
The Risk of Discovery - tyn
http://www.paulgraham.com/disc.html
======
lmkg
I'm not sure that those lines of study were actually considered separate at
the time. A century earlier than Newton's time, math and geometry were
considered subfields of astronomy; and astronomy was considered the
observation of the realm of the divine. Not only was there not a divide
between physics and theology, people actually thought that math was a tool for
studying theology (one of Copernicus' sources of income was computing
astrology charts for royalty).

I say this to reinforce Paul's statement, "But that's because we know how
things turned out." "How things turned out" includes reclassification of what
he was working out as belonging to different fields. I suspect that at the
time, he didn't consider himself to be moving from one field to another but
rather to trying to build upon his previous work.

~~~
olavk
Yeah alchemy seem like a completely different field than astronomy today, but
at the time it was considered deeply connected - the metals was corresponding
to the planets and so on. Because the heavenly order was considered reflected
in the earthly materials and vice versa, studying one would lead you to
greater understanding of the other.

For a modern viewpoint it might seem like Newton was "hedging his bets" by
contributing to several totally different fields, but I don't think it was
seen like that at the time. It was all "philosophy".

Other "philosophers" in the early modern period had similar interests. For
example Tycho Brahe is remembered as an astronomer with a strong focus on
empirical observation, but actually was just as focused on astrology, alchemy
and medicine (which was connected to alchemy and astronomy because of the same
philosophy).

Newton was a "renaissance man".

~~~
cutler
Ptolemy is likewise revered by astronomers as one of their founding fathers
but they conveniently ignore the fact that in astrological circles he occupies
a similar position due to his seminal work, the Tetrabiblos. Scientists can
become very selective when dealing with alternatives to their world view.

~~~
nitrogen
_Scientists can become very selective when dealing with alternatives to their
world view._

No, they just remember people for their contributions rather than their
mistakes.

~~~
cutler
What scientists cannot accept is that there are aspects of human life which
are not observable or measurable. Science is good at measuring what is
observable but many scientists then make that a foundation for denying,
ridiculing or reducing what is not observable. Science then becomes,
paradoxically, a religion.

~~~
nitrogen
Do you not also see a paradox in claiming to be able to observe the
unobservable?

As others have mentioned in the thread, scientists didn't just wake up one day
and decide to ignore everything supposedly "unobservable". Science was once
intertwined with theology. Over the centuries, the methods we now call science
produced results, while other supposed "ways of knowing" did not. Scientific
knowledge _con_ verges over time, but religion _di_ verges.

~~~
cutler
The unobservable category includes a lot more than religion. It may be that
scientific knowledge converges more easily simply because it limits itself to
what is observable or maybe, more accurately, what is mechanistic and
observable. Take ghosts, for example. Do they exist? Let's conduct an
experiment and take cameras to a supposedly haunted house. The ghosts in
question decide to hide from the cameras. See, no ghosts. Told you so. The
ghosts meanwhile laugh in background, taking a short break from scaring the
inhabitants until the scientists leave.

~~~
nitrogen
I think a lot of people mistake ghost hunting TV shows for actual science. The
SciFi/SyFy channel is a shadow of its former self.

It seems also that you have a very caricatured understanding of scientists.

First of all, a claim of the existence of ghosts requires some evidence that
cannot be explained by other, simpler means. The principle of parsimony (AKA
Occam's Razor) is important because it works. So for our ghosts, we would need
residents' observations of sounds, movement, or other unexpected events. They
could keep a log of the time and place of every ghostly occurrence, and
demonstrate that no other explanation (thermal expansion causing creaking
floorboards, drafts moving the curtains, slightly asymmetrical mounting
causing pictures to tilt, blood flow through the retina causing spurious
visual patterns in the dark, etc.) explains the observations.

Then you bring in the scientists, and all of the observations cease as if by
magic. There are still physical explanations. The scientists' movement may be
masking subtler sounds. Their presence may have made the house warmer, so the
joints are tighter and creak less. The lights may be on more of the time, so
visual patterns caused by misfiring neurons aren't seen.

But even if you rule out all possible simpler explanations, you still have a
way of fixing the ghost problem -- just sell the house to a family of
scientists, or install cameras and microphones to scare the ghosts away.

\--

Responding to the comment by clock_tower, that is the sort of platonic notion
of "existence" that science avoids because it doesn't yield results. I'd say
science doesn't really deal with "existence" in that sense, but "occurrence".
So if you ask, "Does decadence occur?" The answer would quite obviously be
yes. Using a more pragmatic definition of existence, you could say that any
phenomenon you can define "exists", but you are likely to run into the problem
of knowing which definition of a word someone is using.

Thus, I think you also may have a caricatured understanding of scientists,
caused in part by the "fun-house mirror" effect from mechanically
transliterating scientific jargon into a philosophical context.

------
ChuckMcM
I love this insight. I have often experienced in my life seeing someone come
up with something really useful in the midst of spouting complete rubbish.
Oddly it is about 50/50 internal and external, where half the time they stop
in the middle of what they are saying and realize they have a really good
idea, and half the time someone else stops them and says "hey, that could
really work." or something like that. The common theme can best be described
as "fearless thinking" or perhaps unconstrained thinking.

I suspect that the personality trait most closely associated with creativity
like this is a lack of fear of embarrassment. When someone tells me something
I have suggested is wrong I respond by asking questions to understand how they
understand the topic so that I can learn from them. When you tell someone who
has vested their self image in being right that they are wrong they take it
personally and respond dismissively. They fight to have their point of view
validated rather than understand a counter point of view. But this makes them
unwilling to share partially understood topics because it could expose them to
being 'wrong' in public.

Other times people self censor their own thinking. I get so frustrated when
someone says "Well I thought that might be a solution to the problem _but
assumed it would be too expensive._ " That is an example of someone who had a
creative idea, self censored it, and it had to come out through someone else
in order to reach the collective consciousness of the group. I try really hard
to have people not self censor but it is so ingrained sometimes.

And all of that then feeds back into the genius/hero narrative where the
narrative of a person includes only their noteworthy accomplishments and so
the perception is that people like that _only_ do noteworthy things, and then
they are impossible to live up to.

Dare to ask stupid questions, it could make you the smartest person in the
room.

