4 ms·

Highly intelligent and successful people who hold weird beliefs

33 points by luu 12y ago

ubertaco 12y ago
> I’m a 31 year old German transhumanist, skeptic and vegetarian ....and his first three examples of "weird beliefs" are an Orthodox Jew and two Christians. "Weird" is very clearly "in the eye of the beholder" here.
- NickPollard 12y ago
  Weird, or unsupported by any evidence or logical foundation? Religious beliefs are obviously very common, and not suprising for humans. That doesn't mean they have any scientific underpinning, and just because they are commonly believed does not mean they should be immune from (sensible) criticism.
  - tdees40 12y ago
    He's not criticizing religion; he's just calling it weird.
- bitsweet 12y ago
  I read it more about Robert Aumann believing in bible code[1] then that he is an Orthodox Jew. That said, I'm surprised to find Ray Kurzweil's and Elon Musk's ideas in the same group as bible code and water memory. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible_code http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible_code
- worldsayshi 12y ago
  ... He holds transhumanist views as example of weird ideas as well...
reasonattlm 12y ago
That list rather reinforces the point that it is hard to identify the difference between "weird belief," "well-supported but not widespread hypothesis," and "interesting hypothesis that is on the outs in a presently complex field". Also that mere shades of intent can make the difference between "weird belief" and the latter two classifications. Tipler's Omega Point is an excellent example of the type. It would be an interesting exploration of anthropic influence on future cosmology, our determination to turn the future light cone into intelligent matter, in light of prevalent knowledge at the time of initial publication re: future big crunch likelihood, except for the determined shoehorning into Christian theology on the part of the author. Oh well.
radley 12y ago
They should have led with Mullis: > Mullis also claims to have chatted with a glowing raccoon that he met at midnight while on his way to the loo then losing the ensuing six hours as a result of an alien abduction. The improvements made by Mullis allowed polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to become a central technique in biochemistry and molecular biology... And probably dropped the anti-religion slant. There's enough weirdness in here without being a dbag.
- golemotron 12y ago
  I would definitely have a beer with Mullis. His autobiography, 'Dancing in the Mind Field' is one of my favorites.
my_username_is_ 12y ago
I'm not sure how appropriate this discussion is for Hacker News, but I find it rather insulting that religion is listed as a 'weird' belief here (and repeatedly). A huge majority of the world has some kind of religion [1], which would suggest (to me) that there's something pervasive about religion in our humanity. (Although I'll be the first to admit that I am not a religious scholar.) Does the author have something against Judeo-Christianity that makes it especially weird, and fitting with the context of the rest of the list? [1]: http://www.pewforum.org/2012/12/18/global-religious-landscape-exec/ http://www.pewforum.org/2012/12/18/global-religious-landscap...
- giarc 12y ago
  I thought the same thing. I'm not religious but I wouldn't call this "weird". "Georges Lemaître proposed what became known as the Big Bang theory of the origin of the Universe. He was a Belgian Roman Catholic priest."
  - ksenzee 12y ago
    Yes, and Donald Knuth is a Lutheran. Hold my handbag so I can clutch my pearls.
    - tdees40 12y ago
      Hey guys, Saul Kripke is an observant Jew. WEIRD!!!
- worldsayshi 12y ago
  The author describes himself as transhumanist and many of the weird beliefs are related to transhumanism. I wouldn't assume that the author is principally against the views described.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- reitanqild 12y ago
  That said for that kind of a person he seemed refreshingly open-minded : >Also note that I am not claiming that the beliefs hold by these people are necessarily wrong (although some of them almost certainly are).
shmerl 12y ago
If the author doesn't agree with those beliefs, it doesn't necessarily make them weird. I didn't like his pretentious tone. Such kind of tone is what's weird.
jscheel 12y ago
Stopped reading after the first three were all calling belief in God "weird", as if it was something bad.
- edgarvaldes 12y ago
  The problem is not "bad", but "weird". How is being religious something weird?
sunsu 12y ago
How is this (just one example) a "weird belief"? > Roger Penrose (mathematical physicist, mathematician and > philosopher of science) argues that known laws of physics > are inadequate to explain the phenomenon of consciousness.
- no_wave 12y ago
  It would be weird not to hold this belief. I don't understand what an alternative perspective would be.
- mpweiher 12y ago
  Yep, since we can't currently explain consciousness, it certainly is not a "weird" belief. It may turn out to be wrong, that is we find an explanation that is covered by the currently know laws of physics, but we might also not. Quite frankly, I find the list itself weirder than most of the people on it.
vaadu 12y ago
