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Ben PaceModerator Comment40

In this post the author gives someone's real name and claim that they're the author of the quoted paragraph. We got an intercom message from a user claiming to be that person, asking to remove the post given that (a) the post provides no evidence of the association, (b) they say this association is harmful to them, and (c) it now shows up as the fifth result on google when searching for their name.

Doxxing attempts, whether true or false, are pretty bad, and I do think that LW's SEO is giving this claim more Google prominence even though the post provides no evidence for the claim. I think in this case I will edit any mentions of the person's name here to be the rot-13'd version of the name. You can access the name via entering it into the website rot13.com, but it will not be highly searchable on Google.

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Richard_Kennaway20

So was Unknown128's post just an attempt to smear that person's name by association with the Nazi screed he quoted from?

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by Unknown128
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318

-6

Pbfgva Iynq Nynznevh (translate using rot13.com) who has a BA in Mathematics writes the following:

Do you imagine that men of genius or, let’s say, men of science in history walked around clear-headed, “disenchanted,” reasonable, with the tight-assed attitude of the science cultist and materialist? No great discovery has ever been made by the power of reason. Reason is a means of communicating, imperfectly, some discoveries to others, and in the case of the sciences, a method of trying to render this communication certain and precise. But no one ever made a discovery through syllogisms, through reason, through this makeshift form of transmission. Great mathematicians saw spatial relations, as great physicists saw and to some extent felt physical relations. In contemplation of mathematical forms, there is almost a physical feel of geometric relations, and all mathematicsat bottom is about geometric relations even when it doesn’t seem so. Compare the Euclidian proof of the Pythagorean theorem, based on syllogism, which helps you understand nothing that’s actually going on, with the imagistic proof of the three squares, that makes you perceive, physically perceive even in your body, why this theorem is true. Gauss, so beloved even by the tedious scientistic goblins that even Google gave him a cartoon, is famous to have said something like, “I got it…now I have to get it.” Meaning, he had seen and felt the fundamental spatial relation he was searching, but now he had to translate it into the imperfect language of mathematics for others. Thus all mathematics and all science in general—mathematics is only the prototype and most precise of the sciences—is about the definitions, not about the proof, not about the process or —absurd!—the “algorithm.” All great scientific discoveries, supposedly the great works of “reason,” are in fact the result of intuitions and sudden grasp of ideas. And all such sudden grasp and reaching is based on what, in other circumstances, would be called a kind of religious intoxication: it depends on a state of the mind where the perceiving part of the intellect is absolutely focused, limpid, yet driven by the most relentless energy, an energy to penetrate. Direct perception is already “intellectualized” and in fact much closer to the innate “intelligence” of things than cerebral syllogisms. No scientist worth anything has ever felt pride at using algorithms or trial-and-error to solve a problem.

How correct is this statement?

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Reason and Intuition in science
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Richard_Kennaway

*

90

A commonplace submerged in a bucket of Nietzschean romanticism. The quote is from a book, "Bronze Age Mindset: An Exhortation" by one "Bronze Age Pervert", presumably this Pbfgva Iynq Nynznevh (translate using rot13.com) "who has a BA in Mathematics". (I must wonder if this is the same person as Unknown128. ETA: judging by Unknown128's writing style in the comment he has just posted, this no longer seems likely. My apologies for identifying you as someone who is all-but-literally Hitler.)

The book can be found by searching the net for phrases taken from later in the quoted text. (Many sites have this quote or part of it, but only a few have the whole work.) Due to both the content of the work and the sort of site where it is being hosted, I will not give links and will not forward a copy. One site where I found it displayed porn popups. Another professed itself to be a place for hosting weird stuff for the lolz, and from what I briefly saw, I would not care to spend any time there.

The PDF I found is not internally searchable (though paradoxically, was Googleable) and the pages are not numbered, but the passage is in section 22 on the 25th page.

To give an idea of what sort of work this is, here are a few more quotes. Ellipses are mine, for brevity, as the PDF does not support copying. [ETA: I was using OSX Preview, which reads most PDFs, but has limitations. Adobe Acrobat Reader is able to search and copy the text.]

