Mumford's first work that I know of after his mathematical peak was on machine vision, in the 1980s. I know this because I went back to the math department to visit and saw him running around with a video camera. I got the impression he was interested in how the actual brain works even back then.

This would be around 30 years ago.

Odd that he says game theory is "outside pure math". I wrote my thesis in game theory when he was on the faculty.

On the other, two of my three readers were from the business school rather than the math department, so maybe he has a point. :)

And I could also add

"Beauty is truth; truth beauty. That is all ye know on Earth or need to know."

But I think it's a bit self-contradictory ...

When you've won a Fields Medal and then made fundamental contributions to an entirely different area of mathematics, you might have earned the right to make such comments on Mumford's thoughts. Until then, at least follow the HN site and comment guidelines!

I don't accept your premise -- there are no rights predicated on a Fields medal. At the same time you do make a point, my comment could and should have been more constructive.

I find that the cavalcade of stimulus/fMRI/"We've discovered the part of the brain responsible for beauty/truth/Tea Party/etc." studies, as a class, to be poorly designed experiments which add little to the broad base of scientific knowledge. I am always skeptical if these studies (and I always get voted down.)

I think the mass of these fMRI studies are much like the man looking for his keys under the streetlight. He's not looking there because they're likely to be there, but because that's the only place he can see.

Ok. I'm a moron. I have no problem at all with what Mumford wrote. In fact it is not a waste of time at all.

I realize I followed the link to the original study he cited. That, I think is a waste of time.

Why? It gives us an insight about how a mathematician think about his discipline. I found it very interesting.