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This quote comes up whenever Babbage is mentioned among geeks, but the common interpretation of its significance may be wrong. The quote is assumed to illustrat

by wrp 5y ago

This quote comes up whenever Babbage is mentioned among geeks, but the common interpretation of its significance may be wrong. The quote is assumed to illustrate the hardship of a genius communicating with a society of dunces, but I think the problem may have been the reverse. The fact is that Babbage was a terrible explainer and the questions put to him may have been sensible extrapolation on what he said. I came to this opinion largely from seeing how much effort Ada Lovelace had to put into getting Babbage to clarify his ideas. It seems that he truly could not "apprehend the kind of confusion" that his explanations caused in others.

wzdd 5y ago
I think that this passage and various other parts of the book are a particularly English form of understated humour, where Babbage is playing up his public perception as a frustrated genius in order to add a little levity to what might otherwise be fairly dry writing. Plenty of other sections of the book hint at this. As an example, search for the word "philosopher" throughout the book. We get section headings musing about whether a Philosopher would deny being descended from Cain, quotes attributed to a recently-scalloped oyster who was also a philosopher writing in its shell, a sequence of passages titled "The Philosopher writes a Ballet —Its rehearsal —Its high moral tone —Its rejection on the ground of the probable combustion of the Opera-house", and so on and so on. Does Babbage consider himself a philosopher? Maybe (probably, even -- he clearly had a good opinion of himself in any case), but he is also well aware of how the public perceives such people. In other words, Babbage is doing a "bit" and playing with the public perception of him and of scientists of the time (and even now) -- i.e. as being so removed from the real world that they not only can't explain something, but can't even understand why they can't explain it. Which is an understandable thing to do, particularly if you're a mathematician and engineer writing an autobiography for a lay audience. This doesn't mean that he was actually good at explaining anything, of course, or that he wasn't in fact a frustrated genius. It just means that he was aware of how he was perceived and was capable of a little humour at his own expense.
- jhbadger 5y ago
  The term "scientist" was just starting to become a thing in Babbage's time. "Philosopher" was used in a much broader sense than it is today.
  - lou1306 5y ago
    Indeed, science was simply known as "natural philosophy", as in Newton's "Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy", i.e, the Principia.
- hungryforcodes 5y ago
  The member of parilment was probably playing him as well...
sjtindell 5y ago
Feels to me like the start of a tale as old as time - tech support explaining to users what they think should be obvious.
SilasX 5y ago
Another interpretation is that he was being tested for whether we was a scammer or otherwise not trustable to deliver the truth. That is, this an instance of the heuristic, “how do they react to being asked to do something known to be impossible?”

by wrp 5y ago

wzdd 5y ago

I think that this passage and various other parts of the book are a particularly English form of understated humour, where Babbage is playing up his public perception as a frustrated genius in order to add a little levity to what might otherwise be fairly dry writing. Plenty of other sections of the book hint at this. As an example, search for the word "philosopher" throughout the book. We get section headings musing about whether a Philosopher would deny being descended from Cain, quotes attributed to a recently-scalloped oyster who was also a philosopher writing in its shell, a sequence of passages titled "The Philosopher writes a Ballet —Its rehearsal —Its high moral tone —Its rejection on the ground of the probable combustion of the Opera-house", and so on and so on. Does Babbage consider himself a philosopher? Maybe (probably, even -- he clearly had a good opinion of himself in any case), but he is also well aware of how the public perceives such people. In other words, Babbage is doing a "bit" and playing with the public perception of him and of scientists of the time (and even now) -- i.e. as being so removed from the real world that they not only can't explain something, but can't even understand why they can't explain it. Which is an understandable thing to do, particularly if you're a mathematician and engineer writing an autobiography for a lay audience. This doesn't mean that he was actually good at explaining anything, of course, or that he wasn't in fact a frustrated genius. It just means that he was aware of how he was perceived and was capable of a little humour at his own expense.

jhbadger 5y ago
The term "scientist" was just starting to become a thing in Babbage's time. "Philosopher" was used in a much broader sense than it is today.
- lou1306 5y ago
  Indeed, science was simply known as "natural philosophy", as in Newton's "Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy", i.e, the Principia.
hungryforcodes 5y ago
The member of parilment was probably playing him as well...

sjtindell 5y ago

Feels to me like the start of a tale as old as time - tech support explaining to users what they think should be obvious.

SilasX 5y ago

Another interpretation is that he was being tested for whether we was a scammer or otherwise not trustable to deliver the truth. That is, this an instance of the heuristic, “how do they react to being asked to do something known to be impossible?”