Comment by farleykr
6 days ago
I'm assuming you're exaggerating for effect at least a little but with that caveat I couldn't agree more. CS Lewis has a great argument for this in his introduction to Athanasius' On the Incarnation. Paraphrasing his argument: Time naturally filters out the nonsense and what we're left with are the books that are worth reading by virtue of the fact that they have stood the test of time. Truth or at least the closest we can get to it naturally bubbles up to the surface over time.
https://thecslewis-studygroup.org/the-c-s-lewis-study-group/...
Counterpoint: all the nonsense in millennia old religious texts that still wastes people's time to this day.
You must have spent a lot of time studying them to reach your conclusion.
Aye, but that nonsense benefits religious authorities and politicians, it has value to them, hence its staying power.
Taleb is a strong proponent of this as well. Related to the “Lindy Effect”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect
This is horrible advice if you want to work on anything innovative. You don't have time to wait for things to bubble up. For example, physics textbooks from the early 1900s rarely use linear algebra, even if they're written well.
Point taken. I wouldn't recommend avoiding anything modern across the board and neither does CS Lewis. And innovation is great but I would guard against assuming that innovation is always positive and a step in the right direction even if not directly. It's also true that many old texts, religious or otherwise, contain timeless wisdom that can inform innovative efforts. And I'm not talking about old by many centuries either. For example, I think many of the hacker types that frequent HN and seek to build something innovative would probably benefit from reading some of Alan Turing's writings. On the other end of the spectrum, maybe Sam Altman could benefit from studying the story of the tower of Babel.