, the world with my ego suddenly appeared to me as one coherent mass of sensations, only more strongly coherent in the ego. Although the actual working out of this thought did not occur until a later period, yet the moment was decisive for my whole view. I still had to straggle long and hard before I was able to retain the new conception in my special subject. With the valuable parts of physical theories we necessarily assume a good dose of false metaphysics, which it is very difficult to sift out from what should be preserved, especially when those theories have become very familiar to us. At times, too, the traditional, instinctive views would arise with great power and place impediments in my way. Only by alternate studies in physics and the physiology of the senses, and by historico-physical investigations (since about 1863) and after having endeavoured in vain to settle the conflict by a physico-psychological monadology (in my lectures on psychophysics...) have I attained to any considerable stability in my views." from 'the Analysis of Sensations'

duncancarroll 10y ago
Ah yes, I would probably not call that a mystical experience per se then; more like a stroke of insight. Thanks for sharing the entire quote.

agumonkey 10y ago

About Mach relativism, I often wonder if the relativity of measure and geometry should be made explicit early on for children. I was partly confused as a kid, and most my peers were completely eluded.