> your brain can quickly decide if a question is answerable by one of a few powerful general purpose "machines" (e.g., continuity arguments, the correspondence

> your brain can quickly decide if a question is answerable by one of a few powerful general purpose "machines" (e.g., continuity arguments, the correspondences between geometric and algebraic objects, linear algebra, ways to reduce the infinite to the finite through various forms of compactness) To me these tricks all feel like the same trick. "Can I find a program* that gives a finite representation of a generator or a transformation, from something I know, to my problem." * Not as in php but as in lambda calculus.