Freeman Dyson - Coming to Cambridge as a fellow - Wittgenstein (47/157)

To listen to more of Freeman Dyson’s stories, go to the playlist: • Freeman Dyson (Scientist)
Freeman Dyson (1923-2020), who was born in England, moved to Cornell University after graduating from Cambridge University with a BA in Mathematics. He subsequently became a professor and worked on nuclear reactors, solid state physics, ferromagnetism, astrophysics and biology. He published several books and, among other honours, was awarded the Heineman Prize and the Royal Society's Hughes Medal. [Listener: Sam Schweber; date recorded: 1998]
TRANSCRIPT: So I did the case n=4 which was a great triumph, and since then about 20 years went by, and then somebody in Russia solved the case n=5 - and the proof was so long I never really got through it, I'm sorry to say. And since then I think nothing has happened, I don't think anybody's gone beyond 5. So there it stays. It's not a problem that mathematicians are particularly excited about, but it got me the Fellowship at Trinity, which was my objective. So I went on from London to Cambridge in the fall of '46, and arrived then at Trinity College as a Fellow, which was a very happy situation. It meant I could do whatever I liked, and I got a reasonable stipend, I could live in Cambridge quite comfortably with a Fellowship.
[SS] And eat at High Table?
Even if I wanted to, I didn't eat much at High Table because it wasn't my kind of food. It was too elegant for me. I needed calories and at that time food was pretty scarce in England, it was still rationed, and I found I could do better with the food ration, cooking it myself, than they did at the High Table. So that's what I did, and next door to me there was Wittgenstein, who lived on the same staircase, and he always cooked for himself too, and so I used to cook my supper with the smell of fish from Wittgenstein's room next door.
[SS] And you got to get to know him?
A little bit. Of course, Wittgenstein was a man who loved to torture people and so he invited me into his rooms one day - this was the closest contact I ever had with him, in fact. I mean, we passed each other very often on the stairs without speaking, but once he suddenly invited me into his rooms and said, 'Would you like to come and have a cup of coffee?' So I was thrilled, I said, 'Yes, I'll certainly come.' So I came in there and there was one chair, and he invited me to sit down in it, and it was a canvas deck chair which meant I was practically lying horizontally on this canvas chair, and he was standing uncomfortably waiting for me to say something, and so I found it acutely embarrassing, but in any case, I'd come in and so I thought I might as well try, and so eventually I decided I would start a conversation. So I said to him, 'Well, you know, I read the Tractatus and I'd be interested to know whether you still believe the things you said in the Tractatus or have you changed you mind?' And so Wittgenstein looked at me in a very, very hostile fashion and he said, 'Tell me please, which newspaper do you represent?' That was the end of the conversation. So there was another long silence, and then I drank the coffee and left. So I didn't get much out of Wittgenstein. I had the impression he was simply a charlatan. He loved to torture people and he was of course always extremely insulting to women. He couldn't tolerate women coming to his lectures, and he would just simply be so rude that they had to leave. So a thoroughly disagreeable character, and apart from the Tractatus I never read any of his stuff, so I shouldn't judge him but - I think I consider him anyway overrated as a philosopher.

[@joyceharrison1682]

Wittgenstein’s response to Dyson was brilliant. Of all the things to ask, and, yes, precisely the kind of superficial question that would come from a newspaper reporter.

[@NoahSpurrier]

This anecdote of Wittgenstein is a gem.

[@shiddy.]

the scene with Wittgenstein and the lawn chair is straight out of a David Lynch movie

[@TeamBonkersConkers]

or a Derek Jarman one perhaps

[@alvin8391]

Astounding! Whatever I had learned about Wittgenstein before the present video, I got from the writing of Bertrand Russell, who was his mentor; very sympathetic. Russell, according to my reading, subordinated himself to Wittgenstein as a mathematician or philosopher, maybe both. I have tried reading "Tractatus" without much success. Anyhow, I find Dyson's comments about his coffee with "Wittgi" amusing and welcome!

[@a.s.2426]

Russell almost entirely disagreed with Wittgenstein’s ultimate positions though he admitted that Wittgenstein was a “genius” (Russell’s word).

[@renthearchangel9479]

I came to discover this video from Agassi's note in his book on Wittgenstein and I can't believe it's a real video that's still available

[@jackquinnes]

Does the former tennis pro and grand slam winner Andre Agassi mention Wittgenstein in his quasi-autobiography or what the heck? And how have I missed that? lol. You must mean some never-heard Agassi of a academia...

[@irisbunky]

Wittgenstein seems fun.

[@toddtrimble2555]

As for Wittgenstein treating women poorly, this makes me curious about the interactions between him and Elizabeth Anscombe.

[@heavenscentx5342]

he didn't regard Anscombe as a "woman" (she dressed and acted very masculine) imo Wittgenstein regarded her as an honorary "man" in his circle.

