Astral Codex Ten

Vulcan

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Vulcan

Article

Vulcan is a recurring concept in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 2 times across 2 issues between July 28, 2022 and July 14, 2023. The archive places it in contexts such as “another planet closer to the sun than Mercury, which they named Vulcan”; “this was secretly a program for turning the whole world into geeks , those most Vulcan-like of humans”. It most often appears alongside Einstein, Muhammad, Scott.

Metadata

  • Category: Concepts
  • Mention count: 2
  • Issue count: 2
  • First seen: July 28, 2022
  • Last seen: July 14, 2023

Appears In

Source Context

Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.

Highlights From The Comments On Criticism Of Criticism Of Criticism
July 28, 2022 · Original source
The perihelion drift of Mercury was a neat problem that relativity solved, but it was not a major motivating factor for Einstein. It had an explanation within the existing paradigm: when there's a surprising perihelion drift, there's probably another planet out there. That's how we predicted Neptune's existence. Astronomers thought there was another planet closer to the sun than Mercury, which they named Vulcan.
Your Book Review: The Educated Mind
July 14, 2023 · Original source
Reviewer: Because it’s about embracing our evolved human nature — through the Somatic — and connecting to a wide span of cultural innovations that our genetic programming let us cultivate. With that as the frame, I think Egan might have said that the problem is we haven’t built schools for humans — we’ve built schools for Vulcans.
Alice: That’s interesting — I think I was imagining that, in some ways, this was secretly a program for turning the whole world into geeks, those most Vulcan-like of humans.