tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post7782229014395751397..comments2024-03-28T00:17:55.823+00:00Comments on Bruce Charlton's Notions: Real Science - where do the new good ideas (true hypotheses) come from in the first place? Bruce Charltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-19409993972852334822022-01-07T12:36:40.447+00:002022-01-07T12:36:40.447+00:00@JB - Yes indeed. I discuss this matter in more de...@JB - Yes indeed. I discuss this matter in more detail in my Not Even Trying book linked above (and in the sidebar). I got an important clue from Charles Murray's Human Accomplishment, which stressed the need for very strong and long term personal motivation in order to make major breakthoughs and works of genius - and how this entails belief in transcendental values above-and-beyond the normal tendency for behaviour to be guided by short-term expediency.Bruce Charltonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-59501825803270670942022-01-07T11:27:43.334+00:002022-01-07T11:27:43.334+00:00Dr Charlton, you ought not to worry that it took y...Dr Charlton, you ought not to worry that it took you a long time to come to this conclusion, not with the bombardment of System Programming we all get through out our lives. It's an impressive piece of reasoning.<br /><br />I do a lot of studying in my spare time, usually related to computing science or mathematics. As such, I tend to read very old publications - for reasons all here will probably understand. And, upon doing so, have never really understood where the whole 'Science vs Religion' thing came from. Many older books from the period 1850-1950 in the fields aforementioned are littered with Biblical references. At the very least the authors had perused Scripture and seen some relevance to what they were writing about.<br /><br />At the most, many seemed serious Christians (well, as much as one can tell about a person from a book). A good example is the text 'Choice and Chance', published in 1886 by William A. Whitworth; who was also a priest. Another book with more than it's far share of biblical references is 'Structures' by J.E. Gordon. Apparently Sir Isaac himself spent more time of theological studies than he did the calculus or mechanics. <br /><br />In short, there has always - to me at least - seemed a connection between great minds and God. Even if those great minds weren't particularly religious, they seemed to have some respect for Him not found amongst todays batch of Professional System Scientists.JohnBnoreply@blogger.com