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Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
That was done here in this building.
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0016-large.html#00:54:11.980
Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
Isn't that weird?
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Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
And I'm, I'm truly speaking with a revolutionary and a radical, uh, no, no, no, no, no, no,
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0016-large.html#00:54:14.220
Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
no, no, no, no, no, no.
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Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
At an intellectual level, I am absolutely garden variety.
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Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
I'm just straight down the middle.
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Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
The system that we are in this, this university is functionally insane.
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0016-large.html#00:54:27.660
Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
Yeah.
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Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
Harvard is functionally insane and we don't understand that when we get these things wrong,
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0016-large.html#00:54:34.660
Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
the financial crisis made this very clear.
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0016-large.html#00:54:41.140
Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
There was a long period where every grownup, everybody with a tie, uh, who spoke in a,
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0016-large.html#00:54:43.660
Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
you know, in Barrett, baritone tones, uh, with, with the right degree at the end of
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Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
their name.
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0016-large.html#00:54:54.820
Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
Yeah.
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0016-large.html#00:54:55.820
Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
Uh, we're talking about how we banished volunteer volatility.
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0016-large.html#00:54:56.820
Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
We were in the great moderation.
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0016-large.html#00:54:59.420
Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
Okay.
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Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
They were all crazy.
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Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
And who was, who was right?
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Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
It was like Nassim Taleb, Nouriel Roubini.
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0016-large.html#00:55:05.100
Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
Now what happens is, is that they claimed the market went crazy, but the market didn't
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0016-large.html#00:55:08.460
Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
go crazy.
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0016-large.html#00:55:13.980
Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
The market had been crazy and what happened is, is that it suddenly went sane.
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0016-large.html#00:55:14.980
Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
Well, that's where we are with academics.
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0016-large.html#00:55:18.620
Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
Academics right now is mad as a hatter and it's, it's absolutely evident.
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0016-large.html#00:55:21.660
Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
I can show you graph after graph.
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Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
I can show you the internal discussions.
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Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
I can show you the conspiracies.
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Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
Barrett's dealing with one right now over, uh, it's admissions policies for people, uh,
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Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
of color, uh, who happened to come from Asia.
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Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
All of this madness is necessary to keep the game going.
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0016-large.html#00:55:38.300
Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
What we're talking about just on, well, we're on the topic of revolutionaries is we're talking
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0016-large.html#00:55:41.420
Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
about the danger of an outbreak of sanity.
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Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
Yeah.
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Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
You're, you're the guy pointing out the elephant in the room here and the elephant has no clothes.
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0016-large.html#00:55:51.060
Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
Is that how that goes?
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Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
I was going to talk a little bit to, uh, Joe Rogan about this, ran out of time, but I think
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0016-large.html#00:55:59.540
Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
you're, you have some, you, just listening to you, you could probably speak really eloquently
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0016-large.html#00:56:07.980
Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
to academia on the difference between the different fields.
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0016-large.html#00:56:13.420
Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
So you think there's a difference between science, engineering, and then the humanities
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Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
in academia in terms of tolerance that they're willing to tolerate?
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Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
So from my perspective, I thought computer science and maybe engineering is more tolerant
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0016-large.html#00:56:25.940
Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
to radical ideas, but that's perhaps innocent of me is that I always, you know, all the
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0016-large.html#00:56:33.020
Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
battles going on now are a little bit more on the humanity side and gender studies and
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0016-large.html#00:56:38.580
Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
so on.
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0016-large.html#00:56:42.380
Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
Have you seen the, uh, American mathematical society's publication of an essay called get
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Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
out the way?
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Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
I have not.
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0016-large.html#00:56:49.140
Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
What's, what's the idea is that white men who hold, uh, positions.
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0016-large.html#00:56:50.140
Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
Yeah.
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Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
Within universities and mathematics should vacate their positions so that young black
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0016-large.html#00:56:56.540
Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
women can take over something like this.
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0016-large.html#00:57:01.300
Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
That's in terms of diversity, which I also want to ask you about, but in terms of diversity
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0016-large.html#00:57:04.020
Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
of strictly ideas, do you think, cause you're basically saying physics as a community has
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0016-large.html#00:57:07.240
Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
become a little bit intolerant to some degree to new radical ideas, or at least you, uh,
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0016-large.html#00:57:14.980
Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
you said it's changed a little bit recently, which is that even string theory is now admitting,
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0016-large.html#00:57:21.460
Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
okay, we don't look very promising in the short term, right?
