Beautifully said, Brian, and I'm picking up everything that you are putting down. I do think this whole techno-optimist/eAcc vs. decel/AI safety/anti-capitalism ideological battle reflects some of what you are saying here and could blossom in the future to something even more significant, with one half advocating for a full-scale return to a more ancestral condition....Big Brain Gone Wild - haha I like it, spicy!
Very interesting. I often think about the portentously calamitous results of lacking physical frontiers. Throughout all of human existence, “going west” has been an option for those who simply couldn’t fit into societal structure. The rebellious, the peculiar, the outcast, even the criminals often chose to leave society and move out into uncharted space where sometimes they were transmuted into founders and leaders. It makes sense that the lack of mental or psychic frontiers will have a similarly negative effect on those who need mental exploration.
I hear a lot of themes in this piece that Ross Douthat writes about (cultural stagnation, stagnation in the advancement of knowledge in the sciences and humanities, etc.) in his op-eds and books. Douthat is a a political and cultural conservative; are you as well, Roger's Bacon? If not, we can explore options in one direction. If yes, then we can pursue another.
"I consider that I understand an equation when I can predict the properties of its solutions, without actually solving it. This result is too beautiful to be false; it is more important to have beauty in one's equations than to have them fit experiment." - Paul Dirac
I wrote a long-ish essay here but substack somehow crashed and I lost it 🥲
The crux of it was that scientists are motivated more by the beauty and elegance of their ideas that actual curiosity. For example, you mentioned AI systems - current Neural Networks are so simple that I can explain it to a high-schooler in under an hour. Yet the results of dynamical/chaotic systems are truly awe-inspiring.
Science is more like art. We don't do art because our work is going to be a masterpiece that will withstand aeons. We do art because somehow, it is simultaneously stimulating, mystical as well as terrifying. Science similarly is driven by the framework of ideas (than ideas themselves). They aren't just curious about the entire universe - but also by why simple, elegant ideas manage to describe an indescribably complex system so well.
Neural networks are very simple. Yet they manage to dissect the mind, nature's masterpiece, in the most analytical fashion, leaving its secrets bare. Why do systems so different, almost universes apart, converge on the same behavior? Why is our world, so unimaginably complex, governed by simple trends?
I mentioned Zipf's law earlier - how a lot of aspects of nature is arranged in a power-law fashion. Recently, papers came out that language models' in-context learning abilities (how the model seems to adapt, if not "understand", when you give it completely novel instructions or ideas) arises because human languages - **all** of them - are governed by zipf's laws somehow, and such low frequency ideas/words/concepts forces the model to learn this ability if it wants to model language well.
These are patterns that facilitated us - patterns in the world that stimulated nature in such a way to create minds that are more receptive to them, unwittingly becoming conscious.
If I haven't managed to ignite the flame of curiosity within you, atleast, I hope to have instilled a sense of how beautiful abstract ideas are. No scientists wakes up, looking forward to fitting 5% more transistors in a chip or coming up with a novel antibiotic. We strive for beauty, which sometimes yields breakthroughs or advances. But the biggest "breakthroughs", that go unreported by the press are far more sublime and meaningful than achieving some technology that looks cool enough to excite star trek nerds ;)
Lastly, I leave you with fourier transforms. It's a deceptively simple mathematical idea for solving a pretty complex problem. Fourier didn't achieve a "breakthrough" when he scribbled it down - infact, he just scribbled it down as something he thought was fairly useless but simply just felt beautiful. It's only decades later that this idea is hailed to be so beautiful and elegant that its the favorites of math professors worldwide. Today, majority of computer science - down to the internet, AI, compression (like JPEG) and many other fields use the fourier transform almost all the time.
For what it's worth I too have noticed this perspective shift as having a profound effect on my experience. I have tried to cultivate it, and I have had moments where I am in the most banal situations you can imagine (driving through suburbs, at the checkout line, stuff like that), and then I just do this little perspective shift and suddenly it's all grand and beautiful. I think of it like I'm considering whatever I'm seeing as if it were an artistically framed photograph or a Kubrick shot. I have found that you can apply this framing to pretty much any situation: "this could be a scene in a movie": I think, and I imagine the way it would fit into the narrative and the aesthetic and how it would serve the emotional aims of the movie. "Dropping back" is another conceptualization of it.
Thanks dude! Ohhh thanks for sharing that, cool to see someone else mention Wilson, relatively unknown author but I've enjoyed some of this work. You would probably dig this podcast on the book I mentioned - https://www.weirdstudies.com/63 (huge fan of these guys, inspire a lot of my ideas).
I definitely know what you are talking about and have been able to effect that perceptual change as well at times (though not as much I should, I'm never really good at taking my own advice...).
So I think there are two things here then - what you are talking about is a more deliberate perceptual shit ("a dropping back") that can be cultivated and then what I'm talking about in this essay is more an environmental modification thing - just put yourself in environments with open vistas as much as possible or at least actively look at them when you have them. I live in NYC so it's tough but I always remind myself to look at the sky and the skyline as much as possible - sometimes you feel like a little rat here scurrying between the buildings lol.
I totally agree on that distinction. If you ever get the chance I would recommend (to everyone) visiting "Big Sky Country" (Montana) ;) Not sure why exactly but the sky really does seem bigger there, and the most recent time I visited it was a quasi-spiritual experience to look at the sky, night and day.
Beautifully said, Brian, and I'm picking up everything that you are putting down. I do think this whole techno-optimist/eAcc vs. decel/AI safety/anti-capitalism ideological battle reflects some of what you are saying here and could blossom in the future to something even more significant, with one half advocating for a full-scale return to a more ancestral condition....Big Brain Gone Wild - haha I like it, spicy!
