Novum organum
"When The New Organon appeared in 1620, as part of a six-part programme of scientific inquiry entitled 'The Great Renewal of Learning', Francis Bacon was at the high point of his political career, and his ambitious work was groundbreaking in its attempt to give formal philosophical shape to a new and rapidly emerging experimentally based science. Bacon combines theoretical scientific epistemology with examples from applied science, examining phenomena as various as magnetism, gravity and the ebb and flow of the tides, and anticipating later experimental work by Robert Boyle and others. His work challenges the entire edifice of the philosophy and learning of his time, and has left its mark on all subsequent philosophical discussions of scientific method. This volume presents a new translation of the text into modern English by Michael Silverthorne, together with an introduction by Lisa Jardine that sets the work in the context of Bacon's scientific and philosophical activities."--Jacket.
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- Alan mentions all the books in the talks and shows the front page. Sorry, it takes to much time right now to order, edit and prioritise the list of books for you. I'll try to append that to this thread later this week. You can contact me on morphle at ziggo dot nl and we can have an interactive session where I can shower you with critical thinking resources from Alan Kay, Marvin Minksy and a few others.
Book references:
Human Blindspots and “Bad Brains”:
Francis Bacon, “Novum Organum Scientia”
Daniel Kanneman, “Thinking: Fast and Slow”
Robert Meyer, Howard Kunreuthner, “The Ostrich Paradox”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases
Alfred Korzybski, “Science and Sanity”
YouTube: “How To Catch A Baboon” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctol7JwpcuQ
Exemplary Practices and Perspectives:
Amory Lovins, “Reinventing Fire”
E.F. Schumaker, “Small Is Beautiful”
Christopher Alexander, “Notes on the Synthesis of Form”
from: http://www.vpri.org/pdf/Kay_How.pdf
http://www.squeakland.org/resources/books/readingList.jsp
https://mostrecommendedbooks.com/alan-kay-books
https://wiki.c2.com/?AlanKaysReadingList
https://mostrecommendedbooks.com/alan-kay-books
I know there must be lots more if you search online, there is even a HN post with a book list written by Alan himself.
I have gathered the books on these lists and all the video's of the talks in a 500 GB torrent. Maybe you can help organise it so we can publish it here?
Talks:
- "The Road to Serfdom" by Friedrich Hayek [1]
"Novum Organum" by Francis Bacon [2]
- Take a look at Francis Bacon's Novum Organum written in 1620, specifically the sections on the four idols of the human mind that sometimes prevent one from reaching truthful conclusions. To my mind, this is philosophy of science before any practices had really crystallized. Reading this in college, I remember being impressed that Bacon seemed so modern in his thinking 400 years ago. His awareness of and focus on the fact that cognition is influenced by cultural context is a huge step and I was unaware it had been made so long ago.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novum_Organum
Full text here: http://www.constitution.org/bacon/nov_org.htm
Just mathematically speaking, collectively we're at peak population levels, so the total collective intelligence (sum of all individual human intelligences) is likely at peak as well, even accounting for individual dumbing down?> I see no indication that current human intelligence is at anything close to a historical pinnacle. Human knowledge, yes, but intelligence? No. Collectively, we're dumb and trending dumberAlso, I think we (non-scientists) might be overestimating the average historical intelligence - see Flynn Effect [1] - perhaps because of a bias in our perception of the past levels based on who published books and thoughts - basically more intelligent members of our species.
May I suggest these historical references [2][3][4][5][6][7] as a counterpoint to AI driving lazy thoughtlessness, which rather seems to be innate to humans as a group.> and the tendency towards lazy thoughtlessness which AI engenders----------------
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect
[2] Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, 1.20 — 5th c. BCE Greece. “So little pains do the vulgar take in the investigation of truth, accepting readily the first story that comes to hand.”
[3] Aristotle, Rhetoric, 1.2 — 4th c. BCE Greece. https://kairos.technorhetoric.net/stasis/2017/honeycutt/aris.... Aristotle treats public persuasion as necessary partly because ordinary audiences cannot easily follow complex chains of reasoning. He says rhetoric addresses deliberative matters before people “who cannot take in at a glance a complicated argument, or follow a long chain of reasoning.”
[4] Plato, Republic, Book V — 4th c. BCE Greece. https://topostext.org/work/768. Plato distinguishes philosophers from the many “lovers of sights and sounds,” who enjoy appearances but do not apprehend deeper truth. The text says their thought is “incapable” of grasping the underlying form or nature of beauty, and that few attain that deeper vision.
[5] Confucius, Analects, Book 2 — 5th c. BCE China. https://www.chinastory.cn/ywdbk/english/v1/detail/20190722/1.... "Learning without thought is pointless, Thought without learning is dangerous".
[6] Buddhist tradition, Dhammapada, Appamāda-vagga. https://suttacentral.net/dhp21-32/en/sujato. Dhammapada contrasts heedfulness with heedlessness, treating heedlessness as a central human failing. In one translation: “Heedfulness is the state free of death; heedlessness is the state of death. The heedful do not die, while the heedless are like the dead.”
[7] Francis Bacon, Novum Organum, “Idols of the Mind” — 1620. https://history.hanover.edu/texts/bacon/novorg.html. Bacon argues that the “Idols of the Tribe” are rooted in human nature itself, and that human understanding distorts reality like a false mirror.
- Google says:
"While elements of the scientific method existed in ancient times, the modern scientific method is generally attributed to Sir Francis Bacon who outlined it in his 1620 treatise "Novum Organum," placing the invention of the scientific method during the early 17th century during the Scientific Revolution;"
which sounds about right.
It was much more prevalent in free market countries. Authoritarian economies tend to be too rigid to experiment and develop new things.
- > "While elements of the scientific method existed in ancient times, the modern scientific method is generally attributed to Sir Francis Bacon who outlined it in his 1620 treatise "Novum Organum,"
Which specific aspect of that work was responsible for humans being better able to solve complex problems after its development which could not have been solved before it, if the same access to materials and resources were available?
> Authoritarian economies tend to be too rigid to experiment and develop new things.
The German regime during the years between 1930 and 1945 is generally understood to have been highly authoritarian and was responsible for some very famous technological breakthroughs in fields such as rocketry and aviation.
