halperter

I mean, economics is pretty important for a business, no? The issue with the idealistic "do everything we can" is that we have limits. Money is one of the most, if not _the_ most important parts. When clinical trials take tens of millions to do, it is economically infeasible to try things at random; there needs to be an informed approach. I can see why you call my argument about cancer a strawman, and I'd like to clarify that as a general concept, just because humanity could survive for a few more centuries (paraphrased), we can't just be trying randomly. The person who randomly creates protiens that have a _miniscule_ chance to cure an important disease would be much better off putting their efforts into not just guessing and checking.

TLDR: I just have an issue with their "we should try every combination with no regards to constraining factors" approach

Huh, haven't looked at it that way. I'm just not sure about the leap from a lack of craving allows us to truly experience the world. As a general rule, I think humans want more. We usually aren't satisfied with "okay enough" and is what led us to do basically everything we have done. Nobody does something if they don't have a motivation to do it. I think that desire is so fundamental to life that to lead life without desire is empty, but I can definitely see how chasing your desires can blind yourself to everything else.

At least for me, the idea of giving up the craving for _everything_ seems to be rather...undesireable. I'd argue that a futile existence, with full knowledge that it is futile but living anyways, is much more "life-affirming" than giving up all desire. I want to feel, to touch, to yearn. Even if those don't mean anything, I think it's much better to do rather than to not do. And I think that humans, more than anything, want to feel alive. That's why we can never abandon that craving, why we must live with it and surpass it rather than retreating from it.

Your analogy of divine justice struck me as rather fitting! Before the trial, the magistrate brandishes the cross to Meursault and demands that Meursault believe that he will be forgiven, lest the magistrate's life lack meaning. Meursault, although "forced" into saying that such a god exists, denies that such a god, a divine judgment, could give life meaning. His position reflects Camus' as Camus believes that hope of finding meaning (god) is ultimately just a way to postpone nihilism, not to overcome it. The point of the trial wasn't to be logical or make sense, as the irrational instinctual human response to the absurd is what characterizes the trial. There's a shift in the jury when Meursault states that he shot the attacker a few times, then a few times again when they were on the ground. Again, Meursault's trial is a reflection of the human struggle against the absurd. Some bring god, others bring human ethics and emotions, but it is ultimately humans dealing with the absurd irrationally. For the execution point, I find that it actually doesn't matter whether the execution has gone through or not. Meursault already denies any sense of hope (reflecting his position as the absurd hero), rather, embracing the absurd. It is a bit weird if there would be a focus on the end result, which I don't really think matters, to the reader nor Meursault. Addressing the juxtoposition of the first and second parts, I think the first part was an exploration of the absurd hero's life, and the second part was more of the reaction to the absurd hero by society. I'm not the smartest, so I find it hard to fit the distinction. At least, I enjoyed reading the novel :D

Again, maybe this is just cope for bad writing but the fundamental absurdity of the trial, which you have clearly shown, is one of the points of the novel. It's more a philosophical treatise disguised as a novel really. The prose is supposed to reflect someone who is a stranger to us, and the plot is supposed to evoke feelings of incredulity into the reader!

P.S. -> thanks for the critiques!

At least from my perspective, the trial is meant to be contrived and a farce. From Meursault's perspective (which I agree that he can be an unreliable narrator) everything happening around him is inconsequential; he reflects that death-even of someone so "close" to him as his mother-doesn't matter as the end would always come. Meursault is on trial for his disposition, rather than the actual murder. The prosecution argues that Meursault is guilty due to his aloofness rather than any discussion of the murder (the defense openly questions whether Meursault is on trial for the murder of the arab or the murder of his mother!). At least for me, this difference was what _The Stranger_ was about; this inherent clash between indifference and the human rejection of the "gentle indifference of the universe". The fact that Meursault's unreliable narrator aspect comes about of the confrontation between the priest(?) and himself makes me think that Meursault too was hiding under this coating of lucidity, where he (and others who pretend to be stoics in the face of the absurd) will eventually break down. I reccomend reading _The Myth of Sisyphus_, especially the third and fourth parts, for Camus' explanation of the absurd hero.

Also, could you link the critiques? They sound interesting and I'd like to read them.

Rather notably, companies are profit-driven, not good-for-society driven. If 99% of your attempts which cost millions to do fail, the company either has to raise the prices of the drug insanely high or not work as a company. In addition, most drugs aren't humanity saving or crucial for humans to live. You could solve all forms of cancer tomorrow, which would be a great thing, but you aren't "saving humanity". You add less than a decade or so, maximum, to the average human lifespan. This isn't critical to humanity's existence, so this "try or die" mentality doesn't work.

If this try or die mentality does work, why don't we try every possible amino acid chain in every configuration possible? It's an infinitesimally small chance but try or die "outweighs". This is evidently absurd.

I think what people find "spiritual" about mathematics is the process, with its creativity and brilliance, ratjer than the final answer. I'd also think it's rather incomparable to a vegetable garden as the amount of effort required and complexity, which drive "spirituality", are of much grander scales. The author believes that llms make mathematics so trivial that mathematicians will no longer be the ones proving but the ones teaching and commentating, taking the "fun" part away in service of money. People will still do what they wabt to do, but one can no longer get by by indulging in what they like to do (math).