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A comment on What impossible meant to Richard Feynman.

Re:What impossible meant to Richard Feynman by GDC7 on Tuesday November 30, 2021 @10:57AM (#29393510)
To me the most amazing thing about Feynman was his enthusiasm for relatively mundane things such as the Rio Carnival, stripclubs, the bongos, painting and the fixation for going to Tuva which is a place forgotten by both god and men.

You'd think a guy who accomplished the things he accomplished would find it harder and harder to become enthusiastic about stuff, because of the effect of the hedonistic treadmill.

Somehow I think his biggest accomplishment was his ability to slow down the hedonistic tradmill.

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Re:What impossible meant to Richard Feynman by mbg721 on Tuesday November 30, 2021 @11:04AM (#29393598)
As I recall the stories, his playing of the bongos wasn't exactly mundane; if anything, he was an expert at establishing eccentricity as a personal identity.
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Re:What impossible meant to Richard Feynman by GDC7 on Tuesday November 30, 2021 @11:16AM (#29393746)
I mean, c'mon.....with all due respect for bongo players...reaching excellence in that field is also mundane as society doesn't exactly put bongo players on a pedestal
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Re:What impossible meant to Richard Feynman by mbg721 on Tuesday November 30, 2021 @11:19AM (#29393772)
I wasn't so much concerned with his technical skill as his method of going about it, which was about as eccentric as one can get.
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Re:What impossible meant to Richard Feynman by mijoharas on Wednesday December 01, 2021 @05:55AM (#29402595)
> as his method of going about it

What do you mean by this? did he have an unusual way of playing the bongos/learning the bongos or something? (or do you just mean because playing the bongos is something slightly unusual?)

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Re:What impossible meant to Richard Feynman by whatshisface on Tuesday November 30, 2021 @11:11AM (#29393684)
If I were to identify anything with the hedonistic treadmill it wouldn't be integrals.
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Re:What impossible meant to Richard Feynman by avmich on Tuesday November 30, 2021 @11:31AM (#29393910)
I think, Heinlein in "Have spacesuit - will travel" mentions something to the tune of "math is worse than peanuts". Integrals could be holding attention quite well - just check Youtube channels with explanations of everything, or MOOCs which have rather robust audience.
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Re:What impossible meant to Richard Feynman by whatshisface on Tuesday November 30, 2021 @11:40AM (#29394043)
It's not so much that there's no aspect of math that is pleasing, as it is that whatever it is, it's exempt from the hedonistic treadmill.
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Re:What impossible meant to Richard Feynman by GDC7 on Tuesday November 30, 2021 @11:42AM (#29394067)
It's not math. It's you solving, winning and conquering math problems, and beating other people to the solution.
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Re:What impossible meant to Richard Feynman by datameta on Tuesday November 30, 2021 @12:14PM (#29394549)
Precisely. The more one learns the more unsolved problems one discovers, each more brain-stimulating than the last!
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Re:What impossible meant to Richard Feynman by vvoaterr on Tuesday November 30, 2021 @05:02PM (#29398083)
you mean, hedonic treadmill
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Re:What impossible meant to Richard Feynman by whatshisface on Tuesday November 30, 2021 @05:32PM (#29398315)
If there's one thing I'd associate with the hedonic treadmill, it wouldn't be remembering the difference between hedonic and hedonistic.
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Re:What impossible meant to Richard Feynman by montblanc on Tuesday November 30, 2021 @12:08PM (#29394472)
stripclubs? Edit: OK yes there were a bunch of stripclubs lol
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Re:What impossible meant to Richard Feynman by vvoaterr on Tuesday November 30, 2021 @05:02PM (#29398077)
you mean, hedonic treadmill
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