Comments by "Plato\x27s Cave alum" (@platoscavealum902) on "Noam Chomsky: Neuralink and the Expansion of Cognitive Capacity" video.

📺 https://youtu.be/GNG6ZzDh9C8 ▶️ @ 6 minutes and 25 seconds mark of the above video. In that portion of the above linked video, Garrett Reisman briefly talks about Elon Musk’s engineering prowess. (Garrett Reisman is a former NASA astronaut. He is currently a professor of astronautical engineering at USC.) christoforos meziriadis , thank you for your valuable time. I hope you will find this information at least somewhat persuasive.
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christoforos meziriadis ... 🚀 Elon Musk didn’t start out as a rocket expert either... Nonetheless, few would say that he is not a rocket expert at the present moment. (Everyone has to start as a non-expert before they they can become an expert.) I suspect that your thought process may be clouded by motivated reasoning. As such, you are mounting an ad hominem attack against Musk rather than challenging his ideas directly. Here’s more about that: Ad hominem is a term that refers to several types of arguments, most of which are fallacious. Typically this term refers to a rhetorical strategy where the speaker attacks the character, motive, or some other attribute of the person making an argument rather than attacking the substance of the argument itself. This avoids genuine debate by creating a diversion to some irrelevant but often highly charged issue.The most common form of this fallacy is "A makes a claim x, B asserts that A holds a property that is unwelcome, and hence B concludes that argument x is wrong". ⬆️ source: Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem + more on motivated reasoning: If we WANT to believe X, we ask: "Can-I Believe-It?" If we DON’T want to, we ask: "Must-I-Believe-It?" — Jonathan Haidt Motivated reasoning is a phenomenon studied in cognitive science and social psychology that uses emotionally-biased reasoning to produce justifications or make decisions that are most desired rather than those that accurately reflect the evidence, while still reducing cognitive dissonance. In other words, motivated reasoning is the "tendency to find arguments in favor of conclusions we want to believe to be stronger than arguments for conclusions we do not want to believe". It can lead to forming and clinging to false beliefs despite substantial evidence to the contrary. The desired outcome acts as a filter that affects evaluation of scientific evidence and of other people. ⬆️ source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivated_reasoning
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christoforos meziriadis , Elon Musk is able to attract and hire some of the best engineers in the world. He does not care about their degrees. He only cares about their exceptional abilities as an engineer: 📺 https://youtu.be/tbOsJZI5h-w (12 minute video) It seems that you’re unable to acknowledge the possibility that some exceptional people are able to learn outside the walls of a university.
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christoforos meziriadis , inventions are typically improvements on some early effort that was on the right track, but stopped short of being useful of achieving the inventor's goal, or of working well enough that it was commercially practical. It is not always easy to assign a single person as an inventor. Often it is a team effort. That is how successful businesses operate.
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christoforos meziriadis , Elon Musk coded his own video game at 12 and got $500 for it. What were you doing at 12? 🔻 In the early days of computer coding, a 12-year-old Musk built a “Blastar,” a science-fiction-inspired space game. Similar to the classic “Space Invaders” arcade game, the objective in “Blastar” was to destroy an alien spacecraft carrying deadly bombs. Although he’s since called it a trivial game, “Blastar” earned Musk an easy $500 after a South African trade publication published its source code. 🔺 source: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/20/teslas--elon-musk-9-surprising-facts-about-his-youth.html
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christoforos meziriadis ... 🔻🔻 Elon Musk invented Zip2, arguably the first ever electronic city guide. This was his first software company and he wrote the software himself. When building this software, he developed a few new technologies for radius searches and directory management. Ultimately, this company was sold to Compaq. Following that, Elon Musk co-founded http://X.com, which was, so far as I can tell, the first E-Bank. While the company was co-founded, he was the architect and principle developer for the software. Another idea that he invented, and patented, was a method for making phone calls over the internet (filed back in 1997). Insomuch as rocket technology or electric car technology is concerned, it becomes more difficult to determine exactly what he specifically invented vs what was designed as a team overall. In some cases, Elon might have had the idea and the engineers that work for him fleshed it out. In other cases, the engineers came up with an idea and Elon took it upon himself to work it out. In the end, really, the end product is much more important than who gets the credit. 🔺🔺 source: https://www.quora.com/Has-Elon-Musk-invented-anything-himself-personally Here’s the link to the aforementioned patent from Elon Musk: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6185194.PN.&OS=PN%2F6185194&RS=PN%2F6185194
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christoforos meziriadis , according to your personal "logic", software can’t be invented because it is not physical, tangible, machine, or a device.
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christoforos meziriadis , for example did you acknowledge that you were wrong about your definition of an invention?