~~~
orthoganol
A stronger version of this, which is how I interpreted PG's post, is dare to
spend years of your life grinding away (in relative isolation) on something
that seems crazy, with no guarantee of any success, but full of promise.

I think there are actually very few people who would take such a risk, even
though I think it's a necessary risk if you want to be part of "huge, if
true."

~~~
sangnoir
> I think there are actually very few people who would take such a risk, even
> though I think it's a necessary risk if you want to be part of "huge, if
> true."

I beg to differ - we will never know the number of people who take such risks
due to survivorship bias. I have a hunch that a _lot_ of people through the
ages took risks that never paid off and they never got famous, instead, they
bankrupted themselves, got committed into asylums or lived their days in
anonymity. No one writes biographies about them, if they did, no one would
want to read them.

> dare to spend years of your life grinding away (in relative isolation) on
> something that seems crazy, with no guarantee of any success, but full of
> promise.

If I were to come up with a VC creed, it would probably be very close to this.
Distill it down to concise Latin and you got yourself a _bona fide_ VC Firm
motto.

------
nocman
"Physics seems to us a promising thing to work on, and alchemy and theology
obvious wastes of time."

I'm not sure which "us" pg is referring to, but the essay gives me the
impression that he meant something like "most people" (I could be reading him
wrong, but that was my impression). Alchemy is obviously a waste of time -- I
won't dispute that, and I suspect that "most people" would agree with that
assertion.

Being that pg is an atheist, I would expect him to personally believe that the
study of theology is a waste of time. However, even just taking Christian
theology into account, given that over 100 million Bibles are sold or given
away in the world every year ([https://www.reference.com/world-view/many-
copies-bible-sold-...](https://www.reference.com/world-view/many-copies-bible-
sold-year-3a42fbe0f6956bb2)), and the Bible continues to be "the most widely
distributed and best-selling book in the world.", the "us" for which it is
true that the study of theology is "crazy" or a "waste of time" seems to me to
be much smaller group of people than the essay seems to imply.

Again, this is just the impression _I_ got from reading the essay. I would be
happy to have pg respond and let me know if my impression was incorrect.

(edited to remove unintentional indenting)

~~~
olavk
I'm just guessing here, but I suspect PG doesn't care what "most people" think
about theology. He is probably writing from the perspective from an educated
person who see the enormous influence of Newtonian physics, and see absolutely
no benefit from his theological thinking. Seriously, who today even knows what
Newtons theological theories were?

~~~
pc2g4d
I don't think it matters what his particular theology was. What matters is
that theology matters. It affects how people experience and interpret
religion, which has a vast impact on the world. So the article's utter
dismissal of theology as a waste of time seems misguided to me.

Alchemy as well was not so ridiculous as people seem to think. Modern hatred
for alchemy seems more like a way of patting ourselves on the back and saying
"We're so smart! Good thing we don't believe in that nonsense like those
benighted fools hundreds of years ago." But in reality alchemy was a pre-
scientific attempt at understanding the world which, if I understand
correctly, merged more or less directly into what we no consider science.

It seems to me that the two things PG dismissed completely in his article are
in fact the foundations upon which our modern world is largely built. There's
more to the world than physics...even if physics is, in a sense, all there is.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
As you say dismissing alchemy is probably a bad thing too.

Alchemy was the search for the ability to transform matter (particularly
Pb->Au). I rather think that nuclear fusion/fission are still consider worthy
fields and that creation/discovery of an alchemist's stone - a way to convert
readily between different forms of matter - would still be considered a worthy
development.

I agree too with your synopsis. Physics is like the part of reality we've
tamed, everything that is yet to be discovered, that's of interest to
physicists, likely lies outside our laws, corollaries, and axioms as they now
stand.

To me such ideas as the naive assumption that we know the limits of knowledge
go hand in hand with the faith of atheism. But I digress.

~~~
Cogito
> faith of atheism

I used to entertain this idea, that you need faith to believe there is no god
just as much as you need it to believe there are 1000. Perhaps you do. What
does not require faith, however, is observation - at least to the limits to
which we can test and trust our observations.

Atheism isn't a belief that there is no god, it's an observation that we don't
experience any supernatural forces interacting with this universe.

> naive assumption that we know the limits of knowledge

I think very few people claim to know the limits of knowledge, but that is not
the same thing as saying we know nothing. Asimov's essay on the Relativity of
Wrong [0] is some of the best reasoning along this line of thought.

 _[He] went on to lecture me severely on the fact that in every century people
have thought they understood the universe at last, and in every century they
were proved to be wrong. It follows that the one thing we can say about our
modern "knowledge" is that it is wrong.

