It sounds really profound,
It’s by a person well-respected for his contributions to science
It seems to give usable advice for improving your rationality.
Only one problem: it’s bullshit. Standard counterexample: quantum mechanics. But even in Galileo’s time, or earlier, a rationalist shouldn’t have believed this. There’s a huge sampling bias. You don’t tend to discover things you can’t understand.
Not things that are only understood at a “shut up and calculate” level—for example, if you discover a reliable physical relation, but have no idea why it works.
“All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.” -Galileo Galilei (via BrainyQuote)
It’s got a few things going for it.
It sounds really profound, It’s by a person well-respected for his contributions to science It seems to give usable advice for improving your rationality.
Only one problem: it’s bullshit. Standard counterexample: quantum mechanics. But even in Galileo’s time, or earlier, a rationalist shouldn’t have believed this. There’s a huge sampling bias. You don’t tend to discover things you can’t understand.
Quantum mechanics is infinitely easier to understand than to discover.
Not things that are only understood at a “shut up and calculate” level—for example, if you discover a reliable physical relation, but have no idea why it works.