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christoforos meziriadis , if you want to state facts — start by providing some evidence for the following statement that you made: "Even Einstein needed help to learn advanced calculus, but Elon Musk somehow figured it all out by himself." I suspect that you are misinformed about Einstein needing help to learn advanced calculus. (It is possible that you simply assumed that Einstein may have struggled with calculus because you probably struggle with advanced math yourself. Such phenomena with individuals is called psychological projection.) If you didn’t make this up to bolster your argument that Elon musk is merely a 'businessman' or a 'CEO' — you should have no problem finding links (to credible sources) that will describe how Einstein needed help learning advanced calculus.
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👍 Daniela d
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⬆️📺 Daniela d , thank you for sharing the link to the brief 2 minute interview of a former employee that worked for Elon Musk. I appreciate it.
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christoforos meziriadis , Thomas Edison had even less formal education than Elon Musk. Yet, he is known as one of the greatest inventors. Similar to Musk, Edison was largely an autodidact — a self-taught success story: 🔻 In 1854, Edison’s family moved to Port Huron, Michigan, where he attended public school for a total of 12 weeks. A hyperactive child, prone to distraction, he was deemed "difficult" by his teacher. His mother quickly pulled him from school and taught him at home. At age 11, he showed a voracious appetite for knowledge, reading books on a wide range of subjects. In this wide-open curriculum Edison developed a process for self-education and learning independently that would serve him throughout his life. 🔺 source: https://www.biography.com/inventor/thomas-edison + “Had Edison been formally schooled, he might not have had the audacity to create such impossible things.” — source: https://fee.org/articles/the-education-of-thomas-edison/
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christoforos meziriadis , do you happen to be familiar with the Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), or Asperger’s? 📺 https://youtu.be/kDe4yPD8CW8 (10 minute video) ⬆️ The above linked video will help you gain awareness of how Elon is different from a neurotypical CEO.
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"Had [Thomas] Edison been formally schooled, he might not have had the audacity to create such impossible things." — source: https://fee.org/articles/the-education-of-thomas-edison/ christoforos meziriadis , above statement was made about Thomas Edison at his funeral. Edison proves that it possible to have exceptional results without formal education. Thomas Edison had less formal education than Elon Musk. Yet, he is known as one of the greatest inventors. Similar to Musk, Edison was an autodidact: 🔻 In 1854, Edison’s family moved to Port Huron, Michigan, where he attended public school for a total of 12 weeks. A hyperactive child, prone to distraction, he was deemed "difficult" by his teacher. His mother quickly pulled him from school and taught him at home. At age 11, he showed a voracious appetite for knowledge, reading books on a wide range of subjects. In this wide-open curriculum Edison developed a process for self-education and learning independently that would serve him throughout his life. 🔺 source: https://www.biography.com/inventor/thomas-edison
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christoforos meziriadis , here’s a definition of an invention: An invention is a unique or novel device, method, composition or process. source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invention
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christoforos meziriadis , I provide links to all the sources that I quoted. To answer your question, you should try to start your own investigation from there. I have given you a ton of resources to consider and you appear to ignore most of it. You are being hypocritical when you complain about me ignoring some aspect of your arguments or questions. You certainly don’t acknowledge any linked videos with testimonies from professionals that have worked with Elon personally.
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christoforos meziriadis , when one oversees a project at a company, one’s understanding of that project greatly increases the possibility of success. Musk has been incredibly successful at leading teams of engineers. Doesn’t that imply that Elon Musk has a pretty good understanding of engineering?
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christoforos meziriadis ... Furthermore, Elon Musk is able to attract the best engineers in the world — to work for him. You have to ask yourself, why is that the case? Could it be the case that engineers want to work for a guy that gets it?
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👍 Daniela d
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👍 Xensonar
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christoforos meziriadis if Einstein really had trouble with math — you would have no problem finding a link that corroborates your assertion. Given your troubles finding a credible source for your statement, I can only assume that you were misinformed, or that you made it up, in order to bolster your argument and give it legitimacy.
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christoforos meziriadis , I guess Sean Carroll is the only person that is aware of Einstein troubles with math? Is that why you are struggling to find a credible link that corroborates your information?
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christoforos meziriadis , here’s a link to a list of autodidact (self-taught) inventors and engineers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_autodidacts#Engineers_and_inventors ⬆️ This is definitive evidence that it can be done! Not everyone struggles to educate themselves as much as you do.
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christoforos meziriadis , you did not provide a "link" about Einstein struggling with math. You gave a quote (that can’t be verified) from an unknown documentary.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_autodidacts#Engineers_and_inventors ⬆️ christoforos meziriadis , in your uninformed assessment, you claimed that it is impossible to be a self-taught engineer. I gave you proof that it is very much possible with the list above. ...Since you don’t understand how logic works, I’ll explain: Even if Elon Musk’s name is NOT on the list — your original statement is false — because I provided evidence that it is very much possible to be a self taught engineer. You see, evidence is how science works. (Something you’re not very familiar with.) I don’t think that you’re merely intellectually dishonest — you may have a learning disability — as you appear to be struggling with excruciatingly simple logic. (No wonder you think math is impossibly hard to learn on your own, given your struggles with basic logic.)
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