The articles definition of 'Weird' is 'I disagree'. Elon Musk's thoughts on AI are well thought out and in line with a lot of intelligent people. Elon Musk (CEO and CTO of SpaceX, CEO and chief product architect of Tesla Motors) claims that with artificial intelligence we are summoning the demon and compares the potential dangers of artificial intelligence to nuclear weapons. He believes that the risk of something seriously dangerous happening is in the five year timeframe. 10 years at most. The only thing weird in the article is the writer's arrogance.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
paulsecwhatt 12y ago
Interestingly enough almost all of them hold these beliefs in areas they themselves have no expertise in (of course, there are one or two exceptions). I think it's dangerous when laymen who admire these individuals for their excellent work in their respective fields also assume their beliefs in other fields and areas are equally credible. The same examples suggested here can occur in much more subtle ways - for instance - Elon Musk and his views on A.I. have been made famous, even though he has absolutely no formal background in A.I. *EDIT: completely missed that the author used Elon as an example. Nonetheless I stand by my point.
morsch 12y ago
Or more precisely, "a list of people who hold beliefs that I would dismiss". And "note that I am not claiming that the beliefs hold by these people are necessarily wrong (although some of them almost certainly are)." I think that's fair enough; don't get so hung up on his choice of "weird". (I find his using Javascript to append stuff to the copypaste buffer much more offensive.)
jhallenworld 12y ago
I think it was Alan Guth who said that physics was kind of a game where one tried to create theories which other physicists would accept. I guess the issue is that if you see someone with some obviously logically inconsistent ideas, why trust any of their other ideas? The answer is that in fact you don't trust any of them, instead only rely on experimental results.
Torgo 12y ago
Nassim Nicholas Taleb's opposition to GMO is based on his theory of collapse of complex systems, nothing he has said in my reading is "weird".
0xdeadbeefbabe 12y ago
Newton believed light was a particle. Boyle believed in luminiferous aether. Weird.
javajosh 12y ago
>Roger Penrose (mathematical physicist, mathematician and philosopher of science) argues that known laws of physics are inadequate to explain the phenomenon of consciousness. Uh, yeah, that's really fucked up. </sarcasm> Until we actually make strong AI, we have no reason to believe that consciousness could arise in anything but a few nodes somewhat late in the billion-year long continuous physical process we call "life", of which we as individuals are just a small part. I'm not saying AI isn't possible, but I think a healthy respect for the complexity of life is in order. Take a look at the structure of a bacteria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacteria#Intracellular_structures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacteria#Intracellular_structu..., and then tell me why it's so crazy that so many biologists believe in God, or that Penrose might believe that such complexity is out of our reach to explain or reproduce.
fapjacks 12y ago
I am not religious, but if you think religion is weird, probably you should begin to look inward for "weird". Religion is weird, but only in the same sense that fingers are weird, or that it's weird that water falls from the sky occasionally. Id est not really weird at all.
haberman 12y ago
On the worry about AI, this puts Elon Musk in the company of Stephen Hawking and Bill Gates too. The economist recently ran a leader on the issue: http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21650543-powerful-computers-will-reshape-humanitys-future-how-ensure-promise-outweighs?zid=291&ah=906e69ad01d2ee51960100b7fa502595 http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21650543-powerful-comp... I find this very surprising. To me, powerful AI is more akin to the atomic age than Human Intelligence v2. It's an extremely powerful tool that can be used for good or evil, so naturally there are huge opportunities and dangers both. But the computers rising up in defiance of their creators? I just don't see it. Humans are driven in their ambitions by desire, pleasure, and pain, all of which are closely tied into the mystery of sentient consciousness. You could program an agent that is demonstrably superior to humans in various measures of intelligence. But until we've somehow made a computer want something, there is no more danger of it rising up against us than there is of a nuclear bomb spontaneously deciding to detonate itself. And I've seen no indication that anyone has any idea what it would mean to make a computer experience want, to set its own goals instead of just pursuing whatever goals were established by its programming. I don't discount this possibility completely. But I think that we're really much farther away from creating robots with human-like ambition than people fear. Researchers in the 1950s thought they were a few decades away from Strong AI. I personally believe that current worries around ambitious, insubordinate robots are likewise really premature.