My answer to him was, "John, when people thought the earth was flat, they were
wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if
you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking
the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together."_

[0]
[http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm](http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm)

~~~
nocman
"> faith of atheism

I used to entertain this idea, that you need faith to believe there is no god
just as much as you need it to believe there are 1000. ..."

"Atheism isn't a belief that there is no god"

^ actually it is:
[http://www.dictionary.com/browse/atheism?s=t](http://www.dictionary.com/browse/atheism?s=t)

noun

1\. the doctrine or belief that there is no God. 2\. disbelief in the
existence of a supreme being or beings.

I think perhaps part of the problem is that many people think of "faith" as
meaning to "believe in something without any evidence of its viability", or to
"believe in something despite evidence to the contrary". Both of those are
unnecessarily narrow definitions of faith. Faith simply means believing that
some thing or some set of things is true. The belief (regardless of what facts
are believed) may be based on evidence, or it may not.

Insisting that "faith" is always believing facts without evidence, or contrary
to evidence, is inaccurate. That would be "blind faith", and not all instances
of "faith" are "blind faith".

[edit -- missed a comma]

~~~
dkbrk
Linking to a dictionary definition has little relevance to such a discussion.

The meaning of words depends on their context. "faith" has specific
connotations when used in the context of religion, and the phrase "faith of
atheism" attempts to apply these same connotations to atheism, implicitly
placing it in the same category as religions and neatly sidestepping the
question of whether such a categorization is appropriate.

Whether atheism should be categorized along with religions is a question which
should be addressed on its own merits by looking at the characteristics of
atheism and religions themselves, rather than looking up a dictionary
definition and seeing if the words match.

In that context, I think it is quite appropriate to claim:

> Atheism isn't a belief that there is no god, it's an observation that we
> don't experience any supernatural forces interacting with this universe.

Regardless of whether or not that is what is written down in the dictionary.

For further reference, see 'Arguing "By Definition" (LessWrong)':
[http://lesswrong.com/lw/nz/arguing_by_definition/](http://lesswrong.com/lw/nz/arguing_by_definition/)

~~~
majewsky
Arguing "by definition" has value to it when it helps advance a conversation
by uncovering the subtle ways in which the different definitions of each party
diverge from each other. It's only unproductive if one party doesn't realize
that all definitions are man-made, and stubbornly insists that the other
party's definition is wrong.

Insofar, I think that introducing the definition has brought a net positive
value to this discussion here.

------
gdudeman
An addendum to this: Many of the greatest unconventional thinkers of our time
are similar to Newton in that they are right about one non-consensus thing and
wrong about lots of others.

Some of those people become fantastically rich as a result of the one right
thing.

Just because someone is wildly successful and right about one non-consensus
bet, doesn't mean they aren't wrong about most of their other beliefs.

The occasional out-of-the-mainstream idea is a revolution, but the vast
majority are just nutty and wrong.

------
richardfeynman
When people say that Newton studied alchemy, what they actually mean was that
he studied chemistry. He was studying what happens when you do different
things to different elements. Sure he used the language of the time, but he
was fundamentally doing chemistry. And the dream of the alchemists -- to turn
base materials into gold -- was ultimately more or less realized when Henri
Moissan created the first artificial diamond. Alchemy has a bad rep, mostly
because it was shrouded in mystery and obfuscation, but at its core it was
science, the pursuit of knowledge through experimentation.

~~~
woodandsteel
The difference between alchemy and modern chemistry is alchemy is based on a
mystic, supernatural view of reality, whereas chemistry assumes reality is
basically natural. That makes a huge difference, and chemistry would never
have gotten very far if it had stuck with the old metaphysics.

~~~
olavk
Well it wasn't really "supernatural" at the time. It was literally a theory
about the natural world. It just wasn't correct, and have since been replaced
with different theories and models.

~~~
woodandsteel
No, it was supernatural because it was about allegedly existing non-material
entities and forces that cannot be observed through the senses, and that have
will and the ability to influence the material world. Think spirits or gods.
In Christianity from the beginning this was described in terms of reason
versus faith.

Human beings have two basic ways of thinking about reality, the natural and
the supernatural, and until modern science came along they habitually mixed
the two together. So for instance if I asked someone why a tree was black,
they would answer "it was hit by lightening" which is a natural explanation,
and then "and the lightening was thrown by the God Thor" which is a
supernatural explanation.

The great innovation of modern science (inspired by the Greeks) was to decide
to stick entirely with natural ideas. It took centuries to make this change,
and many battles, and it made possible modern technology.

Let me add that the way I am using the term "natural" and "supernatural" is
not my invention, it is the standard way philosophers and scientists have
spoken about these matters for many centuries.

~~~
olavk
I'm not sure I get this distinction. What definition of "supernatural" do you
refer to?

------
gizmo
For people who wonder why YC and pg are okay with some of Peter Thiel's more
extreme behavior, this is why.

It's pretty interesting that pg describes the possible outcomes of contrarian
ideas as either positive for society or merely a waste of time. Even though
the pursuit of risky and contrarian ideas can also be hugely harmful for
society.

~~~
3pt14159
Or maybe its because Thiel is a useful person to associate with and enough
money is on the line that pg's claim that he'd be the "first to bring about
the resistance" doesn't apply because Thiel, like Andreessen, is too important
to be stood up to.

I've lot so much respect for YC wrt Thiel. Trump is such an obvious villain
that if you're not against him you're an enabler. I don't care that he's
become normalized in the American and Russian press the rest of the world is
laughing at the USA and crying inside. We're slowly finding out which people
are actually committed to their ideals and which are just interested in being
more powerful, even if it comes at the cost of allowing a total maniac to the
nuclear throne.

~~~
tim333
Roughly half the country voted Trump so it's a bit excessive to shun all of
them.

