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Why is PG writing these pseudo-scientific metaphysical posts? His last post on Alien Truth was a disaster. Now this? I normally enjoy PG's writings! His writin

by distcs 4y ago

Why is PG writing these pseudo-scientific metaphysical posts? His last post on Alien Truth was a disaster. Now this? I normally enjoy PG's writings! His writings on Lisp had good influence on me. But these recent posts are embarrassing. How can someone who has had so much influence in tech communities bring themselves to write these pseudo-scientific posts so glibly?

klpolg 4y ago
He's currently on the AI train. Humans are made of matter, neural networks, etc. Many of his recent essays are pushing a company or a group of companies. The original essays were much better.
qsort 4y ago
It's a long-standing tradition in the hacker community to delve into stuff one only has a cursory understanding of. At times it's productive, as it helps uncover intellectual impostures. At times it's just embarrassing.
- eckza 4y ago
  It's gonna be super fun for absolutely nobody but the hecklers when he finds out about Lacan.
- nowherebeen 4y ago
  Or does he have so much free time because of how wealthy he has become through YC that he has lost touch with reality. Now he spends all his free time thinking you can't want to want what you want. Or is it you can't (want to)* want what you want?
iLoveOncall 4y ago
A variant of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_disease https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_disease probably.
seafoam 4y ago
It is simple. In this case he is just trying to figure out how to write the macro the expansion of which is motivation.
3pt14159 4y ago
After a while the speed at which a fan turns in a circle in order to move heated air off a CPU stops being interesting and larger questions that aren't as falsifiable start to seem interesting since they have so many implications to the practical questions that do matter. For example, "does God exist?" has huge influence on how we think of why wars are caused. The trouble is that much of philosophy is castles built on sand. The first principles are accepted and then built upon with potentially faulty links from layer to layer until it all starts getting weird. Marxism, Objectivism, Spinozism, etc.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- qsort 4y ago
  At least for me -- and I'm certain I'm not alone on this -- what makes a question interesting is not the question itself but rather how one approaches it. To what extent humans and other life forms have agency is a question one can approach with things like neuroscience or with things like vacuous word salad. > The trouble is that much of philosophy is castles built on sand. Most serious philosophers would agree with the idea that scientific evidence is a good way to rule out beliefs inconsistent with reality. Almost zero serious economists are marxists, almost zero serious philosophers embrace Spinoza with no revisions, and please don't read Ayn Rand.
  - mistermann 4y ago
    > Most serious philosophers would agree with the idea that scientific evidence is a good way to rule out beliefs inconsistent with reality. Only for the subset of beliefs that are related to physical reality - metaphysical matters are beyond the physical sciences, although psychology is generally considered a science and contributes some value to the discussion.
  - 3pt14159 4y ago
    > Most serious philosophers would agree with the idea that scientific evidence is a good way to rule out beliefs inconsistent with reality. And how did they get to that conclusion? The answer of whether or not the mind or the senses can be relied upon as a path to bedrock truth is something that cannot be found with scientific inquiry because it begs the question. > Almost zero serious economists are marxists, almost zero serious philosophers embrace Spinoza with no revisions, and please don't read Ayn Rand. It is precisely that these philosophers were so well followed, and presently rejected, that I enumerated them as examples of castles built on sand. The very same thing could be said of Russell. If there were a public event, more apparent than even the nuclear explosions that went off in Japan, that was strong evidence for the First Cause argument much of Russell turns to mush. That a philosopher is serious or not is a function of time and opinion. Not veracity. > what makes a question interesting What makes your response interesting to me is that Russel had the very same counterargument to Solipsism and in my opinion Russel decided that he couldn't find the rock so he built his philosophy on sand. This question was important to me so I went searching in philosophy and I found some value there, some manners of perception that proved useful, but it, in my opinion, is a largely broken field.
omarhaneef 4y ago
He writes whatever he wants to write about. And he would argue, he can't control what he wants to write about. What makes you want to make him not want to write what he wants to write about? Well, unfortunately, you can't control it either!
jean_tta 4y ago
A very smart man, PG himself, once said [0]: > I actually worry a lot that as I get "popular" I'll be able to get away with saying stupider stuff than I would have dared say before. PG started writing essays about what he knows well (programming, start ups), then about things he knows a bit (painting) and then stuff like this, or his essays on economic policy. In any case, he predicted his own future quite well. [0] quoted here https://idlewords.com/2005/04/dabblers_and_blowhards.htm https://idlewords.com/2005/04/dabblers_and_blowhards.htm from there http://lemonodor.com/archives/001091.html#c8508 http://lemonodor.com/archives/001091.html#c8508