33 points by luu 12y ago

> I’m a 31 year old German transhumanist, skeptic and vegetarian ....and his first three examples of "weird beliefs" are an Orthodox Jew and two Christians. "Weird" is very clearly "in the eye of the beholder" here.

NickPollard 12y ago
Weird, or unsupported by any evidence or logical foundation? Religious beliefs are obviously very common, and not suprising for humans. That doesn't mean they have any scientific underpinning, and just because they are commonly believed does not mean they should be immune from (sensible) criticism.
- tdees40 12y ago
  He's not criticizing religion; he's just calling it weird.
bitsweet 12y ago
I read it more about Robert Aumann believing in bible code[1] then that he is an Orthodox Jew. That said, I'm surprised to find Ray Kurzweil's and Elon Musk's ideas in the same group as bible code and water memory. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible_code http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible_code
worldsayshi 12y ago
... He holds transhumanist views as example of weird ideas as well...

reasonattlm 12y ago

That list rather reinforces the point that it is hard to identify the difference between "weird belief," "well-supported but not widespread hypothesis," and "interesting hypothesis that is on the outs in a presently complex field". Also that mere shades of intent can make the difference between "weird belief" and the latter two classifications. Tipler's Omega Point is an excellent example of the type. It would be an interesting exploration of anthropic influence on future cosmology, our determination to turn the future light cone into intelligent matter, in light of prevalent knowledge at the time of initial publication re: future big crunch likelihood, except for the determined shoehorning into Christian theology on the part of the author. Oh well.

radley 12y ago

They should have led with Mullis: > Mullis also claims to have chatted with a glowing raccoon that he met at midnight while on his way to the loo then losing the ensuing six hours as a result of an alien abduction. The improvements made by Mullis allowed polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to become a central technique in biochemistry and molecular biology... And probably dropped the anti-religion slant. There's enough weirdness in here without being a dbag.

golemotron 12y ago
I would definitely have a beer with Mullis. His autobiography, 'Dancing in the Mind Field' is one of my favorites.

my_username_is_ 12y ago

I'm not sure how appropriate this discussion is for Hacker News, but I find it rather insulting that religion is listed as a 'weird' belief here (and repeatedly). A huge majority of the world has some kind of religion [1], which would suggest (to me) that there's something pervasive about religion in our humanity. (Although I'll be the first to admit that I am not a religious scholar.) Does the author have something against Judeo-Christianity that makes it especially weird, and fitting with the context of the rest of the list? [1]: http://www.pewforum.org/2012/12/18/global-religious-landscape-exec/ http://www.pewforum.org/2012/12/18/global-religious-landscap...

giarc 12y ago
I thought the same thing. I'm not religious but I wouldn't call this "weird". "Georges Lemaître proposed what became known as the Big Bang theory of the origin of the Universe. He was a Belgian Roman Catholic priest."
- ksenzee 12y ago
  Yes, and Donald Knuth is a Lutheran. Hold my handbag so I can clutch my pearls.
  - tdees40 12y ago
    Hey guys, Saul Kripke is an observant Jew. WEIRD!!!
worldsayshi 12y ago
The author describes himself as transhumanist and many of the weird beliefs are related to transhumanism. I wouldn't assume that the author is principally against the views described.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
reitanqild 12y ago
That said for that kind of a person he seemed refreshingly open-minded : >Also note that I am not claiming that the beliefs hold by these people are necessarily wrong (although some of them almost certainly are).

shmerl 12y ago

If the author doesn't agree with those beliefs, it doesn't necessarily make them weird. I didn't like his pretentious tone. Such kind of tone is what's weird.

jscheel 12y ago

Stopped reading after the first three were all calling belief in God "weird", as if it was something bad.

edgarvaldes 12y ago
The problem is not "bad", but "weird". How is being religious something weird?

sunsu 12y ago

How is this (just one example) a "weird belief"? > Roger Penrose (mathematical physicist, mathematician and > philosopher of science) argues that known laws of physics > are inadequate to explain the phenomenon of consciousness.

no_wave 12y ago
It would be weird not to hold this belief. I don't understand what an alternative perspective would be.
mpweiher 12y ago
Yep, since we can't currently explain consciousness, it certainly is not a "weird" belief. It may turn out to be wrong, that is we find an explanation that is covered by the currently know laws of physics, but we might also not. Quite frankly, I find the list itself weirder than most of the people on it.