~~~
3pt14159
I respect the 28% of voting age America that voted for HRC. I also have
respect for the people that voted Stein or Johnson in non-battleground states.
Call it 30%. But as a Canadian who's been to America dozens of times over the
years I've slowly lost respect for the GOP and Trump was the final nail in the
coffin. 90% of the GOP is evil or brainwashed. The other 10% that I still have
a small modicum of respect for includes people like Kasich.

So I respect about a third of American electorate. The third that didn't vote
I don't respect. The third that voted for Trump I don't respect.

As for America the country, I respect most of the intelligent people working
at the State Department and the CIA that I truly believe are working towards a
peaceful more prosperous world, though I admit that their history is much more
checkered (waterboarding, etc) than their counterparts in Germany, but they've
done good work basically everywhere outside of the Middle East. Tough area to
play right though, lobbyists, Israel, Turkey, multiple religious factions,
critical market for the economy / national security.

But all their work is jeopardized by this horrible demagogue and enough of
America either stayed home or voted for him. A man that bragged about sexual
assault and swindled the poor for their student loan money and chanted "lock
her up" to crowds of tens of thousands. We're laughing at America in the
morning, but we're crying at night.

~~~
t3soro
He's a villain to you because you have different ideals. To many, he is a
figurative Bruce Wayne in the Gotham City of corruption that is D.C. Any man
who "is with her" either has a confused sense of allegiance to the USA or
needs a shot of testosterone.

------
matt4077
It's either ignorant or insulting to name theology in the same breath as
alchemy. Theology is still an academic discipline and it doesn't even require
a believe in the supernatural. Unless this is pg's attempt to insert himself
into fight about "theology" vs. "religious studies".

~~~
quadrangle
to use etymology: theology -> theism. It's the study of divine, god, etc. that
sort of thing. It's not a normal scientific pursuit. Sure, it's still an
academic discipline but not one with any scientific rigor or merit. To assert
that its continued existence is what makes it more legitimate than alchemy is
some mix of appeal to authority and appeal to popularity.

~~~
jat850
I'm going to disagree with the "or merit" part. For two reasons - the first
being related to theology itself, and the other related to another field which
is sometimes classified as being without scientific rigor - philosophy.

One merit of theology is the study of religious traditions and whether or not
they should continue or be discouraged for various reasons, as an example.

Not only scientific pursuits have merit. I'm not sure if that's what you were
trying to imply with your combination of statements, but it's possible to
infer that from your choice of words.

~~~
quadrangle
Indeed, and thanks for the feedback, esp. in the form of pointing out the
interpretation rather than assuming things or putting words in my mouth. I
agree with everything you said. I think it would be good to make a distinction
between the anthropology of religion and theology (the latter as the study of
the "divine" itself, as though there's such a thing to study. Anthropology has
merit for sure and even the _practice_ of religion and even belief in things
that aren't scientifically supported may have utility or purpose even if their
premise is factually baseless (which isn't to say that everything lacking
scientific evidence is _necessarily_ false, just well, lacking scientific
evidence).

~~~
jat850
I agree (and others do, too) that there should be a greater distinction
between anthropological study of religion vs. theology - and it is argued by
some that "religious studies" is more appropriate a classification of that
than theology itself. I don't have too strong an opinion on the matter,
personally, but still appreciate your clarification on what you meant. It's a
muddy topic (as tends to be the case with anything surrounding religion).

------
Flenser
Cory Doctorow made a similar connection between science and alchemy a while
ago:

"FLOSS .. is better for the same reason that science is better than alchemy.
Back before we had science we had alchemy, a lot like science except
alchemists never told anyone else what they thought they'd learned and so they
were prey to the most common human frailty which is self deception, which is
how how alchemists discovered in the hardest way possible that you shouldn't
drink mercury, and when alchemists started telling each other what they
thought they'd learned, and subjecting themselves to adversarial peer review,
and they started publishing their source they turned something base into
something noble, they turned superstition into science and created the
enlightenment, and FLOSS is everywhere because it continues the enlightenment
tradition."

Source: [1:40 to 2:20] [http://conferences.oreilly.com/oscon/oscon-
tx/public/content...](http://conferences.oreilly.com/oscon/oscon-
tx/public/content/how-you-got-here)

------
gdubs

      "I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost
       almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the
       game winning shot and missed."
    

\- Michael Jordan

~~~
omarchowdhury
Which basketball player has not missed a shot, has not lost a game, hasn't
missed game winning shots?

Did they all become like Michael Jordan?

Failure may be on the path to success, but failure does not guarantee success.

~~~
zenlikethat
Yeah, but you could also easily ask how many would-be Jordans stopped short
because of all their failures. Point is Michael wouldn't be Michael without
it.

------
js8
I find it funny that capitalism requires what is essentially an irrational
behavior. It seems to me that big public corporations, which avoid risk, and
only buy startups once they have been established, are the rational actors. On
the other hands, three guys in the garage doing a startup often do it not
because they calculate expected profits, but because they want to do it for
other than monetary reasons - typically to show that things can be improved
and done differently. And so they are willing to take huge, irrational risks.

~~~
zanny
Startups are not much risk, though. You start out without, you try to make
something, if it doesn't work out just having the experience as long as it
wasn't a total catastrophe makes you hirable anywhere you want or you try
again.

The most you might lose is the support of friends and family if your dreams
aren't fully realized. Which can be a lot, but that is why the people who have
the most to lose don't try startups.

~~~
pc86
Founding a failed startup does not "make you hireable anywhere you want."