- hef19898 4y ago
  Popularity and power seem to do that to people quite often, don't say? Which is said, especially in PG's case, because I like his older essays a lot. The now ones, well, not so much.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    There's a similar thing seen with authors - as they get more famous, apparently editors find it harder and harder to get them to rewrite their works, and later books can swell in size for no real advantage. As you get richer and more famous, it becomes harder and harder to find an editor/friend you will trust to tell you you're being stupid. You can use the internet at large (that's always full of people to tell you you're stupid) but it can be quite hard to filter.
  - starkd 4y ago
    Well, at least he kept this one short!
    - hef19898 4y ago
      True, others would have made a three hour podcast out of it. Potentially involving lobsters or something...
  - nowherebeen 4y ago
    His older essays are grounded in experience. These ones he is trying to be Socrates - it's embarrassing.
nopinsight 4y ago
Do people still read philosophical writings by the likes of Plato and Socrates? This piece like quite a few others is a kind of musings which many find interesting and PG doesn't claim it to be scientific. There are areas of human interests that lie well outside our scientific capabilities. People should be allowed to speculate on them. Reasonable conjectures often precede solid evidence/proofs in math and science. This reminds me of: "PhD student, c.2020: Here’s a limited argument I made based on years of specialized research. Hope it’s OK Philosopher dude, c.1770: Here are some Thoughts I had in the Bath. They constitute Universal & Self-Evident Laws of Nature. FIGHT ME." Source: https://twitter.com/ethicsinbricks/status/1225555543357632512?lang=en https://twitter.com/ethicsinbricks/status/122555554335763251...
- papascrubs 4y ago
  I was gonna say. This is very much discourse. It's someone's musings. What's so cringy about this? It never claims to be scientific; it never attempts to persuade or even really argue. 100% your twitter reference.
  - mistermann 4y ago
    My beef with it is that it is a series of opinions stated in the form of facts. If the topic was something like programming, CPU's, etc this approach would not go over so well, but for certain topics it seems like concern for the truth is ~unacceptable. And why does this matter, at least plausibly? In my opinion, because of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_truth_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_truth_effect I believe that if humans get the idea in their head that they have no free will, it could be detrimental to rising to serious challenges like climate change, inequality, etc.
    - papascrubs 4y ago
      I can understand that. And I appreciate you sharing your opinion and thoughts on it. I'm not familiar with the Illusory truth effect but will get some reading into today (thanks for the link!) In speaking. I try to approach things as always mutable. If I put a disclaimer in front of everything I state (when I perceive the I talk about to always be some form of a hypothesis based on the data that I currently have), it tends to slow down discourse and get very messy. In my mind, because I've already accepted the potential for bad data-- that's how I approach others works/papers. There are no absolute truths in anyone's words (or very likely period). I understand your concerns around this (and at least from my current understanding of our social/political issues) and I agree. It is extremely dangerous and detrimental to hold beliefs like that. However, one could argue that a substantial portion of our society already holds those beliefs. They ignore the free will that they have and operate inside of the system that they perceive. No real arguments/points here. Just chewing on things/"thinking out-loud". I think it's equally important for people to be able to share thoughts in an unformed state (in the right environment).
zug_zug 4y ago
Disaster…? It’s a cool old dude sharing his shower thoughts on the internet. What exactly are the negative consequences of these writeups? It feels like such an overstatement that it makes me wonder if there’s something else at play here…
trabant00 4y ago
The post doesn't resonate with me either but it's not pseudo-scientific, it's philosophical. It might not be exactly Socrates but I was not aware that there was a bar for a blog post, nor do I think even Socrates produced great ideas only. It might be just a small step in creation of the model a man holds for free will, and he might even wake up tomorrow thinking he was completely wrong today. It's still valid to philosophize and put it in a personal blog.
jlg23 4y ago
A cursory reading gives the impression he expresses the ideas behind Sartre's "The Transcendence of the Ego"[1], which I consider one of the most influential texts I read as a teenager. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Transcendence_of_the_Ego https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Transcendence_of_the_Ego
nullcipher 4y ago
He is free to write whatever he wants. What's the problem?

