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Ooh, please define "ordinary" as opposed to "smarter". The article is about not artificially constraining your thoughts when considering a problem. Mathematic

Ooh, please define "ordinary" as opposed to "smarter". The article is about not artificially constraining your thoughts when considering a problem. Mathematics and by extension - mathematicians - are famous for looking kindly on a line of enquiry that subsequently turned out to be wrong. To be fair to mathematicians: Anyone can trot out any sort of bollocks and call it maths, rather cheaply, by jotting down some vaguely plausible looking ramblings on paper. If you try to fiddle up, say: cold fusion, you have to at least persuade your readers on archive that you have found the open end of a test tube and work on from there! There is a damn good reason why scientists, mathematicians and everyone else who works via publishing papers (for want of a better inclusive term) are rather dismissive of "dumb questions". Rather often the question ... is dumb. I hate that term and being British, I prefer: "stupid". This is all about "thinking outside of the box", which is nice until you note how people get treated for doing exactly that. I suggest you keep your thoughts inside your head when you are thinking outside of it! Once you have your thoughts all lined up and you are not wearing your underwear on your head and have stopped dribbling, you might be in a good place to deliver your pontifications. Your mother may well have given you the advice: "think before you speak" - she was a wise woman. She probably doesn't blog about it.

justanotherjoe 3y ago
I once thought like this. Still do. But I had known one guy who didn't seem to exercise any limit in thinking stupid questions. He was like the antichrist to me, everything i hate. But he said some things that i still remember today cause it's just pure genius, that perfectly encapsulates the reality in so little words. And there's some sick natural barriers that prevent 'normal' people from knowing them, cause the language, while precise, also sounds dumb. But it's really not.
- cookie_monsta 3y ago
  Hmm, I would like to hear an example of one of the Antichrist's thoughts
  - whatshisface 3y ago
    The Eurasian region must (bleh)* be engaged in protracted war to ensure that the populace is distracted from the Omicron program. * Frog emerges from mouth
  - justanotherjoe 3y ago
    i'm kinda hesitant to say most of them. Like I said, they sound silly and reductive at first. And none of them is exactly what people here will find interesting. One thing he said that a game becomes engaging when 'things that were once hard, is now easy'. I like the formulation cause it works on just right abstraction level. It lends to many interpretation and it works as long as the 'rule' is satisfied. And I've obsessed over it and just how true it is. Another thing he said that fantasy is about 'sky upon sky'. Which is one of the more abstract things he said. I swear I was fuming when he said it with such elation as if he's discovering electricity. The refusal to elaborate was also infuriating, as if I was supposed to understand what he meant. And I did, eventually. The abstraction works perfectly, at least for me...
zmgsabst 3y ago
I think a lot of the (over)reaction to “dumb” questions is that people of average capability can’t explain the conventional wisdom, and therefore feel an ego threat when it’s questioned. To quote the point: > So one should be unafraid to ask “stupid” questions, challenging conventional wisdom on a subject; the answers to these questions will occasionally lead to a surprising conclusion, but more often will simply tell you why the conventional wisdom is there in the first place, which is well worth knowing. I’m always amazed at how many people insist the world is round, but can’t explain how we know that. Or explain the experiments you can see yourself, eg pendulums or round pools.
- gwervc 3y ago
  > I’m always amazed at how many people insist the world is round, but can’t explain how we know that. I've played a few times this game with people on a topic that generates strong feelings (climate change) enough to keep play for awhile, and I have yet to find someone going further than "scientists say". Each person wasn't able to cite a single name of a scientist or paper. In general there is a lot of assumed "knowledge" about everything everywhere and it's better not asking questions because it can make people really angry.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - feoren 3y ago
    > a single name of a scientist or paper Unlike philosophy or religion, science does not rest on the laurels of one accomplished prophet. The idea that something is only true if it comes out of the words of a famous scientist is antithetical to science. Compare the temperature of the inside of your car to the outside on a hot sunny day if you want an example of the greenhouse effect.
    - kragen 3y ago
      scientific conclusions rest on specific arguments in specific papers by specific people, including specific evidence. the people don't have to be famous or prophets; they just have to provide evidence but it is the antithesis of science to repeat that 'scientists say' something without knowing which scientists say them and why. it's just as easily used to support false statements as true ones; for example, climate change deniers often say that scientists say we are in more danger of global cooling, or that scientists say that volcanic emissions of carbon dioxide vastly exceed anthropogenic emissions

justanotherjoe 3y ago

I once thought like this. Still do. But I had known one guy who didn't seem to exercise any limit in thinking stupid questions. He was like the antichrist to me, everything i hate. But he said some things that i still remember today cause it's just pure genius, that perfectly encapsulates the reality in so little words. And there's some sick natural barriers that prevent 'normal' people from knowing them, cause the language, while precise, also sounds dumb. But it's really not.

cookie_monsta 3y ago
Hmm, I would like to hear an example of one of the Antichrist's thoughts
- whatshisface 3y ago
  The Eurasian region must (bleh)* be engaged in protracted war to ensure that the populace is distracted from the Omicron program. * Frog emerges from mouth
- justanotherjoe 3y ago
  i'm kinda hesitant to say most of them. Like I said, they sound silly and reductive at first. And none of them is exactly what people here will find interesting. One thing he said that a game becomes engaging when 'things that were once hard, is now easy'. I like the formulation cause it works on just right abstraction level. It lends to many interpretation and it works as long as the 'rule' is satisfied. And I've obsessed over it and just how true it is. Another thing he said that fantasy is about 'sky upon sky'. Which is one of the more abstract things he said. I swear I was fuming when he said it with such elation as if he's discovering electricity. The refusal to elaborate was also infuriating, as if I was supposed to understand what he meant. And I did, eventually. The abstraction works perfectly, at least for me...

zmgsabst 3y ago

I think a lot of the (over)reaction to “dumb” questions is that people of average capability can’t explain the conventional wisdom, and therefore feel an ego threat when it’s questioned. To quote the point: > So one should be unafraid to ask “stupid” questions, challenging conventional wisdom on a subject; the answers to these questions will occasionally lead to a surprising conclusion, but more often will simply tell you why the conventional wisdom is there in the first place, which is well worth knowing. I’m always amazed at how many people insist the world is round, but can’t explain how we know that. Or explain the experiments you can see yourself, eg pendulums or round pools.

gwervc 3y ago
> I’m always amazed at how many people insist the world is round, but can’t explain how we know that. I've played a few times this game with people on a topic that generates strong feelings (climate change) enough to keep play for awhile, and I have yet to find someone going further than "scientists say". Each person wasn't able to cite a single name of a scientist or paper. In general there is a lot of assumed "knowledge" about everything everywhere and it's better not asking questions because it can make people really angry.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- feoren 3y ago
  > a single name of a scientist or paper Unlike philosophy or religion, science does not rest on the laurels of one accomplished prophet. The idea that something is only true if it comes out of the words of a famous scientist is antithetical to science. Compare the temperature of the inside of your car to the outside on a hot sunny day if you want an example of the greenhouse effect.
  - kragen 3y ago
    scientific conclusions rest on specific arguments in specific papers by specific people, including specific evidence. the people don't have to be famous or prophets; they just have to provide evidence but it is the antithesis of science to repeat that 'scientists say' something without knowing which scientists say them and why. it's just as easily used to support false statements as true ones; for example, climate change deniers often say that scientists say we are in more danger of global cooling, or that scientists say that volcanic emissions of carbon dioxide vastly exceed anthropogenic emissions