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This type of dismissive comment reeks of elitism. Einstein was a patent clerk. Big, important ideas can come from anyone. They usually come from outsiders conn

by gfodor 7y ago

This type of dismissive comment reeks of elitism. Einstein was a patent clerk. Big, important ideas can come from anyone. They usually come from outsiders connecting the dots between different areas. This isn’t me defending the writer of this article’s argument.

morelisp 7y ago
It's not elitism to say this article is bad, go read about that instead. When Einstein was a patent clerk he organized a reading group to study Poincare and Mach. His annus mirabilis was six years after his first published paper. It's not impossible to for someone to swoop in and revolutionize a field with no background knowledge, but it's vanishingly rare in one as old as philosophy of mind, and Einstein is not an example of such a thing in physics. This isn't an outsider connecting the dots; like most responses to Bostrom from non-philosophers it's barely on the right side of crankery. It's 13 years after "dabblers and blowhards" and this site still hasn't developed the requisite self-awareness.
- coldtea 7y ago
  >It's not impossible to for someone to swoop in and revolutionize a field with no background knowledge, but it's vanishingly rare in one as old as philosophy of mind, and Einstein is not an example of such a thing in physics. It's also not something we expected from TFA (to "revolutionize the field") We just wanted to read a thought regarding the Simulation Argument that occurred to a fellow developer, and we got that.
  - morelisp 7y ago
    > We just wanted to read a thought regarding the Simulation Argument that occurred to a fellow developer Well, I didn't want that. And you apparently didn't want my thought regarding comments on the simulation hypothesis either. My complaint is not that the article doesn't "revolutionize" the argument, but that it shows little to no engagement with the existing body of philosophy before, after, or even around it. Statements like: > In the Western tradition, we have a deep assumption of the universality of mathematical truth. reveals a view that seems disengaged from any developments philosophy after the early 20th century other than Bostrom's. A stretched analogy: If someone posted an article about how no one's ever pointed out how bad it is that PHP variable names start with $ and this is difficult to type on many keyboards, and this is a key reason to avoid PHP, they would not be taken seriously - even though their conclusion, that other languages should generally be preferred to PHP, is probably valid.
    - gfodor 7y ago
      If someone posted such a thing, a mature, reasonable person would respond to the person’s ignorance with empathy for their interest in the subject and useful information. The idea that someone can post an article on the Internet, have it be read by someone because it was linked on HN (perhaps completely without their awareness or endorsement), and have someone like yourself insult and demean them due to what you see as ignorance should be embarrassing for you. Have you considered the possibility the author wrote this article in part to enable them to have a way to get an informed audience to enlighten them further on a subject they are interested in?
    - coldtea 7y ago
      >reveals a view that seems disengaged from any developments philosophy after the early 20th century other than Bostrom's. I'd say the "western tradition" is more about what 99% of westerners would think and have traditionally though, including the majority of scientists and mathematicians (which would be closer to the "universality of mathematical truth") than about what some philosophers of epistemology postulated in the 20th century...
- dang 7y ago
  Sites aren't persons and don't develop awareness. Please don't use this community to diss the community while participating in it. That's in bad taste. A blog post is a blog post, not a claim to academic supremacy. Blog posts are for thinking out loud and meandering, and that's welcome here. No one needs to be an expert on HN, and the job of genuine experts here—like yourself, I presume, given how you've been posting—is to share some of what you know in a friendly way, so the rest of us can learn. If you can't or don't want to do that, please don't post. Edit: I took a quick look through your account's history. Everything I saw was completely fine and sometimes superb. I hope you'll continue contributing like that, and not so much like this. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - morelisp 7y ago
    > Sites aren't persons and don't develop awareness Sites do have culture, both organically grown and cultivated. You can't say HN does not have collective viewpoints and attitudes while at the same time chastising someone for transgressing them.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]

by gfodor 7y ago

morelisp 7y ago

It's not elitism to say this article is bad, go read about that instead. When Einstein was a patent clerk he organized a reading group to study Poincare and Mach. His annus mirabilis was six years after his first published paper. It's not impossible to for someone to swoop in and revolutionize a field with no background knowledge, but it's vanishingly rare in one as old as philosophy of mind, and Einstein is not an example of such a thing in physics. This isn't an outsider connecting the dots; like most responses to Bostrom from non-philosophers it's barely on the right side of crankery. It's 13 years after "dabblers and blowhards" and this site still hasn't developed the requisite self-awareness.

coldtea 7y ago
>It's not impossible to for someone to swoop in and revolutionize a field with no background knowledge, but it's vanishingly rare in one as old as philosophy of mind, and Einstein is not an example of such a thing in physics. It's also not something we expected from TFA (to "revolutionize the field") We just wanted to read a thought regarding the Simulation Argument that occurred to a fellow developer, and we got that.
- morelisp 7y ago
  > We just wanted to read a thought regarding the Simulation Argument that occurred to a fellow developer Well, I didn't want that. And you apparently didn't want my thought regarding comments on the simulation hypothesis either. My complaint is not that the article doesn't "revolutionize" the argument, but that it shows little to no engagement with the existing body of philosophy before, after, or even around it. Statements like: > In the Western tradition, we have a deep assumption of the universality of mathematical truth. reveals a view that seems disengaged from any developments philosophy after the early 20th century other than Bostrom's. A stretched analogy: If someone posted an article about how no one's ever pointed out how bad it is that PHP variable names start with $ and this is difficult to type on many keyboards, and this is a key reason to avoid PHP, they would not be taken seriously - even though their conclusion, that other languages should generally be preferred to PHP, is probably valid.
  - gfodor 7y ago
    If someone posted such a thing, a mature, reasonable person would respond to the person’s ignorance with empathy for their interest in the subject and useful information. The idea that someone can post an article on the Internet, have it be read by someone because it was linked on HN (perhaps completely without their awareness or endorsement), and have someone like yourself insult and demean them due to what you see as ignorance should be embarrassing for you. Have you considered the possibility the author wrote this article in part to enable them to have a way to get an informed audience to enlighten them further on a subject they are interested in?
  - coldtea 7y ago
    >reveals a view that seems disengaged from any developments philosophy after the early 20th century other than Bostrom's. I'd say the "western tradition" is more about what 99% of westerners would think and have traditionally though, including the majority of scientists and mathematicians (which would be closer to the "universality of mathematical truth") than about what some philosophers of epistemology postulated in the 20th century...
dang 7y ago
Sites aren't persons and don't develop awareness. Please don't use this community to diss the community while participating in it. That's in bad taste. A blog post is a blog post, not a claim to academic supremacy. Blog posts are for thinking out loud and meandering, and that's welcome here. No one needs to be an expert on HN, and the job of genuine experts here—like yourself, I presume, given how you've been posting—is to share some of what you know in a friendly way, so the rest of us can learn. If you can't or don't want to do that, please don't post. Edit: I took a quick look through your account's history. Everything I saw was completely fine and sometimes superb. I hope you'll continue contributing like that, and not so much like this. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- morelisp 7y ago
  > Sites aren't persons and don't develop awareness Sites do have culture, both organically grown and cultivated. You can't say HN does not have collective viewpoints and attitudes while at the same time chastising someone for transgressing them.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]