Comments on: The Fable of the Chessmaster

By: Shtetl-Optimized » Blog Archive » Eigenvalues up the wazoo

Shtetl-Optimized » Blog Archive » Eigenvalues up the wazoo — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 20:02:42 +0000

[...] Shtetl-Optimized « The Fable of the Chessmaster Jewish inferiority complex in brief, unfamiliar remission » [...]

By: Ars Mathematica » Blog Archive » Complexity Theory: Now a Path to Enlightenment

Fri, 08 Dec 2006 06:09:31 +0000

[...] The Fable of the Chessmaster suggests that a perfect chess master could demonstrate their mastery to a high degree of certainty without revealing their strategies. Scott goes on to suggest that we can think of complexity theory as “mathematical theology” [...]

By: Michael Gogins

Michael Gogins — Tue, 21 Feb 2006 16:19:00 +0000

My question is: What is your take on Goedel’s dilemma (either people are not Turing machines but can prove any given true theorem of number theory, or people are Turing machines but there are true theorems of number theory people cannot prove)?

By: Nagesh Adluru

Nagesh Adluru — Mon, 20 Feb 2006 07:07:00 +0000

I wanted to comment that the way you gave an example of the power of interaction is really driving and clear.

By: Nagesh Adluru

Nagesh Adluru — Mon, 20 Feb 2006 07:01:00 +0000

Scott:

My question is: why don’t science popularizers realize that? Why don’t they cut the Mr. Wizard crap, and counter the religious fundamentalists on their own turf — by offering something worthy of awe, reverence, and zeal?

It’s very normal that people give less credit (in terms of awe, reverence or zeal) to more obvious (understandable by humans) things. So more often than not religion attracts more adherents. Once people know that some-things are proven and repeatable people don’t need to adhere to that and scientists won’t like to and cannot profess things before they prove them.

I guess the fact that our economic foundations rely on science will take care of attracting people to adhere to science with a sufficient degree.

By: Scott

Scott — Mon, 20 Feb 2006 02:04:00 +0000

Your “revival” of theology here seems in conflict with your own speculations that P!=NP is a physical principle. It seems like it must be one or the other.

Drew: Your comment reminds me why I didn’t become a philosopher. Stinkin’ consistency with previous things I’ve said!

Seriously: What I’ve advocated as a physical principle is not that P!=NP, but that NP-complete problems are not efficiently solvable using the resources of the physical universe (whatever those are). Were this principle true, it would be a statement about the inability of physical agents to achieve certain “godlike” powers — and therefore a confirmation that those powers are indeed “godlike.”

So I don’t see a need to choose.

By: Drew Arrowood

Drew Arrowood — Sun, 19 Feb 2006 19:33:00 +0000

Old Aristotle divided metaphysics, like Caesar later divide Gaul, into three parts: one part was ontology (the study of existence), one part theology, and one part first science, or metaphysics proper. I see the project of Modern Philosophy, culminating in Kant, as taking out the meaningful parts of theology and placing them under either ontology or metaphysics. Someone like Frank Tipler, in The Physics of Immortality, has a God — but he’s accounted for and known by way of ontological and metaphysical categories (which for him are adequately expressed by scientific truths).
Your “revival” of theology here seems in conflict with your own speculations that P!=NP is a physical principle. It seems like it must be one or the other.
As to questions, I suppose that I would like to know why you think that Lebesque Measure, as opposed to something finitely additive, is THE way that probabilities need to be represented in physical theory. Here in Charlotte, we spend a lot of time on financial (as opposed to civil, or electrical) engineering — I’d like to tell people how to bet in suboptimal situations, and I just can’t give them any advice whatever if the house is against them (but they must bet).

By: Scott

Scott — Sun, 19 Feb 2006 15:50:00 +0000

gritsforbreakfast: Thanks for the feedback! My perspective is almost exactly the opposite of yours.

To wit: what amazes me about religion is that it attracts so many adherents despite having no obvious application.

(Your water-to-wine example proves the rule, given its obvious difficulties regarding corroboration and repeatability. )

Conversely, what amazes me about math and science is that they attract so few “adherents,” despite providing the economic foundation of our entire civilization.

To me, this just confirms what should have been obvious to any observer of the last two US elections: that human beings are not even approximately economic agents. If the “spirit” moves them, they’ll choose a recession over blowjobs and a ballooning deficit over gay rights.

One answer is that the best ones, like Carl Sagan, did.

By: Gritsforbreakfast

Gritsforbreakfast — Sun, 19 Feb 2006 12:58:00 +0000

Brilliant stuff, Scott, and terrific comments as well. As a writer and public policy researcher, not a mathematician, I can say with confidence that Cohen’s are the words of a fool. Those in his line of work, I promise, have opportunities to solve for X all the time, if they understand enough about how the world works to realize that the possibility presents itself. He and his readers have suffered for years, obviously unknowingly, from his ignorance.

But if math is to be theology, I also hope that you new theologians won’t complain too bitterly if many in the peonage refuse to accept your proffered faith with a zeal equaling your own.

In the end, to convert the masses, perhaps you must demonstrate not just wizardry but utility – when Christ turned water into wine at a wedding, people at the party could drink it. Even then, somebody had to die before the thing really took off.

By: Gritsforbreakfast

Gritsforbreakfast — Sun, 19 Feb 2006 12:57:00 +0000

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