Very interesting. I often think about the portentously calamitous results of lacking physical frontiers. Throughout all of human existence, “going west” has been an option for those who simply couldn’t fit into societal structure. The rebellious, the peculiar, the outcast, even the criminals often chose to leave society and move out into uncharted space where sometimes they were transmuted into founders and leaders. It makes sense that the lack of mental or psychic frontiers will have a similarly negative effect on those who need mental exploration.
Powerful and perspective-inspiring. I wish I had written it.
aww thanks ;)
I hear a lot of themes in this piece that Ross Douthat writes about (cultural stagnation, stagnation in the advancement of knowledge in the sciences and humanities, etc.) in his op-eds and books. Douthat is a a political and cultural conservative; are you as well, Roger's Bacon? If not, we can explore options in one direction. If yes, then we can pursue another.
Stop reading my blog.
I suppose you’re right; there’s no point to try engaging in some interesting convo when the author tilts at windmills. Have a better day.
If you read this essay and your concern was whether or not I'm a conservative then you are missing the point.
"I consider that I understand an equation when I can predict the properties of its solutions, without actually solving it. This result is too beautiful to be false; it is more important to have beauty in one's equations than to have them fit experiment." - Paul Dirac
I wrote a long-ish essay here but substack somehow crashed and I lost it 🥲
The crux of it was that scientists are motivated more by the beauty and elegance of their ideas that actual curiosity. For example, you mentioned AI systems - current Neural Networks are so simple that I can explain it to a high-schooler in under an hour. Yet the results of dynamical/chaotic systems are truly awe-inspiring.
Science is more like art. We don't do art because our work is going to be a masterpiece that will withstand aeons. We do art because somehow, it is simultaneously stimulating, mystical as well as terrifying. Science similarly is driven by the framework of ideas (than ideas themselves). They aren't just curious about the entire universe - but also by why simple, elegant ideas manage to describe an indescribably complex system so well.
Neural networks are very simple. Yet they manage to dissect the mind, nature's masterpiece, in the most analytical fashion, leaving its secrets bare. Why do systems so different, almost universes apart, converge on the same behavior? Why is our world, so unimaginably complex, governed by simple trends?
I mentioned Zipf's law earlier - how a lot of aspects of nature is arranged in a power-law fashion. Recently, papers came out that language models' in-context learning abilities (how the model seems to adapt, if not "understand", when you give it completely novel instructions or ideas) arises because human languages - **all** of them - are governed by zipf's laws somehow, and such low frequency ideas/words/concepts forces the model to learn this ability if it wants to model language well.
These are patterns that facilitated us - patterns in the world that stimulated nature in such a way to create minds that are more receptive to them, unwittingly becoming conscious.
If I haven't managed to ignite the flame of curiosity within you, atleast, I hope to have instilled a sense of how beautiful abstract ideas are. No scientists wakes up, looking forward to fitting 5% more transistors in a chip or coming up with a novel antibiotic. We strive for beauty, which sometimes yields breakthroughs or advances. But the biggest "breakthroughs", that go unreported by the press are far more sublime and meaningful than achieving some technology that looks cool enough to excite star trek nerds ;)
Lastly, I leave you with fourier transforms. It's a deceptively simple mathematical idea for solving a pretty complex problem. Fourier didn't achieve a "breakthrough" when he scribbled it down - infact, he just scribbled it down as something he thought was fairly useless but simply just felt beautiful. It's only decades later that this idea is hailed to be so beautiful and elegant that its the favorites of math professors worldwide. Today, majority of computer science - down to the internet, AI, compression (like JPEG) and many other fields use the fourier transform almost all the time.
Another wonderful post. Thank you!
Excellent and thought provoking as always. I was reminded of this piece which drills into the broader way of seeing things:
https://superbowl.substack.com/p/how-to-enjoy-things?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
For what it's worth I too have noticed this perspective shift as having a profound effect on my experience. I have tried to cultivate it, and I have had moments where I am in the most banal situations you can imagine (driving through suburbs, at the checkout line, stuff like that), and then I just do this little perspective shift and suddenly it's all grand and beautiful. I think of it like I'm considering whatever I'm seeing as if it were an artistically framed photograph or a Kubrick shot. I have found that you can apply this framing to pretty much any situation: "this could be a scene in a movie": I think, and I imagine the way it would fit into the narrative and the aesthetic and how it would serve the emotional aims of the movie. "Dropping back" is another conceptualization of it.
Thanks dude! Ohhh thanks for sharing that, cool to see someone else mention Wilson, relatively unknown author but I've enjoyed some of this work. You would probably dig this podcast on the book I mentioned - https://www.weirdstudies.com/63 (huge fan of these guys, inspire a lot of my ideas).
I definitely know what you are talking about and have been able to effect that perceptual change as well at times (though not as much I should, I'm never really good at taking my own advice...).
So I think there are two things here then - what you are talking about is a more deliberate perceptual shit ("a dropping back") that can be cultivated and then what I'm talking about in this essay is more an environmental modification thing - just put yourself in environments with open vistas as much as possible or at least actively look at them when you have them. I live in NYC so it's tough but I always remind myself to look at the sky and the skyline as much as possible - sometimes you feel like a little rat here scurrying between the buildings lol.
Sweet, I will definitely check out that podcast.
I totally agree on that distinction. If you ever get the chance I would recommend (to everyone) visiting "Big Sky Country" (Montana) ;) Not sure why exactly but the sky really does seem bigger there, and the most recent time I visited it was a quasi-spiritual experience to look at the sky, night and day.
I feel that way about colorado when I go there but I'm sure it's even more visceral in Montana