To me, the only odd thing here is that people think Isaac Newton is/was odd because he was interested in religion, alchemy, etc. Being a scientific "genius," isn't mutually exclusive with being interested in other things that weren't scientific.
3,040 karma · joined September 24, 2016
However, I dislike this “act of faith” line of reasoning and find it disingenuous. In the Roman Catholic tradition, believing is an act of faith. There isn’t a “proof” so to speak for why one should believe in God, etc. That’s not to say there aren’t various reasons proposed by religious thinkers.
But to say that an atheist’s not believing in God is an act of faith in itself is strange to me. I think it’s sort of a mischaracterization of atheism. Not believing in God isn’t an act of faith. It’s declining to take that act of faith in the first place. Arguments about the influence science aren’t even necessary here.
As to my own beliefs, my position is to decline the leap of faith. I don’t believe in God, but neither do I rule out the possibility that there is a God, especially in a more pantheistic or possibilian sense (see David Eagleman).
I think it’s fair to say that science hasn’t explained everything about the universe yet. I think it’s presumptuous to argue otherwise.
Nonetheless, I don’t think it’s fair to say my lack of a leap is itself an act of faith.
...unless we want to go down the rabbit hole in which every thought or action is an act of faith...
Not completely similar but somewhat interesting, here's an interview where Feynman admits to not being "great" (for lack of a better word) at music.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqtuNXWT0mo
“Lot’s of people love music and I never could carry a tune.”
A related thread from two days ago for those who missed it:
https://www.youtube.com/user/DrPhysicsA/videos
"This YouTube channel contains a series of Physics videos which are intended to give a basic introduction to the subjects covered. They explain the essence of the subject in as simple as way as possible. They assume basic knowledge of algebra and calculus and some general physics."
Although I like https://brilliant.org/, I find some of the lessons to be a little too thin for me.
More generally, I've been using Quiver for about a year. Highly recommended. http://happenapps.com/
For reading, I’ve come to admire Amazon’s new fonts: Bookerly, Ember, and Interface.
But I also find myself going back to good ‘ol Times New Roman for writing and reading most things. Runner-up: Georgia.
Other interesting serif fonts include:
Adobe Caslon Pro (used by The New Yorker) ITC Galliard (used by Library of America)
Pretty substantial list here: https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~zadeh/papers/index.htm
I never got into Google Talk. Too many of the people in my contacts list were either work connections or college acquaintances. And I loathe Facebook so f#ck FB Chat.
As a young adult, I managed to get away with it; my family and friends would often called me "lazy" or a "late sleeper" but I always pointed out that, although I woke up at 11, I went to bed at 4, so it's not like I'm sleep for 12 hours at a time.
However, as an adult, it's challenging; I have to get up early for work or school, but I crave the late-night dives into my thoughts.
Also, it's not that I necessarily like being alone—I wouldn't call myself a solitary person—but I find that the night is also productive and fertile time because there are fewer distractions: once everyone's asleep I can work undisturbed; for me there's something calming about the night/early morning.
It ended up on HN because philosophy is what I studied in college/grad school, and I like the fact that HN seems to be a very intellectually omnivorous community -- sans the annoying dilettantism you find elsewhere.
However, I don't think refraining from the news will solve these issues.
I think you don't need to read the news every day.
I think each person needs to diversify its consumption. IMO you can rely on any single source anymore. I'm not saying you need 100 different sources. But I think you should be actively jumping around to see what other outlets are saying.
Finally, although people should have opinions about a wide range of subjects, I think people need to realize that - a lot of the time - they just shouldn't have an opinion on an issue because they're not qualified to really make an informed one. In sum, opinions are cheap; be more open-minded.