5 ms·

> the more you realise we'll never reach a satisfactory understanding in our lifetime Depends on how long you intend to live, really

mananaysiempre 2y ago
> Depends on how long you intend to live, really https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/11/09/ars-longa-vita-brevis/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/11/09/ars-longa-vita-brevis/
- conor_mc 2y ago
  Thanks for sharing. That was a great story.
  - ninalanyon 2y ago
    And thank you for posting the thank you because it was that that prompted me to bother to follow the link. I too think it was a great story, well told.
- Anotheroneagain 2y ago
  What books did Caesar read? In reality, books are not that useful. History doesn't show too much accumulation of knowledge over time - there is virtually no continuity between the bronze age and classical antiquity. Almost everything was lost, and built anew. Then it was all lost in another dark age. A few scraps remained. In fact, civilisation rises and falls as brainpower rises and falls. There only was a long period of rise recently, but, it's been long over, and we now live off the scraps of what it produced.
  - ninalanyon 2y ago
    Caesar almost certainly read classics of Greek philosophy and Roman literature. But what does your comment have to do with books? There were none in the Bronze Age, nor for many centuries after it.
    - Anotheroneagain 2y ago
      I was commenting on the absurdity of the story. It just doesn't seem to be how knowledge works. Nothing was discovered by such slow, long term accumulation of knowledge. Instead, knowledge seems to be discovered very quickly when the potential is there, and it decays and gets forgotten if the potential is lost. For example, it was perfectly possible to be born when there was no powered flight at all, and live to see the moon landing. And, while there are all the plans, and everything there was to write down about Saturn V, we can't do it again, as the human potential isn't there anymore. In fact, we can't even fly supersonic anymore.
      - Symbiote 2y ago
        We certainly know how to do both those things (and military planes fly supersonic daily). That's because it's written down.
        Anotheroneagain 2y ago
        I think it's now a historical fact that we in fact don't, as it's now virtually certain that the Artemis program, with all that knowledge available, will at the very least take longer to send people to the Moon, than the Apollo program did with no prior knowledge at all. Somebody once claimed that the problem isn't that Johnny can't read, or that Johnny can't think, but that Johnny doesn't even know what thinking is, which is certainly a correct observation, but he incorrectly blamed it on the American schooling system. But Johnny doesn't know what thinking is the same way that somebody who was born blind doesn't know what seeing is. You don't have to be taught to think, you just do. You figure things out, then you learn that others also know them. Or, sometimes that they don't, and know something completely different about the thing for whatever weird reason. And such a person can live their entire life without thinking, convinced that being smart is simply about learning more and faster, and if they study hard, they will understand the topic on that deeper level like the old masters did, and perhaps they will also contribute something new one day. But the thinking never comes.
      - willy_k 2y ago
- admissionsguy 2y ago
  Fortunately, biology is broad but not particularly deep, so even undergrads routinely contribute to research. The story is a much better analogy for fundamental theoretical physics. Source: got some background in both, decided it didn't make sense to do theoretical physics before longevity is solved.

mananaysiempre 2y ago

> Depends on how long you intend to live, really https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/11/09/ars-longa-vita-brevis/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/11/09/ars-longa-vita-brevis/

conor_mc 2y ago
Thanks for sharing. That was a great story.
- ninalanyon 2y ago
  And thank you for posting the thank you because it was that that prompted me to bother to follow the link. I too think it was a great story, well told.
Anotheroneagain 2y ago
What books did Caesar read? In reality, books are not that useful. History doesn't show too much accumulation of knowledge over time - there is virtually no continuity between the bronze age and classical antiquity. Almost everything was lost, and built anew. Then it was all lost in another dark age. A few scraps remained. In fact, civilisation rises and falls as brainpower rises and falls. There only was a long period of rise recently, but, it's been long over, and we now live off the scraps of what it produced.
- ninalanyon 2y ago
  Caesar almost certainly read classics of Greek philosophy and Roman literature. But what does your comment have to do with books? There were none in the Bronze Age, nor for many centuries after it.
  - Anotheroneagain 2y ago
    I was commenting on the absurdity of the story. It just doesn't seem to be how knowledge works. Nothing was discovered by such slow, long term accumulation of knowledge. Instead, knowledge seems to be discovered very quickly when the potential is there, and it decays and gets forgotten if the potential is lost. For example, it was perfectly possible to be born when there was no powered flight at all, and live to see the moon landing. And, while there are all the plans, and everything there was to write down about Saturn V, we can't do it again, as the human potential isn't there anymore. In fact, we can't even fly supersonic anymore.
    - Symbiote 2y ago
      We certainly know how to do both those things (and military planes fly supersonic daily). That's because it's written down.
      - Anotheroneagain 2y ago
        I think it's now a historical fact that we in fact don't, as it's now virtually certain that the Artemis program, with all that knowledge available, will at the very least take longer to send people to the Moon, than the Apollo program did with no prior knowledge at all. Somebody once claimed that the problem isn't that Johnny can't read, or that Johnny can't think, but that Johnny doesn't even know what thinking is, which is certainly a correct observation, but he incorrectly blamed it on the American schooling system. But Johnny doesn't know what thinking is the same way that somebody who was born blind doesn't know what seeing is. You don't have to be taught to think, you just do. You figure things out, then you learn that others also know them. Or, sometimes that they don't, and know something completely different about the thing for whatever weird reason. And such a person can live their entire life without thinking, convinced that being smart is simply about learning more and faster, and if they study hard, they will understand the topic on that deeper level like the old masters did, and perhaps they will also contribute something new one day. But the thinking never comes.
    - willy_k 2y ago
admissionsguy 2y ago
Fortunately, biology is broad but not particularly deep, so even undergrads routinely contribute to research. The story is a much better analogy for fundamental theoretical physics. Source: got some background in both, decided it didn't make sense to do theoretical physics before longevity is solved.