~~~
Strom
Of course not, it's hyperbole. Your criticism can be applied to anything [1],
because nothing will make someone hireable everywhere.

The point is that if you go through a decent period [2] of running a start-up
you will acquire experience and skills that will make you much more attractive
for hire compared to yourself without that experience. What's more, the
quality of this real world experience will most likely far surpass anything
you would gain in a classic university in the same amount of time [3].

\--

[1] Depending on how literal we want to be with these word games, there are
some tricks that can be done with the "you want" part of the phrase to adjust
how much it applies.

[2] Let's say 6 months full-time minimum.

[3] There's no way to give a universal estimate here for everyone. However for
people who are capable of self-teaching, the startup experience can be orders
of magnitude more useful than university time.

------
curun1r
There are plenty of discoverers who incurred some level of risk and lost in a
way that isn't covered up by history. Marie Curie's discovery killed her.
Tesla's genius manifested not only in groundbreaking discovery, but also
mental illness and isolation. And just ask Elisha Gray about the risks of
discovery.

But, yes, history has a survivorship bias. But that's literally one of the
oldest observations made. It's often said, "History is written by the
victors." What PG is saying is just another version of that age-old
observation.

------
malanj
I wish pg would start writing longer form essays again. His startup essays had
a huge impact on my approach to building startups. They were hugely insightful
and inspirational for me.

This essay has a great core insight, and I get you don't need more words to
say it, but I still miss the longer ones

~~~
tpetricek
If you'd like a longer read along the lines of this note, then you might enjoy
Bruno Latour's Science in Action: [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Science-Action-
Scientists-Engineers...](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Science-Action-Scientists-
Engineers-Through/dp/0674792912)

I found the book super interesting in terms of explaining how innovations
happen and how we talk about them in retrospect. Although it is about science,
I think a lot of the thinking would apply to programming innovations too. And
unlike most blog posts, there is actually some serious sociological research
behind it :-).

------
kukx
I don't think that studing chemistry (I like to think about alchemy as a
precursor of chemistry) or theology should be stigmatized. I understand that
it was just an example to support the core idea of the article, but it still
leaves a bad taste.

~~~
callmeed
I got that too. The essay definitely had an anti-religious undertone to me.

~~~
jp_sc
You cannot study what -by definition- it's impossible to observe or measure
directly or indirectly. Believing in God it's an act of faith, you cannot KNOW
nothing.

So yes, in modern times, theology and alchemy has the same scientific value:
none

~~~
jorangreef
"You cannot study what -by definition- it's impossible to observe or measure
directly or indirectly"

You're limiting knowledge to the hard sciences.

That kind of thinking is not scientific, but merely Scientism.

You're also ruling out many scientific domains, e.g. history which operates
according to the historical method.

Theology (in the original Christian sense of the word) stands on the
historical method. It's interested primarily in those historical events from
which we can learn about God. If Jesus is not historical, if God has not acted
in history, then there's nothing to know about God, and there's no such thing
as Theology.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
History is studied through indirect measurements - written accounts,
archaeology, oral history. All reasonable scientific routes. As allowed by the
OP?

~~~
jorangreef
Yes, that would be the historical method.

But that is different to the "observe", "measure", rinse-and-repeat
methodology which is commonly understood as the scientific method.

The methods by which one studies physics and history are different, but
history is no less scientific, and it falls within the sciences, as does
theology since it depends on the historical method.

Theology cannot argue or learn anything about God for which there is no
historical basis.

------
seiferteric
Wait, I thought alchemy and theology were pretty mainstream back then? How was
it risky? Just because they turned out to be wrong, I don't think it was crazy
for someone to be studying these things back then. Seems like a modern example
would be someone studying something like string theory or dark matter and
later we discover these things are wrong... but there is no reason to think
that today.

~~~
btilly
The penalty for unsanctioned alchemy was hanging.

His theological conclusions would have been considered heresy. The penalty for
heresy was the loss of all property and status and, sometimes, death.

He was indeed taking a serious risk in studying these things.

~~~
seiferteric
While I appreciate what you are saying, I think the type of risk pg was
talking about was the risk of wasting his time/career, not the risk to his
life. The more I think about it, I think a good modern example may turn out to
be someone studying AI (specifically AGI). If it turns out to be possible, and
you succeed, it would be huge. If it turns out to be not possible, you would
have wasted your career. So maybe the lesson is to do more than one thing.

------
kowdermeister
> Newton made three bets. One of them worked. But they were all risky.

Except it was three:

\- Optics

\- Gravitation and mechanics

\- Mathematics

There are many scientists out there who spend a lifetime on theories that turn
out to be bogus, but calling it a bet is entirely missing the point.

~~~
ritchiea
How is calling it a bet missing the point? As a scientist investigating a
phenomenon in the natural world, assuming you wish to make a new contribution
to your field, you are betting your time that you will both arrive at a new
understanding of your subject matter and also be the first to do so.

~~~
kowdermeister
If you just bet that for example string theory is a good enough field for
research then you'll be deeply disappointed if it turns out to be nothing but
a mirage.

These people live for research. They can work on anything (because interests
them) and no matter if it has earth shattering consequences or small breaks
they can still be happy during the process, so calling it risky or dangerous
is laughable.

------
swalsh
I urge anyone to play a bit of 'why' with a young child, mixed with the
Socrates method. If you can get them to try and answer beyond "I don't
know"... you'll be taken to some crazy mental places no adult can take you.

