This weekend (11 & 12 October), I attended the annual conference of the Association of Graduate Liberal Studies Programs (AGSLP). The theme of this year’s conference was the future of the humanities in the age of GenAI systems like ChatGPT. One of my favorite talks, however, wasn’t on GenAI at all, at least not directly. Bevin Carnes gave a fascinating lecture on Was Isaac Newton a Scientist? In brief, although Newton made many landmark contributions to astronomy, mathematics, and physics, over the entire course of his long life he spent more time studying numismatics, religion, and philosophy. For her part, Carnes drew three general conclusions from the interdisciplinary nature of Newton’s wide-ranging intellectual interests:
- Newton made some of the greatest discoveries in the history of science, but he derived meaning and purpose for his scientific work from his work in the humanities [me: what does it mean to “derive meaning” from something?]
- Newton saw all the areas of study he worked within as fundamentally integrated [me: and?]
- Newton crossed modern disciplinary boundaries to integrate sciences with humanities [me: did Newton really “integrate” the two cultures, or did he create an entirely new one?]
Alas, can we really draw any general lessons from the life and work of such a great mind as Sir Isaac Newton, a one-of-a-kind genius whose towering achievements have been surpassed by no one — with the possible of exception of Gottfried Leibniz or Albert Einstein? In any case, how are these three lessons relevant to us today, especially when knowledge has become so technical and hyperspecialized? Regardless how these questions are answered, Bevin Carnes gave me a lot to think about …
prior probability 