As my writing has become more popular, I have found it more difficult to learn about new topics.
When I was a nobody graduate student, I would sometimes get really into an academic literature or try to master a statistical method. Now, the opportunity costs of doing this are much higher. If I bury my head in dozens of papers to learn about a completely new subject, it may be a while before I have anything to say. So the Substack goes a little slower, and this is bad, since I want the newsletter to have more readers and enjoy giving the world ideas that are read by a decently large and highly elite audience.
Let’s say my understanding of political science is 7, my understanding of economics is 4, and my understanding of climatology is 1. I can produce many new political takes by just reading the news and paying attention to current events. I can make a good case that I’m just as worth reading on American politics as anyone else in the world. With a bit more effort, I might have something that is interesting and worth saying on economics. But it might take months or years to have an opinion on climatology or nuclear physics.
Hence, when I approached the issue of climate change, I focused on what the cost-benefit analyses of various scenarios are, not the underlying science that they were based on.
I’ve always wanted to get the basics of quantum mechanics. From the limited insights that I have grasped from reading popular articles and books on the subject, it seems that the field has settled on basic truths that are in deep tension with our fundamental understanding of the universe. I’ve just been too distracted to devote the time necessary to learn what those are, and form opinions on them.
But I don’t like the idea of getting lazy, and so I’ve decided to finally take the leap. This requires a lot of math, and familiarizing myself with new concepts. This means my output in terms of the normal subjects I cover will go down for a little while. Maybe a few weeks, or a month, or longer, though I should have election takes after the votes are counted.
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I’ve looked for books on quantum physics that would provide enough math to get the basics while also exploring the philosophical implications, and have settled on Quantum Mechanics and Experience by David Z Albert, a philosophy professor at Columbia University. I’m also reading the third volume of Richard Feynman’s lectures on physics, though I’ll be deferring to Albert for the order in which I focus on concepts.