Near end of Prologue:

In the Bronze Age men had life and force, and I already see ... this spirit returning surely in our time. ... May they inhabit us again and give us strength to purify this world of refuse!

Sections 1 and 2:

You had in years before Trump, the fat bald gluttons of the Right put in a fighting ring against the Janet Renos, the womyn with pickup trucks, the thin-lipped transnumales of the Left. ...
Group of horses in broad plain, and the lead stallion is captured by a wild spirit, starts to gallop this way and that, and the whole herd follows in a great rush of power and freedom—Nietzsche talks about this.

Section 20:

Animals walk around in a state of permanent religious intoxication.

Presumably the same religious intoxication as is referred to in the OP a few pages later.

Section 49:

Life appears at its peak not in the grass hut village ruled by nutso mammies, but in the military state. ...
The free man is a warrior, and only a man of war is a real man.

In section 77, the final one, he foresees in language too verbose to quote, the rise of a few strong men who will leave this rotten civilisation, create their own fortresses, "develop above all their physical powers and their ability to wage war", and on occasion "send a great demagogue into the people, when this becomes necessary".

So. "Life appears at its peak in the military state." "Strength to purify this world of refuse." "A great demagogue." Where have we heard these sentiments before?

This book aspires to be the Mein Kampf of the alt-right.

[-]Unknown128*40

I agree it's a terrible ideology. Still due to my ignorance in such matters and Pbfgvaf (translate using rot13.com) (who is the Bronze age Pervert in real life) scientific background (BA in math and PhD from Yale in Political science as well as a father who works at MIT) as well as Michael Antons claim that the book was "more often right than wrong in its statements" (including taking Pbfgvaf (translate using rot13.com) attacks on the theory of Evolution seriously) made me think that maybe what seems like irrational drivel might have some t... (read more)

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8Richard_Kennaway
The remedy for ignorance is searching for knowledge, not modestly swallowing anything anyone with a degree or two and "a father who works at MIT" tells you. And who is Michael Antons? As far as I can see, just another member of the alt-right, prominent mainly for an essay "The Flight 93 Election" (referring to the election that elected Trump, during the run-up to it). Whatever one thinks of Antons, there is nothing in that essay resembling the drunken ravings of Pbfgva Iynq Nynznevh (translate using rot13.com) who has a BA in Mathematics. This is a rationalist forum, so why introduce the likes of the irrationalist Pbfgvaf (translate using rot13.com) who has a BA in Mathematics? What is there in his wannabe Hitler shtick that should even raise him to our attention? The concept of "concern trolling" is raised to my attention right now, even if you are not Pbfgvaf (translate using rot13.com) (who has a BA in Mathematics) himself.
4Richard_Kennaway
Intuitionism (mathematics) has nothing to do with fascist romanticism.
2Unknown128
I am introducing this position because its an attack on rationalism hence me asking Rationalists what they thought about it. It seems you Rationalists are unimpressed. Michael Anton did occupy a serious position in the Trump administration and was called a serious intellectual even by some center left sources.
4Richard_Kennaway
Which, intuitionist mathematics or the screed by Nynznevh (translate using rot13.com) who has a BA in mathematics? To the extent that they have anything to do with each other at all, they are pretty much opposite things, and for different reasons neither of them impress me. Intuitionist mathematics sought to curb what Brouwer saw as the excesses of reason by putting up a fence limiting reason only to such methods as could be justified by (Brouwer's) intuition. Romanticism sees reason as a fence curbing intuition, a fence that must be destroyed to allow free rein to the passions that are hobbled by civilisation, that the strong may exult in their strength, rule over the weak, and "purify the world of refuse". But what do you think? You have quoted this and mentioned that, but not once ventured to express a view of your own. Put up or be dismissed as a troll.
1Unknown128
My own position is rationalist, I do believe that the proper use of reason is essential for understanding the world. Intuition cannot be separated from reason because it will only lead one to the truth if once mind is first "calibrated" by previous scientific research/rational ordering one has to learn to think rationally, which then makes once thought patterns (both conscious and unconscious) directed towards discovering what one seeks in science. Logic is an essential part of mathematics and science in general and most scientists do look at the world in a clear-headed and disenchanted way. I personally dislike romanticism, especially of this fascist/Nietzschian kind, but I don't know any natural scientists and so I see it as a possibility that I am wrong and that Pbfgvaf (translate using rot13.com) is right, hence my questions here. I do consider just about all of his ideas abhorrent. They are probably the complete opposite to mine, which is a reason why they drew my attention.
1Unknown128
Also he seems to attack abstract ideas in favor of "direct observation", but I have a hard time seing how one can free oneself from abstract reasoning.

gilch

50

This seems related to what we call locating the hypothesis. By the time you can come up with a decent hypothesis in the first place, you've already gathered most of the evidence for it.

