5 ms·
Alternate title: AI (a man-made concept) is discovering patterns in another man-made concept.
by for_i_in_range 5y ago
Alternate title: AI (a man-made concept) is discovering patterns in another man-made concept.
- mdp2021 5y agoWhat do you imply.
- number6 5y agoThat math is invented not discovered
- mdp2021 5y agoThat's oracular... Edit: Look, sniper: unfounded statements are cheap. Anyone can state 'A is B': as a form, it is largely worthless.
- alphanumeric0 5y agoMathematical notation is invented but what about the patterns it describes? Did someone invent the notion of exponential growth or decay? Or did we discover this mathematical pattern in many different areas of study? Also, from Wikipedia: "Most of mathematical activity consists of discovering and proving (by pure reasoning) properties of abstract objects. These objects are either abstractions from nature (such as natural numbers or "a line"), or (in modern mathematics) abstract entities that are defined by their basic properties, called axioms." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematics
- garbagetime 5y agoI agree that some mathematical concepts, such as exponential growth, are expressed in nature. But does the fact that a thing is expressed in nature imply that it cannot be invented? And what of mathematical concepts not expressed in nature? On a different point, I'd argue that all conceptual inventions are discoveries. So, showing that a mathematical concept was discovered would not be enough to prove it was not invented.
- pure_simplicity 5y agoI would disagree with the idea that maths is man-made. It is discovered. If it were man made, then we should have power to change it as we wish. But you could still say: A mathematical structure is analysing mathematics.
- thoraway66 5y agoYou mean physical structures. Math is just glyphs we use to cart around awareness of the motions of this reality. I know it’s romantic to escape into the neverending-ness of reality, but we exist in a pretty well established perimeter of physical constraints, and we have yet to find even a theory that would let us break them. A few academic tricks here and there is hardly concrete proof we can. I think we’re looking the wrong way. What if we’re each a metaverse forced to live literally? Give me designer drugs that bootstrap such a detailed hallucination, I think it happened. Way less wasteful than these toys like VR we just throwaway. Don’t make the math literal, make the cognitive simulation so detailed it feels like it’s literal. Maybe aliens didn’t die off. They just took resource consumption seriously.
- shrimpx 5y agoOne way I’ve seen it put, that resonates with me, is that axioms are invented but theorems are discovered. That is nicely self-evident. The idea that axioms are also discovered is … iffy, but it happens in some cases. E.g., discovering that your theory is unsound and the only way to fix it is by adding the obvious axiom.
- cgriswald 5y agoI would disagree there are quick and easy answers to the question of whether math is man-made or discovered. What is the qualitative difference between discovery and invention? Consider the product of no factors being equal to the multiplicative identity. Is that a discovery or a choice made because it is more useful? Is it a discovery because we 'discovered' it was more useful?