Re:Markets are efficient if and only if P=NP (2010)
by Sharlin on Wednesday October 21, 2020 @10:39AM
(#24848309)
Of course it's just a figure of speech. But it gets awkward to talk about, say, evolution, unless you can use anthropomorphic language at times. Even mathematicians discuss math using sloppy language all the time, only with the silent understanding that they could do everything rigorously if they really wanted to. Programmers anthropomorphize computers and software all the time. Does a sudoku solver not solve a problem just because it has no agency? Or is it different just because the human who wrote it does?
Re:Markets are efficient if and only if P=NP (2010)
by javajosh on Wednesday October 21, 2020 @11:47AM
(#24848965)
I think the distinction is important to address for the current discussion about P=NP, because of the meta nature of the discussion. Any argument about natural phenomena meaning anything a priori is obscuring the computation required ot assert meaning.
I mean, did nature "solve the problem" of creating human-like consciousness from inanimate matter? I suppose so, since humans are certainly human-like, and it would appear that there is a reasonable path from t=0 to now that includes building up all the structures at every scale to allow us to come enough into existence to talk about it with each other. But this way of speaking implies something that isn't there, namely an intention. Humans, to take one example, aren't a solution to a problem, we just are. And its the same for all interesting phenomena like, for example, the parabolic shape of a particle being thrown on Earth, or ball packing, or crystal lattices.... The fact that these structures are solutions to a problem is an artifact of the human ability to model the system mathematically in the first place. Nature doesn't model, she just is.