by distcs 4y ago

klpolg 4y ago

He's currently on the AI train. Humans are made of matter, neural networks, etc. Many of his recent essays are pushing a company or a group of companies. The original essays were much better.

qsort 4y ago

It's a long-standing tradition in the hacker community to delve into stuff one only has a cursory understanding of. At times it's productive, as it helps uncover intellectual impostures. At times it's just embarrassing.

eckza 4y ago
It's gonna be super fun for absolutely nobody but the hecklers when he finds out about Lacan.
nowherebeen 4y ago
Or does he have so much free time because of how wealthy he has become through YC that he has lost touch with reality. Now he spends all his free time thinking you can't want to want what you want. Or is it you can't (want to)* want what you want?

iLoveOncall 4y ago

A variant of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_disease https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_disease probably.

seafoam 4y ago

It is simple. In this case he is just trying to figure out how to write the macro the expansion of which is motivation.

3pt14159 4y ago

After a while the speed at which a fan turns in a circle in order to move heated air off a CPU stops being interesting and larger questions that aren't as falsifiable start to seem interesting since they have so many implications to the practical questions that do matter. For example, "does God exist?" has huge influence on how we think of why wars are caused. The trouble is that much of philosophy is castles built on sand. The first principles are accepted and then built upon with potentially faulty links from layer to layer until it all starts getting weird. Marxism, Objectivism, Spinozism, etc.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
qsort 4y ago
At least for me -- and I'm certain I'm not alone on this -- what makes a question interesting is not the question itself but rather how one approaches it. To what extent humans and other life forms have agency is a question one can approach with things like neuroscience or with things like vacuous word salad. > The trouble is that much of philosophy is castles built on sand. Most serious philosophers would agree with the idea that scientific evidence is a good way to rule out beliefs inconsistent with reality. Almost zero serious economists are marxists, almost zero serious philosophers embrace Spinoza with no revisions, and please don't read Ayn Rand.
- mistermann 4y ago
  > Most serious philosophers would agree with the idea that scientific evidence is a good way to rule out beliefs inconsistent with reality. Only for the subset of beliefs that are related to physical reality - metaphysical matters are beyond the physical sciences, although psychology is generally considered a science and contributes some value to the discussion.
- 3pt14159 4y ago
  > Most serious philosophers would agree with the idea that scientific evidence is a good way to rule out beliefs inconsistent with reality. And how did they get to that conclusion? The answer of whether or not the mind or the senses can be relied upon as a path to bedrock truth is something that cannot be found with scientific inquiry because it begs the question. > Almost zero serious economists are marxists, almost zero serious philosophers embrace Spinoza with no revisions, and please don't read Ayn Rand. It is precisely that these philosophers were so well followed, and presently rejected, that I enumerated them as examples of castles built on sand. The very same thing could be said of Russell. If there were a public event, more apparent than even the nuclear explosions that went off in Japan, that was strong evidence for the First Cause argument much of Russell turns to mush. That a philosopher is serious or not is a function of time and opinion. Not veracity. > what makes a question interesting What makes your response interesting to me is that Russel had the very same counterargument to Solipsism and in my opinion Russel decided that he couldn't find the rock so he built his philosophy on sand. This question was important to me so I went searching in philosophy and I found some value there, some manners of perception that proved useful, but it, in my opinion, is a largely broken field.

omarhaneef 4y ago

He writes whatever he wants to write about. And he would argue, he can't control what he wants to write about. What makes you want to make him not want to write what he wants to write about? Well, unfortunately, you can't control it either!