~~~
darkerside
I would love to hear more about this

------
throw2016
The most valuable thing we have is time. Unless you are born rich or wealthy
time is sustenance and living money. The tradeoffs and risks involved for
those born rich and those who have to work for a living are world's apart.

In the era Newton came from you would have to be wealthy to be able to afford
other interests beyond surviving. So a lot of the big leaps were made by those
from rich families or those lucky enough to have some sort of wealthy backer.

Plus certain things like education, family, kids are attached to specific
timelines in a typical life. Health and the ability to do things are also
attached to timelines. When you take a risk you could be putting all of those
on line.

The ability to expend time with no certainty of returns is a luxury only those
from a wealthy background have. And naturally they will be more successfuly as
there are more efforts from people of those backgrounds.

------
rguzman
also, i have the impression that alchemy's bad reputation is a bit undeserved.
IIRC some alchemists believed matter was made of fundamental components and
followed the scientific method well. so, that bet may be less risky than we
perceive it now. this only makes pg's point stronger: it'd be the most
interesting for a biography of Newton to talk about alchemy.

~~~
goodcanadian
Indeed. Alchemy was the precursor to chemistry. The whole turning lead into
gold trope was an obvious failure in hindsight, but that was not the sole
point of alchemy. An awful lot was learned about chemistry and the nature of
matter.

------
nehushtan
But... isn't it true that at Newton's theology was at the foundation of his
physics? The idea of a single deity whose intelligence crafted a rational
world, the laws of which it is man's duty to uncover, is certainly not
incidental to his discoveries.

------
sahrizv
I agree with the core insight that we sometimes ignore the risk taking of high
achievers while looking at their life in hindsight. However, I would not say
with certainty that Newton was pursuing these fields with the mindset of
betting on them. He could have been certain about the validity, value and
fruitfulness of intellectual pursuits in those fields.

Interestingly, this is the second time in the past 24 hours I've encountered
the idea of comparing a VC (Marc's reference) with another class of high
achievers. (previous one, a comparison with entrepreneurs:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13371813](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13371813))

------
huckabeen2017
The other anecdote concerning Sir Isaac Newton that seems most apt, and it was
particularly well dramatized in Neil DeGrasse Tyson's updated __Cosmos
__series, arose when the Royal Society delayed publishing his Principia due to
the spectacular failure of their Encyclopedia of Fish the year before! I am
not sure which amazes me more: that "natural philosophy" encompasses
everything in the cosmos from optics to marine life. Or contemporaneous short-
sightedness can imbue one subject with the most paramount economic and social
import, whilst viewing the other as nothing more than a mere parlor trick.
Only to have the perspective of history upend such dogma centuries later!

~~~
Santosh83
Short-sightedness or a matter of economics, considering printing was probably
not as easy and cheap in those times as it is now?

------
xolb
What PG calls "bets" I would call interesting topics for Newton. Maybe he just
liked the subjects. Calling bets is saying he was trying to actually
accomplish something out of their studies and work. I don't think a curious
mind would work like that. Even in physics, he studied a broad range of
topics, not only Mechanics.

Furthermore, you don't need to make a breakthrough in everything to satisfy
your desire for knowledge. Even more so for Newton, which was known by his
seclusion and introversion.

------
jorangreef
pg's "theology" is a strawman.

Theology is nothing but a study of the implications of the historical events
concerning Jesus of Nazareth, those events themselves being subject to the
historical method.

Either I am missing something, or pg is essentially implying some or all of
the following:

1\. The person of Jesus Christ did not exist in history.

2\. There is insufficient information concerning him.

3\. Studying the historical person of Jesus Christ according to the historical
method is akin to, or of similar value to, the study of alchemy, i.e. a waste
of time.

I seriously doubt whether any historian interested in ancient history would
make such claims.

It's pretty ignorant and reckless coming from pg.

~~~
thegenius2000
Yes, to dismiss theology along with alchemy -- in the same sentence -- as
altogether useless is childish oversimplification. Rejecting Biblical faiths
is one thing, but to ignore the impact the Christian worldview has had on
Western science, including the life of Isaac Newton (who would never have
invested time in studying the physical world if he didn't believe it had a
Creator, and therefore order), either shows a gross lack of historical
knowledge or poor taste. It's a pity because I agree with him otherwise about
the risk taking, which was the main point of his article.

~~~
olavk
If want to use words like childish, ignorant, poor taste, you really need to
make your case better. Many scientists does not believe in a creator but still
believe the physical world to have order.

In any case, whether a creator exist or not, it is still a waste of time to
search in the Bible for information about his plans for the future, like
Newton did.

If you are going to argue it wasn't a waste of time, you have to point out
what useful information Newton discovered in his studies of the Bible.

------
adamzerner
The core idea of this article is that high reward is usually accompanied by
high risk. To exemplify this, pg gave a great example of Newton pursuing
physics, alchemy and theology.

However, this was just one example. I think the article could be greatly
improved by giving, like, 50 examples (in an abbreviated form, like "Newton:
physics, alchemy, theology"). With one example it's sorta easy to think, "eh
that might just be an exception". With 50 example, it's easy to think, "wow,
look at all of that; the core idea definitely does seem to be true".

~~~
svantana
It's a good example but I think the core of the article is that there is
inherent success bias in the history of science and engineering. The
scientists of the past that were working on dead end problems were not
necessarily worse scientists, it could have been pure bad luck. But in
hindsight it's difficult to tell those people from the incompetent.

------
brown
"The distance between insanity and genius is measured only by success." \-
Bruce Feirstein

------
steejk
This is similar to what Ben Thompson just wrote about [1]. It's easy to forget
the bets, such as Apple TV, that weren't so successful.

[1] [https://stratechery.com/2017/the-ten-year-anniversary-of-
the...](https://stratechery.com/2017/the-ten-year-anniversary-of-the-apple-
tv/)

~~~
argonaut
Most people have not forgotten the Apple TV.

