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← People and their mental models

Adam Frank's mental models

3 claims Adam Frank made fit 3 mental models. Most often: Exponential growth, Margin of safety, The map is not the territory. Everything they said here.

Models we see in what they say

Our reading: their claim applies the idea without naming it. The claim is theirs; filing it here is ours.

Exponential growth

Growth that doubles looks like nothing for a long time and then like everything; intuition is linear and gets it wrong.

Used by 12 others

Expecting technology to keep accelerating is a bias of our particular moment; for most of human history the tools did not change at all.

  1. Adam Frank Professor of astrophysics at the University of Rochester So, we could be fooled into thinking like, "Oh, technology's going to go on forever, we're always going to find new advances." As opposed to sometimes things just flatten out for a long time. So, you have to be careful about that bias that we have living in this time of great acceleration. Adam Frank: Alien Civilizations and the Search for Extraterrestrial Life | Lex Fridman Podcast #455youtube.com · 22 Dec 2024 · 1:48:38 into the videoAll korrents from this video
    Their wordsSo, we could be fooled into thinking like, "Oh, technology's going to go on forever, we're always going to find new advances." As opposed to sometimes things just flatten out for a long time. So, you have to be careful about that bias that we have living in this time of great acceleration.

    Where this was said

    Watch from 1:48:38 plays here

    ↗Adam Frank: Alien Civilizations and the Search for Extraterrestrial Life | Lex Fridman Podcast #455youtube.com

    22 Dec 2024 · video · 3h 26m · spoken · official transcript

Margin of safety

Leave room for being wrong, because sometimes you will be.

Used by 25 others

We should not be broadcasting powerful, easily detectable messages into interstellar space, because we have no idea who would receive them.

  1. Adam Frank Professor of astrophysics at the University of Rochester I don't think it's necessarily a bad idea to have your head below the grass. The people who advocate like, "Oh yeah, we should be sending powerful messages that are easily detectable into interstellar space." I'm like, "Why would you?" Because we just don't know, I'm not going to say they are warlike. I'm not going to say they're not warlike, I have no idea. Adam Frank: Alien Civilizations and the Search for Extraterrestrial Life | Lex Fridman Podcast #455youtube.com · 22 Dec 2024 · 2:06:02 into the videoAll korrents from this video
    Their wordsI don't think it's necessarily a bad idea to have your head below the grass. The people who advocate like, "Oh yeah, we should be sending powerful messages that are easily detectable into interstellar space." I'm like, "Why would you?" Because we just don't know, I'm not going to say they are warlike. I'm not going to say they're not warlike, I have no idea.

    Where this was said

    Watch from 2:06:02 plays here

    ↗Adam Frank: Alien Civilizations and the Search for Extraterrestrial Life | Lex Fridman Podcast #455youtube.com

    22 Dec 2024 · video · 3h 26m · spoken · official transcript

The map is not the territory

Every model, word or plan is a simplified map of reality; useful when its structure matches, misleading when mistaken for the thing itself.

Used by 55 others

Science has come to treat its formal systems as more real than the experience they were abstracted from: 60 degrees as more real than hot and cold.

  1. Adam Frank Professor of astrophysics at the University of Rochester And then we end up at the bottom of that with this idea of everyday I wake up and I check my phone and I'm like, oh, it's going to be 60 degrees out. Great. And we start thinking that 60 degrees is more real than hot and cold. That thermodynamics, the whole formal structure of thermodynamics is more real than the basic experience of hot and cold that it came from. Adam Frank: Alien Civilizations and the Search for Extraterrestrial Life | Lex Fridman Podcast #455youtube.com · 22 Dec 2024 · 2:37:53 into the videoAll korrents from this video
    Their wordsAnd then we end up at the bottom of that with this idea of everyday I wake up and I check my phone and I'm like, oh, it's going to be 60 degrees out. Great. And we start thinking that 60 degrees is more real than hot and cold. That thermodynamics, the whole formal structure of thermodynamics is more real than the basic experience of hot and cold that it came from.

    Where this was said

    Watch from 2:37:53 plays here

    ↗Adam Frank: Alien Civilizations and the Search for Extraterrestrial Life | Lex Fridman Podcast #455youtube.com

    22 Dec 2024 · video · 3h 26m · spoken · official transcript