jean_tta 4y ago

A very smart man, PG himself, once said [0]: > I actually worry a lot that as I get "popular" I'll be able to get away with saying stupider stuff than I would have dared say before. PG started writing essays about what he knows well (programming, start ups), then about things he knows a bit (painting) and then stuff like this, or his essays on economic policy. In any case, he predicted his own future quite well. [0] quoted here https://idlewords.com/2005/04/dabblers_and_blowhards.htm https://idlewords.com/2005/04/dabblers_and_blowhards.htm from there http://lemonodor.com/archives/001091.html#c8508 http://lemonodor.com/archives/001091.html#c8508

hef19898 4y ago
Popularity and power seem to do that to people quite often, don't say? Which is said, especially in PG's case, because I like his older essays a lot. The now ones, well, not so much.
- bombcar 4y ago
  There's a similar thing seen with authors - as they get more famous, apparently editors find it harder and harder to get them to rewrite their works, and later books can swell in size for no real advantage. As you get richer and more famous, it becomes harder and harder to find an editor/friend you will trust to tell you you're being stupid. You can use the internet at large (that's always full of people to tell you you're stupid) but it can be quite hard to filter.
- starkd 4y ago
  Well, at least he kept this one short!
  - hef19898 4y ago
    True, others would have made a three hour podcast out of it. Potentially involving lobsters or something...
- nowherebeen 4y ago
  His older essays are grounded in experience. These ones he is trying to be Socrates - it's embarrassing.

nopinsight 4y ago

Do people still read philosophical writings by the likes of Plato and Socrates? This piece like quite a few others is a kind of musings which many find interesting and PG doesn't claim it to be scientific. There are areas of human interests that lie well outside our scientific capabilities. People should be allowed to speculate on them. Reasonable conjectures often precede solid evidence/proofs in math and science. This reminds me of: "PhD student, c.2020: Here’s a limited argument I made based on years of specialized research. Hope it’s OK Philosopher dude, c.1770: Here are some Thoughts I had in the Bath. They constitute Universal & Self-Evident Laws of Nature. FIGHT ME." Source: https://twitter.com/ethicsinbricks/status/1225555543357632512?lang=en https://twitter.com/ethicsinbricks/status/122555554335763251...

papascrubs 4y ago
I was gonna say. This is very much discourse. It's someone's musings. What's so cringy about this? It never claims to be scientific; it never attempts to persuade or even really argue. 100% your twitter reference.
- mistermann 4y ago
  My beef with it is that it is a series of opinions stated in the form of facts. If the topic was something like programming, CPU's, etc this approach would not go over so well, but for certain topics it seems like concern for the truth is ~unacceptable. And why does this matter, at least plausibly? In my opinion, because of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_truth_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_truth_effect I believe that if humans get the idea in their head that they have no free will, it could be detrimental to rising to serious challenges like climate change, inequality, etc.
  - papascrubs 4y ago
    I can understand that. And I appreciate you sharing your opinion and thoughts on it. I'm not familiar with the Illusory truth effect but will get some reading into today (thanks for the link!) In speaking. I try to approach things as always mutable. If I put a disclaimer in front of everything I state (when I perceive the I talk about to always be some form of a hypothesis based on the data that I currently have), it tends to slow down discourse and get very messy. In my mind, because I've already accepted the potential for bad data-- that's how I approach others works/papers. There are no absolute truths in anyone's words (or very likely period). I understand your concerns around this (and at least from my current understanding of our social/political issues) and I agree. It is extremely dangerous and detrimental to hold beliefs like that. However, one could argue that a substantial portion of our society already holds those beliefs. They ignore the free will that they have and operate inside of the system that they perceive. No real arguments/points here. Just chewing on things/"thinking out-loud". I think it's equally important for people to be able to share thoughts in an unformed state (in the right environment).

zug_zug 4y ago

Disaster…? It’s a cool old dude sharing his shower thoughts on the internet. What exactly are the negative consequences of these writeups? It feels like such an overstatement that it makes me wonder if there’s something else at play here…

trabant00 4y ago

The post doesn't resonate with me either but it's not pseudo-scientific, it's philosophical. It might not be exactly Socrates but I was not aware that there was a bar for a blog post, nor do I think even Socrates produced great ideas only. It might be just a small step in creation of the model a man holds for free will, and he might even wake up tomorrow thinking he was completely wrong today. It's still valid to philosophize and put it in a personal blog.

jlg23 4y ago

A cursory reading gives the impression he expresses the ideas behind Sartre's "The Transcendence of the Ego"[1], which I consider one of the most influential texts I read as a teenager. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Transcendence_of_the_Ego https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Transcendence_of_the_Ego

nullcipher 4y ago

He is free to write whatever he wants. What's the problem?