------
gist
> Newton made three bets. One of them worked. But they were all risky.

Risky? What is the definition of risk? What was the downside to Newton making
these 'bets'? What was the risk of Andressen deciding in college to think that
what he did was the right way to go? And importantly (and my point) wouldn't
the exact same action by a tenured professor be more of a risk?

Let's take the risk that Donald Trump took vs. Hillary Clinton. Trump is hated
by many now and would be regardless of whether he won or lost the election (in
many ways decimated his brand). The same is not true for Hillary even though
she did take a reputation hit it's nowhere near what Trump (with his rhetoric)
took. So same thing "run for President" different people different levels of
risk.

------
all_usernames
I find this essay pretty confusing. It seems to contradict itself at some
basic level.

"Maybe the smartness and the craziness were not as separate as we think."

This seems kind of obvious to me. Yes, creative and driven people are
interested in lots of strange things. Yes, genius often means the ability to
take ideas or discoveries from apparently widely different areas and tie them
together to form new understandings.

"Newton made three bets. One of them worked."

This makes no sense. Of course his physics was a success. But how could anyone
judge the theological pursuits of an individual to be a success or a failure?

And if the pursuit was a failure, then doesn't that negate the earlier
implication that his studying theology ("crazy") was in some ways associated
with his success in physics ("genius")?

------
api
I've been saying this for years: science is far too conservative, dogmatic,
and risk-averse.

The reality is that genius minds are intellectually fearless. Newton was into
alchemy and fringe theology. Edison tried to build a machine to contact the
dead. Many of the great minds of the 60s who at least envisioned everything
you're using now were into all kinds of "crazy" stuff: parapsychology,
psychedelic consciousness expansion, shamanism, etc.

Was some of that stuff silly? Sure. Was some or even most of it a dead end?
Sure. But that's not the point. The point is that great minds fear no idea.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSolPNn0G7M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSolPNn0G7M)

------
mmwako
Loved the insight, but I don't agree with the conclusions. Maybe Newton was
just genius all along, and we have yet to discover the "hugeness" of alchemy
and theology.

~~~
apeace
I think what you're saying compliments the conclusions made by PG.

If you think alchemy might have promise, go and study it! You'll be taking a
risk, but it might just change the world (and put you in the history books).

------
ggame
Newtons dabbling in Alchemy made him very sick, so there was definitely a risk
there. He also invested and lost his life savings in a speculative stock
bubble. The bet that really paid off financially was his occult connections
that got him a job as warden of the royal mint where his currency manipulation
lead to an increase in demand for coins and made him a huge personal fortune.
At least that's what I heard. Happy to be corrected.

------
cayblood
Graham's casual dismissal of 'useless' theology demonstrates a complete lack
of awareness of the demise of the secularization hypothesis.

------
emmelaich
I honestly think that Newton was well aware of the unlikelihood of making
breakthroughs in theology and alchemy[1].

In physics he had a lower[2] benefit but much higher probability of progress.

    
    
      1. Plus he went a little mad from chemical fumes.
      2. Really.  Imagine[3] making a real breakthrough in alchemy or theology!
      3. I can't imagine it and you almost certainly can't either.

~~~
ulucs
Nuclear science can be considered a breakthrough in alchemy. We can even
create new elements!

------
vacri
This is mostly confirmation bias. It's quite common to be 'kind of crazy', and
it happens at all levels of intellect, from your working-class 'nutter' to
your high-born 'eccentric'. There's nothing special about being smart when it
comes to being 'kind of crazy'.

------
graeham
So what's the take-away? Make many high risk bets in hoping one will pay off?

Newton is an exception as well. While his biographers down-play his failures,
he is also credited (at least in High School Physics) with things that were
the work of dozens or even hundreds of scientists - or giants you might say.

------
nerfhammer
For those interested in Newton's theology and alchemy work:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton's_occult_studies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton's_occult_studies)

~~~
pdm55
Plus there is the Newton Project,
[http://www.newtonproject.sussex.ac.uk/prism.php?id=1](http://www.newtonproject.sussex.ac.uk/prism.php?id=1).
One time I looked his alchemy writings were in a code that he had concocted. I
recall he had astronomical (astrological) terms for chemicals. Maybe, that
ties in with what someone else wrote above about there being a belief at the
time that things on earth reflected what was in the heavens.

------
trefn
Neal Stephenson's "Baroque Cycle" goes into great detail about Isaac Newton's
life, and his focus on alchemy and theology. It is of course fiction, but well
researched and utterly fascinating. I recommend it!

------
crb002
Newton had an epic insight into combinatorics. The calculus work he did during
the university quarantine shutdown is great to page through. I wonder how much
farther Newton, Gauss, Euler, and Erdos would have gotten if they knew how to
code.

------
blazespin
Maybe alchemy and theology was just how he blew off steam. It seems like me
did them a lot, but you know, we all like to have our hobbies.

Trying to describe the mindset of newton 100s of years after his death seems a
bit reaching.

------
acalderaro
On his essay tab, PG's "Risk of Discovery" is loading at the bottom, instead
of the top near the more recent ones - is this happening for anyone else?

------
dxhdr
I bet Newton pursued what he was interested in, rather than thinking "well, I
better hedge my bets!"

------
scandox
We do not in fact know how Theology turned out. But we will know or rather we
won't when we do.

------
lisper
What exactly was Newton risking? An entrepreneur who quits her job and takes
out a mortgage to start a business is risking her livelihood. If she fails,
she and her family could end up on the street. Newton came from a wealthy
family. If he failed in his intellectual endeavors the "risk" for him was to
live out his life as an ordinary rich person and only ending up in the more
obscure history books.

I think Fredrick Smith (founder of Fedex) is a much better example of someone
taking an entrepreneurial and intellectual risk.

[http://about.van.fedex.com/our-story/history-
timeline/histor...](http://about.van.fedex.com/our-story/history-
timeline/history/)

