The following is based on the 13th and last part of Jacob Bronowski’s BBC series on the history of science and invention, “The Ascent of Man” (1973):
The human brain is three times larger than it was two million years ago. But almost all that growth took place in just three parts of the brain, those that control:
- The hand
- The tongue
- Foresight
Which allows us to build, to talk and to imagine our future far more than any other animal.
In addition, our minds are very plastic: most animals are wired to act just in certain ways, humans are not. We depend on knowledge, not reflex. That means a long childhood. And, even after we are grown, we must think and prepare before we act, we must balance short-term and long-term, our needs and those of others. That in turn leads to ideas of justice, of right and wrong.
Most civilizations, like those of China, India and even the Europe in the Middle Ages, as great as they were, limited the imagination of the young, of those with talent. The son did what the father did what the grandfather did and on and on. Only the talent of a few is ever used, the rest is wasted. The West does not do this.
One way is through a democracy of the intellect: its thought and knowledge is built by scientists and thinkers not by kings and priests. The lives of Erasmus and John von Neumann show this.
Erasmus was a monk in the 1500s. Against orders he read the Greek and Roman classics. It opened up the world to him. He became friends with Sir Thomas More, who, like him, cared more for truth than for power and authority – so much so that the king had More put to death.
John von Neumann, who came up with game theory in the 1950s and did important work in understanding computers, took the other road. Towards the end of his life he worked for companies and governments, drawn to the centres of power. Science for the sake of power and money, not for the sake of truth. He wasted his great talent.
Likewise the West is in danger of throwing away its great promise:
I am infinitely saddened to find myself suddenly surrounded in the west by a sense of terrible loss of nerve, a retreat from knowledge into – into what? Into Zen Buddhism; into falsely profound questions about, Are we not really just animals at bottom; into extra-sensory perception and mystery. They do not lie along the line of what we are now able to know if we devote ourselves to it: an understanding of man himself. We are nature’s unique experiment to make the rational intelligence prove itself sounder than the reflex. Knowledge is our destiny. Self-knowledge, at last bringing together the experience of the arts and the explanations of science, waits ahead of us.
See also:
Nice on Abagind! I heard of von Neumann via a math tutor. Apparently he was an amazing person, so much so tht when ppl met him an heard him speak. Noone was able to question his logic. I was also told he was a genius. Lovely post.
I disagree on the point tht we are nature’s experiment though…
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Most civilizations, like those of CHINA…were, limited the imagination of the young= I am infinitely saddened to find myself suddenly surrounded in the west by a sense of terrible loss of nerve, a retreat from knowledge into – into what? Into ZEN BUDDHISM
Yet another tautology ha ha ha
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The STEM subjects are going the way of the dodo, unfortunately. No one is interested in logic or truth anymore, or the joy of discovery. Everything is relative, and feelings reign supreme. It is quite depressing to contemplate.
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The accusation that von Neumann somehow wasted his talents seems strange. He was extremely prolific and made important contributions in a dozen different fields, doing academic work right until his untimely death in 1957 (interestingly, he converted to Catholicism on his deathbed). Who cares if he was “drawn to the centres of power” — he still achieved much more than a hundred ivory tower academics.
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Bronowski on von Neumann:
“He was the cleverest man I ever knew, without exception. And he was a genius, in the sense that a genius is a man who has two great ideas….
… he wasted the last years of his life. He never finished the great work that has been very difficult to carry on since his death. And he did not, really because he gave up asking himself how other people see things. He became more and more engaged in work for private firms, for industry, for government. They were enterprises which brought him to the centre of power, but which did not advance either his knowledge or his intimacy with people… “
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abagond, you wrote:
“John von Neumann, who came up with game theory in the 1950s and did important work in understanding computers, took the other road.”
In the 1930s von Neumann was one of the first group of geniuses to receive an invitation to become a faculty member at the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study. One of the other people getting the same offer was Albert Einstein. Both accepted and remained for the rest of their lives.
You wrote:
“Towards the end of his life he worked for companies and governments, drawn to the centres of power. Science for the sake of power and money, not for the sake of truth. He wasted his great talent.”
Pure nonsense. First von Neumann worked for the US government on the development of the first nuclear bomb. He was a member of the Manhattan Project, which was conducted in the 1940s, ending with the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.
Von Neumann later worked on the development of the hydrogen bomb. Believe what you want, but working as a scientist for the US government is NOT the path to wealth or power. He worked for a couple of corporations — IBM, for one — as a consultant. But obviously a computing genius is likely to provide IBM with some of his brainpower.
Except that he was given the chance — power — to do exactly what he wanted to do. But he commanded NO armies, conquered NO lands, ran NO empire, NOR did he acquire great wealth — and he died of cancer at 54.
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abagond,
Where is the black von Neumann? The world is still waiting for the arrival of a black mathematical genius.
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ha ha some would say he has already passe, thousands of years ago (as teh Black Natinalists lie to say when the White man wer ein caves, eating their own flesh and blood) and that is Imhotep who many regard as one of the first multi-genuist
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Where is the black von Neumann?
Well, where is the white James D. Watson, No_slappz? 😀
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