Comment by InfinityByTen
7 hours ago
When you mechanise, you take the "meaning" out of the effort and that, in of itself, is death of human pursuit of the venture.
The industrial revolution did that to battles and wars and it inspired Tolkein's lores to a considerable degree. He loathed what mechanisation had done.
I feel something similar is happening to Mathematics. I shudder to think what would come of other human pursuit this mechanisation targets next.
For many on HN, mechanising things is the reason of their existence ...
(and I don't even think that is exaggerated very much)
No, you're right. I clearly missed reading the room :D But I'm glad how Terence Tao sees it. I was relying him to do that for the NS results as well.
I didn't follow through to the PhD, but I spent few years building up to understanding of Fluid Dynamics and Functional Analysis to come close to NS. It's intriguing that it's "solved", but what interests me is then "what do we learn from it" and what lies beyond in non-linearity.
In the 10 years I've spent away from academia, I still cherish what Math taught me best: looking at equivalences and I still feel the kick that I surely wouldn't want an Agent to do on my behalf. NS was never the point. And who can't see that I can only feel that they missed out.
Maybe, actually, it will rehumanize math by formulating its ideas in a manner that allow their comprehension without 10-15 years of mechanized practice. The average human might understand quantum mechanics and Maxwell’s equations with the right conceptual interface.
Without the mechanization of book production, how many would have read his works?
This. Farming used to be such a rich and meaningful job where you connected with the earth, until machinery came along and ruined it.
I loathe what's happened with agscience, all farms should be plowed by hand with donkeys and plows.
Maybe they should, you know. Maybe OpenAI is exactly working towards so that we need to do that :)
It's fascinating how people like to push any statement to its limits, because it circles around to absurdity and they believe they've made a point. Moderation seems to be chasing you, but you clearly are faster!
Taking a statement to its limits is useful for that reason. This is why it's so common to do in physics & math, in fact!
If your mental model breaks at the limits, it maybe means there's some truth in what you say, but there's a nuance that's clearly missing.
And that's the case here: nobody argues when automation comes for many types of other tasks, so why is mathematics special? Or even art? We should either find that line or accept that maybe they aren't as special as we assumed.