vaadu 12y ago

The articles definition of 'Weird' is 'I disagree'. Elon Musk's thoughts on AI are well thought out and in line with a lot of intelligent people. Elon Musk (CEO and CTO of SpaceX, CEO and chief product architect of Tesla Motors) claims that with artificial intelligence we are summoning the demon and compares the potential dangers of artificial intelligence to nuclear weapons. He believes that the risk of something seriously dangerous happening is in the five year timeframe. 10 years at most. The only thing weird in the article is the writer's arrogance.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

paulsecwhatt 12y ago

Interestingly enough almost all of them hold these beliefs in areas they themselves have no expertise in (of course, there are one or two exceptions). I think it's dangerous when laymen who admire these individuals for their excellent work in their respective fields also assume their beliefs in other fields and areas are equally credible. The same examples suggested here can occur in much more subtle ways - for instance - Elon Musk and his views on A.I. have been made famous, even though he has absolutely no formal background in A.I. *EDIT: completely missed that the author used Elon as an example. Nonetheless I stand by my point.

morsch 12y ago

Or more precisely, "a list of people who hold beliefs that I would dismiss". And "note that I am not claiming that the beliefs hold by these people are necessarily wrong (although some of them almost certainly are)." I think that's fair enough; don't get so hung up on his choice of "weird". (I find his using Javascript to append stuff to the copypaste buffer much more offensive.)

jhallenworld 12y ago

I think it was Alan Guth who said that physics was kind of a game where one tried to create theories which other physicists would accept. I guess the issue is that if you see someone with some obviously logically inconsistent ideas, why trust any of their other ideas? The answer is that in fact you don't trust any of them, instead only rely on experimental results.

Torgo 12y ago

Nassim Nicholas Taleb's opposition to GMO is based on his theory of collapse of complex systems, nothing he has said in my reading is "weird".

0xdeadbeefbabe 12y ago

Newton believed light was a particle. Boyle believed in luminiferous aether. Weird.

javajosh 12y ago

>Roger Penrose (mathematical physicist, mathematician and philosopher of science) argues that known laws of physics are inadequate to explain the phenomenon of consciousness. Uh, yeah, that's really fucked up. </sarcasm> Until we actually make strong AI, we have no reason to believe that consciousness could arise in anything but a few nodes somewhat late in the billion-year long continuous physical process we call "life", of which we as individuals are just a small part. I'm not saying AI isn't possible, but I think a healthy respect for the complexity of life is in order. Take a look at the structure of a bacteria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacteria#Intracellular_structures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacteria#Intracellular_structu..., and then tell me why it's so crazy that so many biologists believe in God, or that Penrose might believe that such complexity is out of our reach to explain or reproduce.

fapjacks 12y ago

I am not religious, but if you think religion is weird, probably you should begin to look inward for "weird". Religion is weird, but only in the same sense that fingers are weird, or that it's weird that water falls from the sky occasionally. Id est not really weird at all.

haberman 12y ago

On the worry about AI, this puts Elon Musk in the company of Stephen Hawking and Bill Gates too. The economist recently ran a leader on the issue: http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21650543-powerful-computers-will-reshape-humanitys-future-how-ensure-promise-outweighs?zid=291&ah=906e69ad01d2ee51960100b7fa502595 http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21650543-powerful-comp... I find this very surprising. To me, powerful AI is more akin to the atomic age than Human Intelligence v2. It's an extremely powerful tool that can be used for good or evil, so naturally there are huge opportunities and dangers both. But the computers rising up in defiance of their creators? I just don't see it. Humans are driven in their ambitions by desire, pleasure, and pain, all of which are closely tied into the mystery of sentient consciousness. You could program an agent that is demonstrably superior to humans in various measures of intelligence. But until we've somehow made a computer want something, there is no more danger of it rising up against us than there is of a nuclear bomb spontaneously deciding to detonate itself. And I've seen no indication that anyone has any idea what it would mean to make a computer experience want, to set its own goals instead of just pursuing whatever goals were established by its programming. I don't discount this possibility completely. But I think that we're really much farther away from creating robots with human-like ambition than people fear. Researchers in the 1950s thought they were a few decades away from Strong AI. I personally believe that current worries around ambitious, insubordinate robots are likewise really premature.