Frankly, I don’t trust academic philosophy. The density of good ideas is too low.
Even if you believe the average quality in academic philosophy is lower than in LessWrong philosophy, that doesn’t mean that the best philosophy of mathematics papers, which build on each other, aren’t ahead of this post, which doesn’t build on much.
If you think otherwise, then why don’t you write about what we’re missing?
As I said already, because this would require a substantial time investment.
...was Wigner familiar with the literature, when wrote “The Surprising Effectiveness of Mathematics”?
No, but it would have been a lot better if he was. I’m not even sure how novel his idea was relative to the prior literature.
Sure, Wigner was an unusual genius, but I feel like a competent mathematician with a habit of writing philosophical blog posts could’ve also come up with it.
I don’t think that this is true, because we don’t usually see novel philosophical insights from people who are unfamiliar with the prior literature. People who just wing it are unlikely to compete with people who stand on the shoulders of giants.
Even if you believe the average quality in academic philosophy is lower than in LessWrong philosophy, that doesn’t mean that the best philosophy of mathematics papers, which build on each other, aren’t ahead of this post, which doesn’t build on much.
As I said already, because this would require a substantial time investment.
No, but it would have been a lot better if he was. I’m not even sure how novel his idea was relative to the prior literature.
I don’t think that this is true, because we don’t usually see novel philosophical insights from people who are unfamiliar with the prior literature. People who just wing it are unlikely to compete with people who stand on the shoulders of giants.