i love richard feynman.
i have a limited intelligence - so i kept pretty focused
we used to translate everything we read..
his father translated everything in all different languages... when you finished, you know nothing about the bird, but only what different cultures call them
he (his dad) knew the difference between
knowing the name of something
and knowing something.. he always left conversations open for noticing,... no pressure, just lovely interesting discussion
algebra - a series of steps where you could get the answer if you didn't understand what you were trying to do.
trig for the practical man.. soon forgot it again, because i didn't understand it very well.
disrespect for things that are respectable..
his father was in the uniform business.. so he knew the difference between a man with the uniform off and the uniform on.. it's the same man..
no photon bag in an atom
he sent me to all the unis to find out things and i never did find out.. could never explain things to my dad
what i did immorally is not to remember the reason i said that i was doing it.. so that when the reason changed, not the single thought came to mind that that meant i had to reconsider why i was doing it... i simply didn't think
he wanted to play more than look at use.. when in this relaxed function... working things out poured freely - after that is when he won the noble prize
i don't like honors... i notice others use my work... i don't need anything else...
i've already got the prize:
1) the pleasure of finding things out
2) the kick in the discovery
3) the observation others use it
honors is uniforms... it bothers me
when i got into the aritstar - what i found out is what they did in their meetings was sit around and decide who else gets to become one of them, who is illustrious enough
purpose was mostly to decide who could have this honor.. he doesn't like honors
to figure life out.. imagine - we are in a big chess game but we don't know the rules..
so you try to figure out what the rules are..
the thing that doesn't fit is the thing that is most interesting, the part that doesn't fit..
laws sometimes look positive.. they keep learning until something doesn't work - then we figure it out
unlike the chess game - were rules become more difficult as we go along
but not in physics - they become simpler..
if we expand out experience into wilder and wilder regions of experience, every once in a while we have these integrations in which everything is pulled together in a unification (fractal) which turns out to be simpler than it looked before.
if you are interested the ultimate character of the physical/real/complete world.. at the present time - our only way to understand that is through mathematical reasoning.. (and we're missing it - let's go wolfram's computer based)
if we're talking about physics... then not knowing mathematics is a severe limitation
need to get a qualitative idea of how the problem works before i can get a quantitative one
that rough understanding can be defined... later
in science - we're stuck in seeing what the consequences are.. have a theory that you can't work out the consequences of
i've invented a myth for myself - i'm actively irresponsible - i take the view - let george do it...
i'm selfish - i want to do my physics...
the best way to teach is to have no philosophy.. to be chaotic and confusing... use every possible way of doing it..
how do you direct them to become interested..
1) by force - works for some
but after many years - feynman says - i don't know how to do it.. (hook everyone at the same time or even just one)
they follow the forms,,... but they haven't got anywhere - yet.
we get experts on everything that sound scientific.. they're not scientific.. they sit at the typewriter and make up stuff as if it's science.. but hasn't been tested yet.
there's all kinds of myths and psuedo sciences all over.
i may be quite wrong.. but i don't think i'm wrong
see i have the advantage of having found out how hard it is to get to really know something... how careful you have to be about checking yours experiments, how easy it is to make mistakes and fool yourself.
i know what it means to know something..
i see how they get their info
i have a great suspicion that they don't know.. they haven't done the checks,... the care..
and they intimidate people by it..
i think so.. i don't know the world very well.. but that's what i think
people say.. are you looking for the ultimate law of physics and i say - no i'm not, i'm just looking to find out more about the world..if it turns out there's something that explains everything, so be it
nature is going to come out the way she is
therefore - when we go to investigate it - we shouldn't pre-decide what it is we're trying to do except try to find out more about it
if you say, why do you find out more about it.. if it's to find some answer to answer some deep philosophical question.. you may be wrong.. you may never be able to find out
....those are mysteries i want to investigate without knowing the answer to them..
how do you find out if something is true..
once you start doubting like you're supposed to start
as soon as you do that you start sliding down an edge that is difficult
it's a very fundamental part of my soul to ask
i can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing..
much more interesting to live in doubt than answers that are wrong
i don't have to know an answer
i don't feel frightened by not knowing things___________________________