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Here's a lineage of energy that should interest hackers Goethe -> Mary Wollstonecraft -> Mary Shelley -> Byron & Percy Shelley -> Ada Lovelace Ada got inspira

Here's a lineage of energy that should interest hackers Goethe -> Mary Wollstonecraft -> Mary Shelley -> Byron & Percy Shelley -> Ada Lovelace Ada got inspiration from the romanticism of Byron which burned brightly in the circle of influences of the Shelleys who were interested in animism (proto-neurology). Shelley's interest in animist-necromancy and artificial minds created by electricity is rooted in childhood trauma of her mother (Wollstonecraft) dying in childbirth. Mary sought a way to revive her spirit though science. Maybe, like all hermeneutic interpretations it's fuzzy, but there's a trajectory from the Greek influences on German philosophy to the imaginings that underpin the computer age.

croes 5y ago
[flagged]
- Nav_Panel 5y ago
  Surely you forgot Nietzsche, and also about 100+ years between Steiner and Schiffmann.
  - scaredtheorist 5y ago
    I am new to this ycombinator. I was trying to figure out what you were responding to with this comment, but couldn't locate it. What was in regards to? Thanks
    - Nav_Panel 5y ago
      Hit "parent" to my comment and you'll see.
  - croes 5y ago
    Therefore the word "shortened".
- zwieback 5y ago
  Ouch. On a more positive note: Goethe -> George Eliot -> "browser"* -> the WWW * Bullet 12 in here: https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/538298/facts-about-george-eliot https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/538298/facts-about-georg...
- georgia_peach 5y ago
  Of course Rudy isn't going to be a popular person on a tech board: “And from the earth will well up terrible creations of beings who in their character stand between the mineral kingdom and the plant kingdom as automative beings with a super-natural intellect, an immense intellect. When this development takes hold, the earth will be covered, as with a web, a web of terrible spiders, spiders of enormous wisdom, which however, in their organisation don’t even reach the plant status. Terrible spiders which will interlock with each other, which will imitate in their movements all that which humanity has thought of with their shadowlike intellect that was not inspired by a new imagination, through that which is to come through Spiritual Science. All man’s thoughts of this kind, which are unreal, will come alive. The earth will be covered with terrible mineral-plant like spiders, which will link up with empathy but evil intention.” - R. Steiner, 13 May 1921
  - Dracophoenix 5y ago
    It sounds like a description of the Internet.
    - georgia_peach 5y ago
      This part is evocative of AI for me: > will imitate in their movements all that which humanity has thought of with their shadowlike intellect that was not inspired by a new imagination
  - smegsicle 5y ago
    unpopular? i would counter that anyone who understands technology and doesn't consider it to be inherently slightly evil, probably doesn't believe that evil exists, at least in the traditional sense.
    - croes 5y ago
      Still no reason to follow the austrian version of L. Ron Hubbard "Rudolf Steiner believed that illnesses have their meaning in karmic events. Fever, for example, could help children to settle into their bodies. Those who had done things wrong in previous lives might have to make up for them through illness - and those who inoculate themselves could become deaf to the karmic message."
- mro_name 5y ago
  what's the relevance of vaxxing here? Can you leave that out?
DC-3 5y ago
This argument might hold up better if Ada Lovelace were a more important or foundational figure. In reality, although undoubtedly bright and an intuitive 'computational thinker', as far as I know her contribution did not have a great influence on any later work and would probably be almost entirely obscure were it not for the significance of her being a woman.
- rectang 5y ago
  > as far as I know her contribution did not have a great influence on any later work From the Wikipedia article on Ada Lovelace... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_Lovelace https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_Lovelace "She was the first to recognise that [Babbage's] machine had applications beyond pure calculation, and to have published the first algorithm intended to be carried out by such a machine." Many of the greatest ideas seem obvious in retrospect. Of course commenting "anybody could have done that" is standard HN to the point of parody. > would probably be almost entirely obscure were it not for the significance of her being a woman. And now we see the much darker side of HN. :(
  - telchior 5y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_Lovelace#Controversy_over_contribution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_Lovelace#Controversy_over_... The previous commenter said that Lovelace didn't have any great influence on later works -- the Wikipedia article you used to bash them for it seems to back that up. Many geniuses don't end up having a lot of influence over later work. It's not an insult to their ability to say so.
    - rectang 5y ago
      If you maintain that the idea of applying a computation machine to purposes besides calculation wasn't particularly "influential", I question the usefulness of whatever definition of "influential" you are applying here. Even one of the critics quoted in the "controversy" section of the Wikipedia article (which isn't about how "influential" she was anyway) grants that much to her: > But [Swade] agrees that Ada was the only person to see the potential of the analytical engine as a machine capable of expressing entities other than quantities.

