"You went to grad school and studied modern philosophy? Imagine my surprise. Probably why you had trouble parsing a simple statement like "the best truths are simple truths." I'm sure most people got the concept."

Obfuscating for the sake of argument again Tom?

As you well know, I studied Pure Logic, Computation theory, and Cognitive Science in Grad school. We've been through this a dozen times. And no, most truths are not simple, thats why expertise takes 8 to 15 years. An understanding of Philosophy is vital to really understanding foundations of mathematics and Logic. I 'mined' Heidegger and Anthropological data for some points on linguistics and cognition (together with modern linguistics). That paper was good enough to get me into my Grad Program, which also did linguistics (Logic and Linguistics often go together)

I promise you, the Halting problem or Cantors proof of hierarchy of infinities are as elegant and simple as it gets in Logic HOWEVER, understanding them can take bright and well educated folks a loooong time and looots of confusion. So can Maxwells equations. So can Relativity. While we are not debating anything near as profound, my central point is that the truth is NOT simple unless it is the 'truth' that you expect- that follows from what you already believe.

For example:

"But if you look at the most remarkable discoveries in things like Physics, many of them turned out to be the discovery that the universe was simpler than people thought. "

This is so profoundly not correct....

So lets use the Ptolemaic-to-copernican 'revolution' in looking at the world (Another case study would be the Newtonian 'revolution', or Einstein or later Quantum).

For the nearly any person 'back then', all the data pointed at the ptolemaic universe. Every morning the sun Whizzed over-head and it shifted in its path regularly as the seasons went by. Planets behaved in a nice clock-work fashion, moving in circles around the earth. The stars were even more perfect, never even stuttering in their reliable path.

Only in rather dense pointy-headed circles was it known that a few 'wierd' things happened, like that Murcury went retrograde from time to time, and that the planets were not REALLY moving as perfectly as they seemed.

Still, those pointy-headed folks added 'epicycles' to their model of the universe, and it turned out just fine- if a little complicated. The use of escapments and such for clocks gave them a perfect metaphor for their epicycles- it was all provable and mechanical and relaible and you could predict the seasons just fine.

Then some fellow by the name of Copernicus spent a good 12 YEARS (recall that number for expertise? If you look into it, you'll find its invariant over the decades. Look up a paper by Herbert A. Simon on the topic when you get a chance... Just look for 'Expertise' and Herbert Simon) staring at the Sky and writing down what he saw. He had also spent a lot of his life delving into Arabic and Greek astronomical writing, looking at ideas and proposals for the universe that were NOT Ptolemaic solutions.

His resulting work was indeed simpler than the Ptolemaic view (it was also less correct, as it would require Newtons elipses and a theory of gravity to account for the imperfect circles the planets took).

But the whole point is it was NOT intuitive or more simple to the rest of the world, even to those literate and intelligent folks. Notice everyone was steeped in the Ptolemaic model- it [Ptolemy] made common sense to not only the layman, but everyione else. It also predicted and explained events just as well as the Copernican model.

It took DECADES before the Copernican model 'won' in the end. Decades of hard arguing and further observations of the night sky. It wasn't until Galelio (and maybe even Newton with his Calculus, too) that the Copernican model was simply too well supported to deny by any sane person. BTW, add Calculus together with Gravity together with The copernican observations and what you get is NOT a simple model. Its better, for sure, and TRUE, but its not simple.

Its not that Copernicus was the only smart man surrounded by fools and bad-guys. The point is that what makes common sense is often what appeals to the way you think the world works. Thats why its common sense, afterall. So the best truths are NOT simple

"Look at the paper describing the structure of DNA. Jacob Bronowski points out that many of the greatest discoveries were made by just asking a simple question no one had thought of before."

Asking simple questions, or simple questions that can't be answered by a model is one thing, but claiming that truths and the path to truth is simple is denying the simple reality that discovering anything really new is a very difficult process for all but 1-or-2 a generation, and even in those cases it rquires complete life-long dedication.

"There's education, and then there's education. A considerable proportion of modern higher education in certain fields seems to be concerned with training academics to blow gas at other academics. "

You don't know what your talking about here. There are nasty people and politics (why I left), but aside from that Grad School is 8 years of 60-hr weeks for no or little pay. I would like to know what your intimate viewpoint on the issue is, as I doubt you have participated in higher academia in 3 decades.

"It does take a lot of study to learn a field, particularly in the sciences."

No, particularly in disciplines like Mathematics/Logic and Philosophy. 8 year minimum for PhD, plus another 1-or-2 for post-doc work. 10 years of intense study. Look up the paper by Simon (and probably Newell too)

"Look at how you are trying to blow smoke over a simple idea like "individual." I know what an individual is, as opposed to a group. So does everyone else here"

Then articulate it- write it down. I dare you.

"Everyone I have run into who tried to deconstruct concepts like "individual" or "individual rights" was pushing collectivism of one sort or another.
"

You are trying to sell a bill of goods, Tom- nowhere did I 'deconstruct' anything. Deconstructionism is an endeavor you won't ever catch me in.

As to your 'philosophy pages', ooooh my. Whoever wrote that probably has a degree in English or Rhetoric.

Tesla is often sited by the spoace-alien kooks, but Tesla himself was not a kook. Some with Einstein.

Now, as far as Heidegger and the 1930s, yeah- just about ever German intellectual either ended up tipping their hat to national socialism, or fleeing the county (while they could), or having them and their family sent to the gas chamber. I wonder what you would do, eh tom?

Your attempting to dismiss me, largely for theatrical effect and for your audience here at the zone. I thought better of you. Maybe your ears a stinging because you can't justify your politrics as anything but medievalist faith and anomalism?

Davin L.