Wednesday Wisdom

WHO?

Albert Goldman (1927-1994) was an American author, biographer and academic known for his controversial and sensationalistic works. Throughout the 60s and 70s he was the rock critic for Life Magazine. He gained considerable attention for his biographies of iconic figures such as Elvis Presley, Lenny Bruce and John Lennon.

Goldman frequented Lindys Delicatessen in midtown Manhattan which was a crossroads for actors, comedians, politicians and mobsters. The restaurant which had two locations opened in 1921 and closed in 1969. The restaurant become famous for its inclusion in Tony Award winning play "Guys and Dolls" which also adapted to a movie in 1955 starring Marlon Brando, Jean Simmons and Frank Sinatra. Celebrities such as Ethel Merman, Jimmy Durante, and Damon Runyan were known to be regulars. Comedians such as the Marx brothers, Milton Berle and Woody Allen were all known to convalesce for sandwiches and their famous cheesecake. 

What he produced

In 1964 in an article in The New Republic, Albert Goldman proposed the idea that comedians amount of material is constant and the frequency of their output could predict how long their careers would last. In his article Goldman wrote “life expectancy of a television comedian is proportional to the total amount of his exposure on the medium.” He furthered this observation to all of entertainment most notably Broadway shows stating; the longer a show has been running, the longer it will continue to run in the future. 

2023 why do we care? From jokes and cheesecake to logic

Heuristics are a mental modes or mental hacks which allow for quick and logical decision making. It's a shortcut to problem solving that may not be perfect or optimal but sufficient to solve a particular problem. We can think of these as rules of thumbs, an educated guess or principles from another subject that can be applied to solve a problem. An excellent example of a heuristic is Pareto's Law known more commonly as the 80/20 rule. (For more on this law click to link Wednesday Wisdom (beehiiv.com)

Nassim Taleb is author, statistician, risk analyst and options trader. He is most notably for the book "Black Swan" which describes how people dismiss small statistical events that have huge outcomes. In his 2012 book "Antifragile: Things that gain from disorder", Taleb builds on the Lindy Law in noticing the longevity of ideas and technology which he calls The Lindy Effect. This book, along with "Black Swan", is part of a series he called "Incerto" which is Latin for uncertain.

The Lindy Effect is a heuristic that the future life expectancy of non-perishable entities is proportional to their age. The longer something has already lasted, the higher likelihood it will continue to endure. Nassim Nicolas Taleb connected the Lindy Effect to the Pareto distribution and power-laws. In other words, the longer something has existed, the greater its distribution and influence. Ideas, philosophy, books, music, art, and technology all follow this similar arc.

The term "epistemic" encompasses anything related to knowledge, belief, or understanding. It delves into the study of how we obtain knowledge, the justification for our beliefs, and how we assess the truth and reliability of our understanding. By employing the Lindy Effect, we can rationally conclude that if something can withstand the test of time, it possesses inherent value or merit.

And now you know...

Philosophy is the art of thinking, the building block of progress that shapes critical thinking across economics, ethics, religion, and science.

METAPHYSICS: Literally, the term metaphysics means ‘beyond the physical.’ Typically, this is the branch that most people think of when they picture philosophy. In metaphysics, the goal is to answer the what and how questions in life. Who are we, and what are time and space?

LOGIC: The study of reasoning. Much like metaphysics, understanding logic helps to understand and appreciate how we perceive the rest of our world. More than that, it provides a foundation for which to build and interpret arguments and analyses.

ETHICS: The study of morality, right and wrong, good and evil. Ethics tackles difficult conversations by adding weight to actions and decisions. Politics takes ethics to a larger scale, applying it to a group (or groups) of people. Political philosophers study political governments, laws, justice, authority, rights, liberty, ethics, and much more.

AESTHETICS: What is beautiful? Philosophers try to understand, qualify, and quantify what makes art what it is. Aesthetics also takes a deeper look at the artwork itself, trying to understand the meaning behind it, both art as a whole and art on an individual level. A question an aesthetics philosopher would seek to address is whether or not beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder.

EPISTEMOLOGY: This is the study and understanding of knowledge. The main question is how do we know? We can question the limitations of logic, how comprehension works, and the ability (or perception) to be certain.