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Comment by traes

There's a substantial gap between "the machine is better than human mathematicians" and "the machine can formalize a solution to any problem immediately." Much of the important mathematical theory behind modern science was mapped out in advance by mathematicians, and scientists were able to find and take advantage of this mathematics where applicable. Mapping out our understanding of e.g. physics and our understanding of mathematics in parallel and finding connections later has historically been a highly successful approach, and I see no reason to believe the same would not be true for advanced machines. Would Einstein have been able to formulate GR without the existing theory of differential geometry? Maybe, but maybe not. Would an advanced machine be able to develop the theory of differential geometry in response to gravitational measurements? Maybe, but maybe not.

Edit: Perhaps I could have been terser here. Really the idea is that small jumps are easier to make than big jumps. Continually developing pure mathematics is a way to make small jumps in logic and intuition add up to big jumps in applications.

parent traes 2 months ago

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