In 1919, Sir Arthur Eddington led expeditions to Brazil and to the island of Principe, aiming to observe solar eclipses and thereby test an experimental prediction of Einstein's novel theory of General Relativity. A journalist asked Einstein what he would do if Eddington's observations failed to match his theory. Einstein famously replied: "Then I would feel sorry for the good Lord. The theory is correct." This sounds like Einstein is defying the sovereignty of experiment - jumping to conclusions in advance of the experimental data. But since Einstein was in fact right, it would be extremely improbable for him to have been right just by jumping to conclusions. Einstein must have had enough rational evidence already in hand to locate General Relativity in theory-space.

"Intuition" like that is properly understood as a form of Bayesian reasoning! To say "No great discovery has ever been made by the power of reason," is Straw Vulcan Rationality. Intuition is reasoning. And well-calibrated intuition is rational.

The converse of this, we call the fallacy of privileging the hypothesis

To see the problem of privileging the hypothesis, suppose that the police in Largeville, a town with a million inhabitants, are investigating a murder in which there are few or no clues - the victim was stabbed to death in an alley, and there are no fingerprints and no witnesses.

Then, one of the detectives says, "Well... we have no idea who did it... no particular evidence singling out any of the million people in this city... but let's consider the possibility that this murder was committed by Mortimer Q. Snodgrass, who lives at 128 Ordinary Ln."

If the detective does not have evidence already in hand to justify singling out Mortimer for such special and individual attention, then this is, or ought to be, a violation of Mortimer's civil rights.

There is a big difference between an educated guess and a shot in the dark. And that difference is evidence.

[-]Unknown12820

Thank you all for the enlightening answers! I would also like to ask how much correct flashes of intuition are themselves a product of making once mind think acording to rational rules. Dont discoveries usualy come from long research where initial flashes of intuition are often wrong and the scientist slowly reaches the truth step by step trough reasoning, experimenting and many intuitive flashes? Intuition is not arriving from some mysterious other place but is tied to their previous scientific research/rational ordering. Also can one really reduce reason to sylogisms or trial and error?

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4Richard_Kennaway
"Intuition" is just a name for the ideas and beliefs we arrive at without being able to articulate why. They're all around us, not just in deep mathematics, but in trivial matters, like how I know I'm sitting in a chair right now. (If we could articulate things like that, we would already have humanoid robot servants that could take care of all the housekeeping.) Intuitions can as easily be right as wrong, in fact more easily wrong than right, for truth is a small target. Look at all the stuff that here we would generally dismiss as "woo": astrology, alternative medicine, chakras, etc. Pretty much all writings about these are based on no more than intuition. "Here's a flower that looks like an eye -- it must be good for treating eye diseases!" To have right intuitions rather than wrong ones, then just as for explicit reasoning, one must have been entangled with the world in order to obtain those right intuitions. They will not happen by chance, by the raw animal spirit in a state of religious intoxication that Pbfgva Iynq Nynznevh (translate using rot13.com) (who has a BA in Mathematics) valorises. Even if we do not know the process by which, for example, we learn to ride a bicycle, there must be such a process. You don't get to have the insight of a Gauss without having laboured long and hard over mathematics. Neither do you get to be the Beatles without working at your craft, practicing and practicing while your age peers are out partying every night and lazing in in the morning. You don't get to be the Beatles, or anything else of note, without putting in the work. BTW, logic has moved on a long way from "syllogisms", which is now a significant concept only in the history of logic, no longer in logic. I guess Pbfgva Iynq Nynznevh'f (translate using rot13.com) "BA in mathematics" did not include any courses on mathematical logic.

quanticle

40

A useful counterexample is the discovery of Neptune. Neptune was discovered when astronomers noticed deviations from their predictions of Uranus' orbit, and then computed the likely orbital characteristics of a hypothetical eighth planet from those deviations. They then tested their hypothesis by turning their telescopes to the night sky, and sure enough, there was another planet out there.

