4 ms·
When proofs are creeping slowly into the petabyte or exabyte territory, at some point you will not be able to distinguish them from the complexity of Mother Nat
by Florin_Andrei 9y ago
When proofs are creeping slowly into the petabyte or exabyte territory, at some point you will not be able to distinguish them from the complexity of Mother Nature herself.
Proof used to be a distillation of a complex phenomenon, or a complex logical tangle, into a smooth thread that one could follow and agree that, yes, this is obvious when you put it this way.
Sure, at some point computers will take over the work of doing proofs, just like in a different trade hammers took over fists, or wheels took over feet, or engines took over muscles, hearts and lungs. But at that point we will have to re-examine this concept of "proof".
- dgfgfdagasdfgfa 9y agoWell, that's a great explanation about why I didn't go into maths—I don't give a damn about how I arrived at knowledge so long as I can rely on it.
- zzz95 9y agoThat is correct as long as you don't hit the corner cases.
- gaius 9y agoHow do you know you can rely on it tho'? Blind faith?
- Florin_Andrei 9y agoI am stockpiling industrial amounts of popcorn for the (not too distant) future debates around the question: should we take into account the inherently limited capabilities of the human mind when defining the concept of "proof"? To be sure, myself I am very much a classicist of the old school when it comes to such matters. But this is a brave new world we are slowly but surely moving into.
- Florin_Andrei 9y agoIf and when most of the heavy lifting in the field of doing proofs will be done by computers, I suspect a new definition of proof will emerge not too far from what you're saying. Rene Descartes or Isaac Newton would throw a fit if they could see this.