[@toddtrimble2555]

@@heavenscentx5342 Okay, thanks; I hadn't really been aware of this before. Wikipedia mentions that he called her "old man" affectionately -- a kind of pet name. As an aside: the SEP mentions that she was married and had seven children, but also mentions exactly what you say, that Wittgenstein regarded her as an "honorary male" (both that article and WP cite the writing of Ray Monk here). My surmise is that she acted tough (and *was* tough) in surviving what was obviously a male-dominant field. This also fits well with various descriptions I've seen of the famous debate she had with C.S. Lewis; by some accounts, she mopped the floor with him.

[@heavenscentx5342]

Indeed, she most likely has! Thank you for sharing the anecdote with C.S. Lewis, I never about that either. I'm not too familiar with Anscombe's life (only in so far as her acquaintance with Wittgenstein is concerned; I'm currently in the process of reading Monk's biography of him.) But it would also be interesting to read up on her unique gender expression, which I assume was not very common at the time. @@toddtrimble2555

[@jackquinnes]

@@toddtrimble2555 The SEP?! WP!? Since when we Europeans started to communicate via "nifty" acronyms? I thought it was a very American thing we the civilised people of the old world detest... little did I know how serious this pandemic was.

[@toddtrimble2555]

@@jackquinnes With a straight face: SEP = Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy; WP = Wikipedia.

[@robertschlesinger1342]

Freeman Dyson, brilliant, as always.

[@PrimitiveBaroque]

I could only guess why Wittgenstein responded that way. Maybe he was testing what kind of language game Dyson was playing.

[@narek323]

Does anyone else notice a subtle german accent in Freeman Dyson's speech?

[@RalphDratman]

If one had only read the Tractatus, it would be perfectly reasonable to think of Wittgenstein as a charlatan and overrated. Only his Philosophical Investigations, The Blue and Brown Books, and a few parts of other texts from the same period have any worth. But that worth in my mind is enormous. As for his mistreatment of women, that was despicable. But he seems to have been a very troubled man.

[@a.s.2426]

Perfectly articulated.

[@neoepicurean3772]

The Tractatus is actually only now becoming relevant. Wittgenstein was basically trying to lay out a computational mathematical natural language, and his failure foreshadowed the failure of symbolic AI that went down the same blind alley. Wittgenstein knew what he was doing, and now many people working in AI have also, but his project has was lost on the majority of mathematicians and philosophers at the time.

[@timhorton2486]

@@neoepicurean3772 Any links you can share about how his book is relevant to new research in AI?

[@neoepicurean3772]

@@timhorton2486 Hmmm, Joscha Bach often talks about this briefly. But I am looking for some links to good discussion on this topic myself: perhaps it's not widely discussed. I'll have to contact Joscha Bach and make a podcast on it.

[@neoepicurean3772]

@@timhorton2486 Actually Joscha Bach is doing a podcast this Sunday. I have submitted a question/request that he discuss this topic.

[@Razzy1322]

Stupid of Dyson to call Wittgenstein "overrated as a philosopher" immediately after admitting that he has only read one of his works and seems intentionally to have avoided learning any more about his later thought or the immense contributions he made to philosophy. His personal feelings have obviously colored what he tries to pass off as a professional judgement.

[@a.s.2426]

I agree. Not sure it was “stupid” in the literal sense; seems to show a deficiency of character in Dyson, perhaps.

[@faithlesshound5621]

Obscurity and ambiguity will take you far as an intellectual. Look at Jacques Lacan. What people don't mention so much now is his function in those days as a guru, adored by a horde of serious young men in open shirts whom he advised to leave higher education to do manual work. F.R. Leavis had a similarly attired coterie for whom he was less damaging.

[@faithlesshound5621]

I should clarify that "guru" I was talking about was Wittgenstein.

[@a.s.2426]

@@faithlesshound5621 I generally agree with you. But I don't think that Wittgenstein -- unlike Lacan -- was an obscurantist. He was a brilliantly clear communicator (see the Investigations), but he simply did not excel when it came to putting down a comprehensive philosophy from start to finish in book form.

[@edwardjones2202]

Agree that Wittgenstein's more obscure remarks are endlessly interpreted with the indulgence of believers to a mystic. However, he was evidently capable of substantial input. He won the approval of Russell, who could see through bullshit. And I was surprised to learn recently that GH Hardy had him teach a Cambridge class in pure number theory!

[@LMR72]

Comparing Wittgenstein to Lacan is ridiculous and betrays a lack of philosophical understanding.

[@mvwil]

man I wanna be Witty's friend

[@a.s.2426]

And not Dyson’s?

[@YanusDV]

lol

[@rogeralsop3479]

Wittgenstein!

[@Cleisthenes2]

over-rated is right

[@NlHILIST]

The gods inject genius into some of the most unlikely subjects.

[@edwardjones2202]

Why is he an improbable Genius?

[@a.s.2426]

Dyson basically said, “I haven’t really read much of Wittgenstein’s work, so I shouldn’t judge him” and not a second later goes on to judge that Wittgenstein is, “overrated as a philosopher.”

[@henrybockmon9398]

If you ever get to a point where you elucidate some of the underlying fundamental principles of reality as Dyson did, then you too can get a pass on being judgmental towards a mean spirited misogynist like Wittgenstein.

[@a.s.2426]

@@henrybockmon9398 And perhaps a pass on being self-contradictory too.

