Donald Knuth's IFAQ
www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu
www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu
But at the end of the day, of course I'm glad he has this page. Like I said, these are my viewpoints --- for the most part --- too. But I'm uncomfortable with the way we've chosen to promote the page here.
However, spreading theism, being a role model, teaching it to children who may not grow up to be college professors but merely ordinary people, is an idea under some amount of debate.
One way of formulating it would be: "There is(are) no all-powerful supernatural entity(ies) which has(ve) influence over my daily life."
No one has given me sufficient evidence that would go against this and contradict the null hypothesis, so I continue to not believe in God(s).
That said,
I don't think that believing things that are not scientifically proven/provable disqualifies one from performing scientific research. I'm know I have plenty of opinions/beliefs/biases that I couldn't back up for the life of me. It is part of being human and having been raised in a given environment. But it is important to be aware of your own biases in any endeavor.
I think agnosticism would be the better choice for a null hypothesis.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein%27s_religious_v...
Regarding you last sentence, I don’t think religion is the most interesting subject to bring up when you have the chance to talk to Donald Knuth.
Cognitive dissonance.
I kid, I kid: but I see too many atheists happy to deride a viewpoint with that pop-psychology term as a means of writing it off. Qualifying a behavior as inherently rational or irrational runs the risk of functioning rather like a dogma.
You can't definitely prove there is no god, but you can certainly show how dumb the concept of organized religion is, especially the books they rely on.
Really? It seems to me that the concept of organized religion seems very useful even if there is no god. It actually might be most useful if there is no god.
I understand the need that people feel to be part of communities, that's perfectly normal. It doesn't mean you need to adhere to a book that was written by goat herders a few thousands of years ago.
Yeah, I think Prof. McCarthy has him beat in that category: http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/index.html
To qoute Emerson "Before we acquire great power we must acquire wisdom to use it well." Intellectuals have the wisdom, and the brave ones speak truth to power.
It's nice to see Knuth in good company.
In skating over thin ice our safety is in our speed.
Little minds have little worries, big minds have no time for worries.
Love of beauty is taste. The creation of beauty is art.
Men love to wonder, and that is the seed of science.
No great man ever complains of want of opportunity.
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.
Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.
Our best thoughts come from others.
Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail.
People only see what they are prepared to see.
Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect.
The ancestor of every action is a thought.
Americans, a self-governed people, have established a proven system of rights and freedoms in our Constitution, and that sovereignty should not be transferred to international bodies -- particularly when those bodies are controlled by groups that plan to use the courts against U.S. and Israeli soldiers.
Actually read it again. He says no such thing. He says those are questions and then explicitly says he has no good answers for any of the questions, except maybe one of them (not one that you mention). Saying that this is a question that we should have a real discussion over is neither calling nor fuming.
"War seems to me a mean, contemptible thing: I would rather be hacked in pieces than take part in such an abominable business. And yet so high, in spite of everything, is my opinion of the human race that I believe this bogey would have disappeared long ago, had the sound sense of the nations not been systematically corrupted by commercial and political interests acting through the schools and the Press."
When considered against thousands of years of human history, documenting wars large and small, and the events leading up to them, such a view of the innate goodness of fellow man that is pure and would never wage war but for the corrupting influence of the elite, comes off as incredibly naive.
When compared and contrasted with, for example, Machiavelli and his discourses on the first decade of Titus Livius, Einstein comes off like an episode of the Care Bears.
It's just the nature of the beast.
Mistake two: the idea of a country's honor is ludicrous.
I'm with him, otherwise, although I don't think the case is as clear-cut as I used to.
Surely you can see that honor and morality are closely tied concepts, such that a country's moral actions define its honor. In what respect can someone deny the validity of honor and still evaluate the quality of a country's actions?
In other words, did America 'do wrong' by Iraq?
The people calling the shots in a country might be a small enough group to make statements about their honor or morality meaningful -- but then statements like "my country" don't mean too much either.
I think the Powers That Were (and largely continue to Be) in the US have probably done wrong by many people living in Iraq, although I'm less sure about this than I used to be.
I'm not sure why this is even on HN, even given its author.
Well we did get the whole "apology tour" stuff on the tv and radio with Obama and by then he wasn't a "potential new leader", but perhaps the answer is yes? (at least it's not a no)
We're still here after all :)