croes 5y ago

[flagged]

Nav_Panel 5y ago
Surely you forgot Nietzsche, and also about 100+ years between Steiner and Schiffmann.
- scaredtheorist 5y ago
  I am new to this ycombinator. I was trying to figure out what you were responding to with this comment, but couldn't locate it. What was in regards to? Thanks
  - Nav_Panel 5y ago
    Hit "parent" to my comment and you'll see.
- croes 5y ago
  Therefore the word "shortened".
zwieback 5y ago
Ouch. On a more positive note: Goethe -> George Eliot -> "browser"* -> the WWW * Bullet 12 in here: https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/538298/facts-about-george-eliot https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/538298/facts-about-georg...
georgia_peach 5y ago
Of course Rudy isn't going to be a popular person on a tech board: “And from the earth will well up terrible creations of beings who in their character stand between the mineral kingdom and the plant kingdom as automative beings with a super-natural intellect, an immense intellect. When this development takes hold, the earth will be covered, as with a web, a web of terrible spiders, spiders of enormous wisdom, which however, in their organisation don’t even reach the plant status. Terrible spiders which will interlock with each other, which will imitate in their movements all that which humanity has thought of with their shadowlike intellect that was not inspired by a new imagination, through that which is to come through Spiritual Science. All man’s thoughts of this kind, which are unreal, will come alive. The earth will be covered with terrible mineral-plant like spiders, which will link up with empathy but evil intention.” - R. Steiner, 13 May 1921
- Dracophoenix 5y ago
  It sounds like a description of the Internet.
  - georgia_peach 5y ago
    This part is evocative of AI for me: > will imitate in their movements all that which humanity has thought of with their shadowlike intellect that was not inspired by a new imagination
- smegsicle 5y ago
  unpopular? i would counter that anyone who understands technology and doesn't consider it to be inherently slightly evil, probably doesn't believe that evil exists, at least in the traditional sense.
  - croes 5y ago
    Still no reason to follow the austrian version of L. Ron Hubbard "Rudolf Steiner believed that illnesses have their meaning in karmic events. Fever, for example, could help children to settle into their bodies. Those who had done things wrong in previous lives might have to make up for them through illness - and those who inoculate themselves could become deaf to the karmic message."
mro_name 5y ago
what's the relevance of vaxxing here? Can you leave that out?

DC-3 5y ago

This argument might hold up better if Ada Lovelace were a more important or foundational figure. In reality, although undoubtedly bright and an intuitive 'computational thinker', as far as I know her contribution did not have a great influence on any later work and would probably be almost entirely obscure were it not for the significance of her being a woman.

rectang 5y ago
> as far as I know her contribution did not have a great influence on any later work From the Wikipedia article on Ada Lovelace... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_Lovelace https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_Lovelace "She was the first to recognise that [Babbage's] machine had applications beyond pure calculation, and to have published the first algorithm intended to be carried out by such a machine." Many of the greatest ideas seem obvious in retrospect. Of course commenting "anybody could have done that" is standard HN to the point of parody. > would probably be almost entirely obscure were it not for the significance of her being a woman. And now we see the much darker side of HN. :(
- telchior 5y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_Lovelace#Controversy_over_contribution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_Lovelace#Controversy_over_... The previous commenter said that Lovelace didn't have any great influence on later works -- the Wikipedia article you used to bash them for it seems to back that up. Many geniuses don't end up having a lot of influence over later work. It's not an insult to their ability to say so.
  - rectang 5y ago
    If you maintain that the idea of applying a computation machine to purposes besides calculation wasn't particularly "influential", I question the usefulness of whatever definition of "influential" you are applying here. Even one of the critics quoted in the "controversy" section of the Wikipedia article (which isn't about how "influential" she was anyway) grants that much to her: > But [Swade] agrees that Ada was the only person to see the potential of the analytical engine as a machine capable of expressing entities other than quantities.