Risk of Discovery (2017)

On a similar note, Nassim Taleb says:

"Something central, very central, is missing in historical accounts of scientific and technological discovery. The discourse and controversies focus on the role of luck as opposed to teleological programs (from telos, “aim”), that is, ones that rely on pre-set direction from formal science.

The luck versus knowledge story is as follows. Ironically, we have vastly more evidence for results linked to luck than to those coming from the teleological, outside physics—even after discounting for the sensationalism. In some opaque and nonlinear fields, like medicine or engineering, the teleological exceptions are in the minority, such as a small number of designer drugs. This makes us live in the contradiction that we largely got here to where we are thanks to undirected chance, but we build research programs going forward based on direction and narratives. And, what is worse, we are fully conscious of the inconsistency."

What's interesting, according to Taleb, is that science has been hiding this fact, that progress mainly comes from trial & error & risk-taking, as opposed to well-defined theories and narratives.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/rawnshah/2012/11/02/for-innovat...

The example of Newton and the relation between the seemingly disparate fields of physics, alchemy and theology is explored in detail in Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle.

There, Newton does not actually make that distinction (is always working on one and the same set of problems) and is also successful in all, though not recognized as such.

I have enjoyed many of PG's essays, but I am somewhat upset by this one. I'm not too keen on his throwing theology into the same pot as alchemy, labeling it an "obvious waste of time", and implying that only crazy people would have anything to do with it.

For one, theology is not a science and doesn't claim to be a science (at least not in the sense that physics is and alchemy claimed to be). Secondly, Newton's theology was actually a driving force behind the science he did - like many scholars of his time, he was deeply religious and did science with the explicit intent of exploring God's creation. And thirdly, discarding all theologians as "crazy" seems gratuitously anti-religious.

PG's point about the "risk of discovery" is valid, but his example is unfortunately chosen and worded.

This is why we need to make sure scientists who don't find anything interesting are still funded. They came out of a pool of scientists who started looking for something, and some of them worked on hypotheses that turned out to be correct.

Too often science is portrayed as a series of eureka moments. What gets missed is years spent in the lab trying yet another iteration.

Or how Steve Jobs put it:

"Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever."

Text: https://news.stanford.edu/2005/06/14/jobs-061505/

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc

If you are randomly placed above the median on a pareto or exponential distribution of rewards,and everyone below the 40th percentile selects out, you are going to be phenomenally successful just from survivor bias. Just survive long enough to be lucky.

William Blake said it well with, "if only the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise."

The usual motivational stuff of "if [PersonX] did it, to can you" so prevalent in the business world also relies on the very same thing - hiding the role luck plays in success. Sometimes this is accidental, and sometimes, as in the case of motivational "seminars", intentional. (Yeah, I have a bone to pick with that entire industry).

The slightly more formal name for this phenomenon is this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias, of which https://xkcd.com/1827/ is a decent illustration.

Pair it up with the law of large numbers, and, for fun, confirmation bias, and it takes a concerted effort to make sure that our minds aren't leading is astray when we try to evaluate risks, or even reason about what risks there are.

Hence Feyerabend's Against Method.

The reason I disliked Arnold Schwarzenegger's biography, Total Recall, was that it white-washed his path in life.

It's clear now that he's been a successful businessman, with great achievements in bodybuilding and physical culture that will have him remembered for a long time after he's dead, as well as a number of what a regular Joe would consider big breaks: his acting career, and his political career. People might not know he's a sharp businessman, but he's made his millions before acting somehow. The book, however, portrays him as a juggernaut of success. "I did that, then I did that, and that, and that..."

After reading Vladimir Pozner's Parting with Illusions – an insightful autobiography of vivid images of his time – this just didn't seem right. Pozner had a lot of success in the field of journalism, he's been on TV, he owns a number of businesses – but in the book, he also speaks about his failures and his worries – something noticeably absent from Schwarzenegger's.

(Apparently, Schwarzenegger writes about his affair in one of the chapters of the book. I never read past about the middle of it: couldn't stomach it.)

(EDITed to add: I recognize that both men are writing autobiographies – the "auto" part I find difficult to believe in Schwarzenegger's case – which means they're going to be somewhat biased to their own side of the story, especially with something that's happened a while ago and is no longer so full on detail. I realize, too, that Pozner's book was biased in such way, regardless of how much effort he'd put into averting it.

I do posit, however, is that Pozner's account is far less biased than Schwarzenegger's, in no small part because of the heart-felt, genuine nature of the former's stories.)

There was this blog post by Dan Abramov, of overreacted.io, called "Things I Don't Know as of 2018" [https://overreacted.io/things-i-dont-know-as-of-2018/]. It lists Dan's known unknowns, and encourages others to do the same publicly, in an effort to shed the idea that a developer must know everything in their field to be considered capable.

I think this is what we need more of: to know that people arounds us, amateurs and experts alike, are fallible, before the pedestal is violently broken down the line. It doesn't necessarily mean that their expertise is, as well, but as human beings, we're all failing in some areas where others wouldn't be able to guess. Scientists, artists, businessmen, craftsmen of other calibers...

From personal experience, it's one of the big things that keep artists anxious about their craft: that they aren't good enough because they're not as good as their aspiration figure. They don't know that the person they revere got to where they are partly because they struggled until they got their big break.

We may not have control over external circumstances, but we do have control over what we choose to do with our own self. Practice is what brings skill about.