[@pneron2032]

He read more than you.

[@a.s.2426]

@@pneron2032 No, my friend. I have half my PhD in Wittgenstein. Simply telling you it is a blatant contradiction.

[@pneron2032]

@@a.s.2426 Well, I am quite sure that Dyson understood more of what he read than you.

[@peterhall6656]

I always thought the Tractatus was a huge piss take.

[@virgil_io]

"I always thought the Tractatus was a huge piss take." -peterhall6656

[@peterhall6656]

@@virgil_io I nearly got knocked out by the ladder that Wittgenstein kicked out beneath me.

[@virgil_io]

"I nearly got knocked out by the ladder that Wittgenstein kicked out beneath me." -peterhall6656

[@ndmath]

3:17 LOL

[@TeamBonkersConkers]

I don't care what the constable from Deep Space 9 thinks, Wittgenstein is still the boss.

[@DontTestTheX]

Wittgenstein is a genius. This guy just seems ordinary.

[@YanusDV]

wut? Dyson is like...scientific royalty. I think the opposite, he's waaaay superior to Wittgenstein both intellectually and as a person

[@capitanmission]

do you judge Dyson for the way he looks? or for a simple anecdote that pictures wittgenstein like a dick? :D

[@wongawonga1000]

As a person, Dyson is most certainly ahead. Intellectually, it is difficult to say. The likes of Bertrand Russell, Keynes and Frank Ramsey held Wittgenstein in very high regard. Dyson had only one encounter with him and that consisted of a few words in which Wittgenstein was true to form (i.e. bloody difficult). Maybe Schopenhauer's quote can be applied here: "Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see." Perhaps the target hit by Wittgenstein is so far ahead that we still can't see it. On the other hand, Dyson may be right and Russel, Keynes and Ramsey simply had the wool pulled over their eyes though I find this hard to believe.

[@sirius3333]

@@wongawonga1000 interesting

[@RalphDratman]

@@wongawonga1000 I spent several months around age 17 reading Philosophical Investigations word by word, line by line. Many evenings I would feel I had done well if I had gotten through one more paragraph. The nature of the difficulty I had in reading Wittgenstein was nothing like the challenge of reading pages of mathematics or long scientific descriptions. The problem (for me, anyway) was reading a sentence and trying to understand what he was getting at. Based on that reading experience many years ago, which has influenced my whole way of thinking, I would like to assure you that Russell and the other luminaries at Cambridge were in no way deceived. (With respect to infatuation or hero worship by his younger followers, that might be the case. I do not know.) But naturally my opinion on that or anything else has no objective significance to anyone reading this. I am only adding one voice in a manner which might or might not be persuasive.

[@cymoonrbacpro9426]

He was a homosexual!

[@trav1106]

your an idiot...great mind is a great mind....whomever

[@ACrownofFlowers]

Reeeeeee!

[@shiddy.]

who was?

[@bigbody7458]

哈哈哈哈

[@BLUEGENE13]

wittgenstein was indeed a charlatan, because 99% of philosophy is charlatanism anyways.

[@RalphDratman]

If you were to read Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations and/or the Blue and Brown Books, you would realize that Wittgenstein came to believe that much of what is called philosophy is only a mass of confusion and misunderstanding.

[@deanroddey2881]

@Reed Morris I would say it's more to do with attempting to make logical and objective a subject that is inherently neither logic nor objective, or large parts of it anyway. I certainly see why people would want to try, and the challenge involved, and I don't doubt we could benefit if anyone ever really succeeded, but it seems unlikely to me. But, of course, I'm a practical slash rationalist type and view everything in terms of actual value to me, my civilization, my species, the earth, etc.. at the time. That's about as subjective as it gets, though I think it has a certain logic to it, not based on the inherent value of the phenomenon but in its actual produced value. That value may differ wildly for any given phenomenon based on context. But no actual civilization can operate on such a philosophy because it would require we all agree on the value of a given phenomenon, which we never will, and hence back to where I started. I'm a pretty firm believer that human nature will, almost by definition, never be rational in that sort of sense. And maybe we don't want it to be. Diversity in life view is maybe as important as biological diversity in the end, when it comes to survival of an intelligent species, despite the mess it makes in the short term (as does biological diversity and the competition it creates.)

[@deanroddey2881]

@Heisenberg-SchrodingerEmc2 Though science has its original basis in philosophy (scientists used to be called Natural Philosophers of course), at this point those two branches of the family tree have diverged so much that this claim (though true) has limited useful meaning.

[@BLUEGENE13]

@Heisenberg-SchrodingerEmc2 your just projecting bro, i didn't even say anything about science, just that philosophy is mostly BS which it is

[@BLUEGENE13]

@Heisenberg-SchrodingerEmc2 even Wittgenstein himself admits he didn't know if he was full of shit or not

[@crowellovecraft7289]

its funny , dyson attacked everyone else and presented himself as an angel . the last person i thought would do such thing :/

[@RuthvenMurgatroyd]

He didn't, what are you on about? The man in his anecdote sounds exactly like Wittgenstein and in other interviews he's constantly complementing others.