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Freeman Dyson’s letters offer another glimpse of genius
- chrisco255 6y agoOne of my favorite essays by Freeman: "Biological and Cultural Evolution Six Characters in Search of an Author" https://www.edge.org/conversation/freeman_dyson-freeman-dyson-1923-2020 https://www.edge.org/conversation/freeman_dyson-freeman-dyso...
- vwat 6y agoFreeman was a climate change denier. They don’t mention that though. Wow I was very surprised to find they do mention it in some capacity. Very unexpected for them. But my sentiment was correct because they say he “had some doubts” or something like that. Which is as close to a lie as one could possibly get. And I did read it myself, I’m not responding to comments “correcting” me.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- sgillen 6y agoHe didn’t deny it he thought it wasn’t such a big deal and might even have some positive effects.
- jolux 6y agoThat's denialism. It's a big deal and there's consensus about that among climate scientists.
- nsonha 6y agoAnd? You've just called some person some name? There is a spectrum of opinion for any given topic and it's beneficial to discuss individual points rather than binary labeling. Big deal comparing to what? Is there a standard way to rank human existential threats?
- mhh__ 6y agoClimate change is probably the only environmental existential threat we have any control over, put it that way.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- freyr 6y agoActually, they do mention it: "Many of his views were penetrating, a few—like his insistence that fears about rising CO2 levels were overblown—more than a little eccentric."
- ezequiel-garzon 6y agoIndeed, and right after the author adds, To the end, he was a mental adventurer, not so much iconoclastic as intellectually fearless and relentlessly curious. Although I feel we should probably err on the side of caution with something like climate change, a mind like Dyson's will make me healthily slow down and revise my own beliefs, and not nullify him as a scientist or as a responsible citizen. I highly recommend this lengthy but wonderful article [1], which dives into the core of the issue. A relevant quote: It is much easier for a scientist to sit in an air-conditioned building and run computer models, than to put on winter clothes and measure what is really happening outside in the swamps and the clouds. That is why the climate model experts end up believing their own models. [1] https://www.edge.org/conversation/freeman_dyson-heretical-thoughts-about-science-and-society https://www.edge.org/conversation/freeman_dyson-heretical-th...
- Causality1 6y agoDyson was a creative genius but there's far too much hero worship. Some of the beliefs he tried to spread were stupid bordering on dangerous, like that there's no reason to worry or do anything about climate change because new technology will magically solve all our problems.
- teh_infallible 6y agoI have always thought, and still think that Dyson Spheres are an absurd idea.
- thelastinuit 6y agoChallenge accepted! I’ll build a D-Sphere or at least the foundation for the next generation.
- gumby 6y agoWhat about just building a ring then? There’s probably enough material in this solar system to do that. The sphere is merely a Gedankenexperiment, taking some factors to their logical extrema. Nothing wrong with that.
- willis936 6y agoThe first part of Larry Niven’s Ringworld explains why not. The structure requires materials so strong that even well-read sci-fi writers need to put in placeholder magic materials in.
- Causality1 6y agoI think if we could, we wouldn't need to. A ringworld has most of the downsides of living on a planetary surface plus many more. For the same investment in materials and energy you could build a fleet of orbiting habitats that wouldn't be vulnerable to the kind of centralized threats a ringworld would be.
- T-A 6y agoDyson's suggestion was actually a swarm, not a solid sphere: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_sphere#Dyson_swarm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_sphere#Dyson_swarm
- wbronitsky 6y agoThe criticisms in this thread of Dyson’s wrongthink on climate science show us a lot about the current moment and how hard it is to have an opinion outside of the mainstream. Sure, he appears to be quite incorrect now, but dismissing a mind of the caliber of Dyson’s because he got this one thing wrong is pedantic. And yes, he did appear to get this one extremely wrong, but that should not overshadow his amazing ideas and all of the things he got right. Ideas like Dyson Spheres, nuclear explosion based space travel, and many other Dyson ideas were just as outside of the standard deviations of thought as climate change denial at the time he came up with them. It appears extremely popular right now to disregard an entire human’s work over an apparently incorrect opinion. Freeman Dyson is a great example of why this is probably a bad idea.
- kthxbye123 6y agoThere are no Dyson spheres or nuclear powered spaceships, but there are a hell of a lot of climate deniers. If we’re weighing what part of his legacy, the part that had a negative effect on a very real crisis of human suffering is going to weigh heavier than some cool thought experiments that only showed up in scifi
- wbronitsky 6y agoI would argue that it is inaccurate to summarize Freeman Dyson’s work as “some cool thought experiments that only showed up in scifi” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeman_Dyson https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeman_Dyson
- ultramundane8 6y agoI don't know a lot about Freeman Dyson so I read that article, but don't quite get it yet. So he was a very outspoken mathematician and physicist, and people like his sci-fi ideas? Regardless, blaming all critique on a "current moment" is utterly nonsensical. Edit: op said "current moment," I incorrectly recalled it as "cultural moment."
- epistasis 6y ago
- dr_dshiv 6y ago"As noted above, active technical management of radiative forcing rather clearly will entail expenditures of no more than $1 B/year, commencing not much sooner than a half-century hence, even in worst-case scenarios.8 One thus might say, “Let’s just put a sinking-fund of $1.7 B into the bank for use in generating $1 B/year forever, commencing a half-century hence, and proceed with the human race’s business as usual. All of the Earth’s plants will be more productive for being much better-fed with CO2 and much less exposed to solar UV radiation, kids can play in the sun without fear, and we’ll continue to enjoy today’s climate, bluer skies and better sunsets until the next Ice Age commences.” Teller, E., Hyde, T., & Wood, L. (2002). Active climate stabilization: Practical physics-based approaches to prevention of climate change (No. UCRL-JC-148012). Lawrence Livermore National Lab.(LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States).
- graeme 6y agoIt’s rather simplistic thinking. For one, it ignores the acidification effect in oceans. That’s a consequence we can readily foresee. What other unforeseen consequences will there be? I think we might need something like this to reduce warming while we suck carbon out of the atmosphere. But to envisage it as a permanent solution is extremely risky. (We don’t have scaleable carbon sucking tech yet, but later we might have it but not enough time to use it, if warming continues and activates feedback loops)