~~~
oh_sigh
Newton's family was _not_ well off. His father, a yeoman, died before he was
born, his mother remarried a reverend, who also died before Newton came of
age. His mother wanted him to be a farmer, which is not lucrative unless you
have huge tracts of land(which he did not).

When he was first admitted to Trinity, he was a subsizar - that is, he had to
perform valet duties in order to pay for his education. He only stopped doing
those duties when he was awarded a scholarship.

~~~
lisper
Well, my source was:

[http://www.history.com/news/history-lists/9-things-you-
may-n...](http://www.history.com/news/history-lists/9-things-you-may-not-know-
about-isaac-newton)

"When Newton was three, his mother wed a wealthy clergyman, Barnabas Smith..."

"In 1705, Newton was knighted by Queen Anne. By that time, he’d become wealthy
after inheriting his mother’s property..."

Newton's mother died in 1679, when Newton was 37. Principia was published in
1687.

------
mempko
I'm curious, was the risk material for Newton, or just virtual, like "risk of
failure" which would just be an embarrassment.

------
z3t4
if they failed they still had their lands and titles.

------
cfmcdonald
Sorry, Newton didn't "make bets", he was not a Silicon Valley VC. He worked on
problems that he found interesting and that he believed would reveal eternal
truths established and maintained by God.

~~~
cobbzilla
Please don't get stuck on semantics. When you decide to take a longer route
because you think there will be less traffic, you "make a bet". You "make a
bet" by deciding to go to college instead of straight into the working world.
Anywhere there is a decision to be made with uncertain outcomes, you "make a
bet". It doesn't have to be about money, although it often is.

~~~
cfmcdonald
I didn't 'make a bet' by going to college, it was the assumed thing in my
family, it was culturally ingrained that I would go to college. This way of
looking at life as a series of 'bets' that one makes is it's own particular
kind of culture, one that Newton did not belong to.

Newton didn't investigate alchemy and theology because he was trying to
diversify his fame investment portfolio. To see him this way is to do a
disservice to him and to history.

~~~
eachro
Replace 'bet' with 'choice.' It's the same message.

------
Rickasaurus
PG's articles sure have gone down hill :(

~~~
sxg
Or maybe you're just remembering his successful articles and forgetting his
lower quality ones?

------
sidlls
It's amusing that he uses a modern chauvinism ("making a bet") in this way,
while noting that some of Newton's "bets" were only "wasteful" (risky, bad,
whatever) when viewed through the lense of modern knowledge.

He has a good point, put poorly, and without good support in his chosen
example.

~~~
galdosdi
What do you mean by calling the phrase "making a bet" a chauvinism? It just
seems like a figure of speech. Gambling has existed for a very long time.

(I don't mean to disagree or agree with you, just genuinely don't know what
you mean, might end up going either way after you explain your cryptic (to me)
remark)

~~~
sidlls
In this context it imposes a modern view of "opportunity cost" that would
simply not have occurred to Newton or any of his contemporaries. It's just too
far back in history to really be useful as a support for his argument,
especially given the convoluted and mixed approach used.

------
aaron-lebo
I'm not seeing what the risk was. He was taking a chance that he was wrong,
yes, but that was just science. Risk suggests a danger. But what was it?

~~~
skolos
Here "risk" is opportunity cost. You can spend all you life in theology and
die unknown. Newton is famous only because of physics, the other fields were
waste of his time. There are countless people who spend their life perusing
projects that do not produce anything valuable. And then there are few that
win Nobel.

~~~
rl3
> _There are countless people who spend their life perusing projects that do
> not produce anything valuable._

It can't be understated how painful that has to be from their perspective.

I suppose a similar story is where they do produce something of value, but
it's incremental in nature. Incremental advancements usually don't receive
much recognition.

~~~
js8
> It can't be understated how painful that has to be from their perspective.

Why? Somebody can play videogames all day, because it's fun, and then die all
of sudden. They didn't produce anything valuable, and yet, they didn't feel
bad about it.

It's only painful if you rethink it, and basically say, I should have spent my
time doing something else. Which is a paradox of choice.

~~~
rl3
The comment I was replying to was explicitly in context of projects. Not
merely wasting life, but wasting life in pursuit of something.

The motivation for most people when they pursue something is to succeed, and
their efforts to have mattered.

------
almonj
Calling his study of theology and alchemy "crazy" seems a bit short sighted.
Newtons intense devotion to understanding the scriptures was likely what
allowed him to make so much progress in science. Since God saw what a devoted
student he was, chose to reward him in that manner of scientific
enlightenment. The study of scripture was primary, his science, secondary.

~~~
haliax
Except that that fails to account for the many devout believers who tried and
failed for such enlightenment, or the fact that others have reached great
scientific and mathematical heights without being devout students.

Also, having read a fair bit about his life, his scientific and mathematical
endeavours were most definitely not secondary to anything.