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0016-large.html#00:57:26.940
Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
So the question is what compiles if you want to take the computer science metaphor, what
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0016-large.html#00:57:32.960
Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
will get you into a journal?
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0016-large.html#00:57:39.860
Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
Will you spend your life trying to push some paper into a journal or will it be accepted
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Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
easily?
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Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
What about the characteristics of the submitter and what gets taken up and what does not?
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0016-large.html#00:57:48.060
Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
All of these fields are experiencing pressure because no field is performing so brilliantly
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0016-large.html#00:57:56.660
Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
well, um, that it's revolutionizing our way of speaking and thinking in the ways in which
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0016-large.html#00:58:01.780
Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
we've become accustomed.
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0016-large.html#00:58:11.320
Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
But don't you think even in theoretical physics, a lot of times, even with theories like string
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0016-large.html#00:58:12.900
Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
theory, you could speak to this, it does eventually lead to what are the ways that this theory
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0016-large.html#00:58:19.340
Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
would be testable.
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Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
Yeah, ultimately, although look, there's this thing about popper and the scientific method
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0016-large.html#00:58:25.660
Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
that's a cancer and a disease and the minds of very smart people.
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Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
That's not really how most of the stuff gets worked out.
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0016-large.html#00:58:36.400
Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
It's how it gets checked.
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0016-large.html#00:58:39.860
Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
All right, so, and there is a dialogue between theory and experiment, but everybody should
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0016-large.html#00:58:41.340
Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
read Paul directs 1963 American scientific American article where he, he, you know, it's
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0016-large.html#00:58:47.380
Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
very interesting.
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0016-large.html#00:58:56.980
Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
He talks about it as if it was about the Schrodinger equation and Schrodinger's failure to advance
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0016-large.html#00:58:57.980
Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
his own work because of his failure to account for some phenomenon.
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0016-large.html#00:59:03.160
Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
The key point is that if your theory is a slight bit off, it won't agree with experiment,
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0016-large.html#00:59:06.340
Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
but it doesn't mean that the theory is actually wrong.
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0016-large.html#00:59:10.400
Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
Um, but direct could as easily have been talking about his own equation in which he predicted
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0016-large.html#00:59:12.940
Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
that the electrons should have an antiparticle.
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0016-large.html#00:59:18.700
Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
And since the only positively charged particle that was known at the time was the proton,
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0016-large.html#00:59:22.460
Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
Heisenberg pointed out, well, shouldn't your antiparticle, the proton have the same mass
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0016-large.html#00:59:26.820
Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
as the electron and doesn't that invalidate your theory?
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0016-large.html#00:59:30.780
Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
So I think the direct was actually being quite potentially quite sneaky, um, and, uh, talking
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0016-large.html#00:59:33.660
Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
about the fact that he had been pushed off of his own theory to some extent by Heisenberg.
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0016-large.html#00:59:38.860
Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
Um, but look, we've fetishized the scientific method and popper and falsification, um, because
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0016-large.html#00:59:42.980
Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
it protects us from crazy ideas entering the field.
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0016-large.html#00:59:51.580
Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
So you know, it's a question of balancing type one and type two error.
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Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
And we're pretty, we were pretty maxed out in one direction.
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0016-large.html#00:59:58.420
Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
The opposite of that, let me say what comforts me sort of biology or engineering, uh, at
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0016-large.html#01:00:01.560
Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
the end of the day, does the thing work?
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0016-large.html#01:00:08.020
Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
Yeah.
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Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
You can test the crazies away and the crazy.
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0016-large.html#01:00:11.860
Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
Well see now you're saying, but some ideas are truly crazy and some are, are actually
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0016-large.html#01:00:15.580
Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
correct.
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Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
So, well there's pre correct currently crazy.
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0016-large.html#01:00:20.700
Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
Yeah.
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0016-large.html#01:00:24.140
Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
Right.
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0016-large.html#01:00:25.140
Eric Weinstein: Revolutionary Ideas in Science, Math, and Society | Lex Fridman Podcast #16
And so you don't want to get rid of everybody who's pre correct and currently crazy.
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