More generally, I would say that it takes both. Yes, there is often a flash of inspiration, but inspiration is not enough. One still has to do the work. It's not enough to dream of a snake eating its own tail. You still have to do the crystallography to prove your inspiration correct.

[-][anonymous]60

As a working scientist now, the hard part is often figuring out which flashes to pursue... the intuitive leaps have started coming hard and fast and I simply cannot follow up on all of them.

My main work involves doing actual evolution experiments in which I keep microbes growing for months on end and see how they change under selective pressures I apply. This requires being very very careful about what experiments I pursue since they take so long. I only have so much time and it is not my lab.

I do like some other circumstances that come up faster sometim

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[-]Ben PaceModerator Comment40

In this post the author gives someone's real name and claim that they're the author of the quoted paragraph. We got an intercom message from a user claiming to be that person, asking to remove the post given that (a) the post provides no evidence of the association, (b) they say this association is harmful to them, and (c) it now shows up as the fifth result on google when searching for their name.

Doxxing attempts, whether true or false, are pretty bad, and I do think that LW's SEO is giving this claim more Google prominence even though the post provides no evidence for the claim. I think in this case I will edit any mentions of the person's name here to be the rot-13'd version of the name. You can access the name via entering it into the website rot13.com, but it will not be highly searchable on Google.

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[-]Richard_Kennaway20

So was Unknown128's post just an attempt to smear that person's name by association with the Nazi screed he quoted from?

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[-]Pattern40

Styling: try breaking things up into more paragraphs.


[1] But no one ever made a discovery through syllogisms

So by "reason" you mean "logic".


[2] all mathematicsat bottom is about geometric relations even when it doesn’t seem so.

Counterexample: Logic.

Probability - if you squint, sure.


[3] the Euclidian proof of the Pythagorean theorem, based on syllogism,

A link to the proof in question would be nice. Here? Sure, that's ugly. But if that's how it was discovered, then that disproves [1]. Though coming up with your own proof might work better than trying to understand that one, sure.

the imagistic proof of the three squares

Is this still the Pythagorean theorem (here?), or a different result?


[4] Thus all mathematics and all science in general—mathematics is only the prototype and most precise of the sciences—is about the definitions, not about the proof, not about the process or —absurd!—the “algorithm.”

From Hammers and Nails:

A Hammer is someone who picks one strategy and uses it to solve as many problems as possible.
A Nail is someone who picks one problem and tries all the strategies until it gets solved.
...
I am reminded of a classic speech of the mathematician Gian-Carlo Rota. His fifth point is to be a Hammer
...
The greatest mathematicians of all time created vast swathes of their work by applying a single precious technique to every problem they could find.
...
It's amusing to note that in the same speech, Rota expounded the benefits of being a Nail just two points later
...
To be a Nail is to study a single problem from every angle.
...
to be a Hammer is to study a single technique from every angle.


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[-]Puredoxyk40

You may find the biography of Bertrand Russell and his life's work very interesting, I think. He set out to prove that mathematics is in fact the basis of all things, and that all things could be discovered and understood through pure logic if only our logic system was good enough. And yet, he failed, and his master work wound up proving the opposite: that in fact something else, something un-logical in its nature, has to underlie mathematics and logic. It sort of drove him crazy, and makes for a fun story as well as perhaps a good warning for those who would cut out what you're calling Intuition from the process of discovery.

If you have lots of extra time and want to go further, looking into kungfu may also be fruitful: it's framed very differently, but as a path of knowledge, kungfu insists that would-be discoverers of its secrets must both practice and experiment rigorously, and make themselves into good instruments of intuition and the reception of flashes of insight. As a style of self-education, it's unique and has a lot to offer about using those two elements - intuition and reason - together, imo.

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[-]Unknown12810

If we speak only about logic. How useful is logic in modern science? Not just in explaining findings to other people but also in the actual discovery?

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