4 ms·

It is a serious indictment of our culture that we are not trying to clone von Neumann or even just sequence his genome. His genetic material is slowly decaying

It is a serious indictment of our culture that we are not trying to clone von Neumann or even just sequence his genome. His genetic material is slowly decaying in some cemetery in New Jersey, I think.

worik 4y ago
Good. RIP
lordnacho 4y ago
Don't you think there's some significant non genetic component to whatever made him so smart? Otherwise we'd be hearing about his relatives.
- doetoe 4y ago
  Maybe his intellect was due to a mutation that he didn't pass on...
- chimprich 4y ago
  There's usually some regression to the genetic mean for children from people who are extreme outliers. Even if you have "smart" genes, you're unlikely to luck out on such an outstanding arrangement of genetic material again... and von Neumann was a very extreme outlier. By some accounts, the most intelligent human in history [0]. You'd expect for any of his kids to be outstanding, but not earth-shatteringly so. And looks like that's about right if you look up his daughter [1]. [0] Check out his "known for" section in Wikipedia! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marina_von_Neumann_Whitman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marina_von_Neumann_Whitman
  - OkayPhysicist 4y ago
    It doesn't help that the aristocratic educational system of having a handful of tutor/mentors as the primary means of education has fallen (steeply) out of fashion. People greatly underestimate just how effective children can learn. They're basically capable of absorbing as much information as you can pump into them. It's a delicate balance making sure they learn enough basic human operating stuff in addition to everything else, but the results can be remarkable. I remember hanging out at camp with a kid who loved board games. Especially probability based ones, such liar's dice and Dominion, but also more general hidden information games like Stratego. Kid was undeniably a prodigy, and he kicked my ass every time. I had just graduated university with studying CS and Physics, this kid was looking forward to starting kindergarten in the fall.
RadixDLT 4y ago
von neumann is not your culture, he's from hungary
- Trasmatta 4y ago
  In this case, I'm pretty sure "our culture" was referring to human culture as a whole, not US culture.
- bongoman37 4y ago
Tade0 4y ago
It would have been a more serious one if we did. And I'm not even talking about the cloning. Is there really, among the 8 billion of us now, no one who is at least half as brilliant? I think there is, but they fall out all the time. My good childhood friend is such a person - a prodigy child whom I heard about thanks to his achievements in math contests years before I met him in middle school. Of course he did great there because everything was just so simple to him. Something went wrong mid-college and he never realised his potential to the fullest. I think there's a lot more randomness to which of the potential von Neumanns will shine than we would like to admit.

worik 4y ago

Good. RIP

lordnacho 4y ago

Don't you think there's some significant non genetic component to whatever made him so smart? Otherwise we'd be hearing about his relatives.

doetoe 4y ago
Maybe his intellect was due to a mutation that he didn't pass on...
chimprich 4y ago
There's usually some regression to the genetic mean for children from people who are extreme outliers. Even if you have "smart" genes, you're unlikely to luck out on such an outstanding arrangement of genetic material again... and von Neumann was a very extreme outlier. By some accounts, the most intelligent human in history [0]. You'd expect for any of his kids to be outstanding, but not earth-shatteringly so. And looks like that's about right if you look up his daughter [1]. [0] Check out his "known for" section in Wikipedia! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marina_von_Neumann_Whitman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marina_von_Neumann_Whitman
- OkayPhysicist 4y ago
  It doesn't help that the aristocratic educational system of having a handful of tutor/mentors as the primary means of education has fallen (steeply) out of fashion. People greatly underestimate just how effective children can learn. They're basically capable of absorbing as much information as you can pump into them. It's a delicate balance making sure they learn enough basic human operating stuff in addition to everything else, but the results can be remarkable. I remember hanging out at camp with a kid who loved board games. Especially probability based ones, such liar's dice and Dominion, but also more general hidden information games like Stratego. Kid was undeniably a prodigy, and he kicked my ass every time. I had just graduated university with studying CS and Physics, this kid was looking forward to starting kindergarten in the fall.

RadixDLT 4y ago

von neumann is not your culture, he's from hungary

Trasmatta 4y ago
In this case, I'm pretty sure "our culture" was referring to human culture as a whole, not US culture.
bongoman37 4y ago

Tade0 4y ago

It would have been a more serious one if we did. And I'm not even talking about the cloning. Is there really, among the 8 billion of us now, no one who is at least half as brilliant? I think there is, but they fall out all the time. My good childhood friend is such a person - a prodigy child whom I heard about thanks to his achievements in math contests years before I met him in middle school. Of course he did great there because everything was just so simple to him. Something went wrong mid-college and he never realised his potential to the fullest. I think there's a lot more randomness to which of the potential von Neumanns will shine than we would like to admit.