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"We can't find a polynomial time algorithm" !==> "No such algorithm exists" The height of arrogance. For these limited human minds, in limited time to declare

by 1arity 11y ago

"We can't find a polynomial time algorithm" !==> "No such algorithm exists" The height of arrogance. For these limited human minds, in limited time to declare that their effort has already exhausted all possibilities. The very core of ridiculousness.

MarkPNeyer 11y ago
There is _so much more_ to the suspicion that P doesn't equal NP than just this. The curiously repeated patterns in the boundary that seem to exist everhwyere you go. It's like looking at a distant planet through a telescope, and seeing what _appears to be_ an island in a lake, but _might_ be a peninsula. Every place the island bulges out, the land around it also bulges out. Every place there's a shallow in the island, the land on the other side also comes into meet it. So its' either a weird, jagged-shaped island in the middle of a lake, with an equally weird jagged coastline around it - or else in one of the places, but _only_ only of those places, the coastline touches the shore. My guess is that you haven't studied this problem nearly as much as the complexity theorists who suspect P doesn't equal NP, and you feel like you know better. Thats it's own kind of arrogance. Believe me, I was there, too.
- Sniffnoy 11y ago
  Scott Aaronson has some good posts on the matter: http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=122 http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=122 http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=1720 http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=1720 (The second of these talks a lot about the matter of the boundary that you mention.)
javert 11y ago
Except nobody is saying that. Every computer scientist acknowledges that we have not proven P!=NP. I would be delighted to see either P!=NP or P=NP proven. I have devoted 0% of my career to this question, so it does not stand to embarass me. I suppose this is the case for the vast majority of people who suspect P!=NP (myself included). There are only a few people that stand to really be embarassed by a proof. And among those, probably even fewer actually care enough to be embarassed.

by 1arity 11y ago

MarkPNeyer 11y ago

There is _so much more_ to the suspicion that P doesn't equal NP than just this. The curiously repeated patterns in the boundary that seem to exist everhwyere you go. It's like looking at a distant planet through a telescope, and seeing what _appears to be_ an island in a lake, but _might_ be a peninsula. Every place the island bulges out, the land around it also bulges out. Every place there's a shallow in the island, the land on the other side also comes into meet it. So its' either a weird, jagged-shaped island in the middle of a lake, with an equally weird jagged coastline around it - or else in one of the places, but _only_ only of those places, the coastline touches the shore. My guess is that you haven't studied this problem nearly as much as the complexity theorists who suspect P doesn't equal NP, and you feel like you know better. Thats it's own kind of arrogance. Believe me, I was there, too.

Sniffnoy 11y ago
Scott Aaronson has some good posts on the matter: http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=122 http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=122 http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=1720 http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=1720 (The second of these talks a lot about the matter of the boundary that you mention.)

javert 11y ago

Except nobody is saying that. Every computer scientist acknowledges that we have not proven P!=NP. I would be delighted to see either P!=NP or P=NP proven. I have devoted 0% of my career to this question, so it does not stand to embarass me. I suppose this is the case for the vast majority of people who suspect P!=NP (myself included). There are only a few people that stand to really be embarassed by a proof. And among those, probably even fewer actually care enough to be embarassed.