On 7/17/25 6:55 AM, glen wrote:
> Sabina's recent defense of Weinstein [⛧] seems to follow in this vein. And I can't help but feel similarly when I try to understand Geometric Algebra. What is the value of these games over and above their binding to the world? Or, maybe more importantly, what's their value when they fail to bind well to the world? My favorite writer about Gödel was Torkel Franzén, who spent more time debunking the runaway [ab]use of the incompleteness theorems than he did inferring anything from them - or maybe I was simply more attracted to his debunking than I was to his in-theory work. I guess the same is true of Barwise's tinkering around with anti-foundations or Shapiro's foundations without foundationalism. Now that we have things like Isabelle/HOL, the "theory" seems to take on a life of its own. Inference tools like this help me play the games I could only imagine when I was a kid, even if my games are childish or of no use to anyone but me. Then again, I don't spew grievance on 
> everyone I meet when *they* don't want to play the games I enjoy.
> 
> Since we're still in the [F]NO thread, they do seem to fall directly in line with the way even the most banal of us are using AI. This result:
> 
> Hilbert's sixth problem: derivation of fluid equations via Boltzmann's kinetic theory
> https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.01800
> 
> is out of my reach. And even with https://github.com/neuraloperator/NNs-to-NOs, it's not clear to me whether I'd be able to understand enough to mimic the analyses Anandkumar presented in the talk. But like with Isabelle or Lean (plus tools like Claude) I can just barely *taste* it. I can just barely taste what it might be like to be a theorist - to have the cognitive power to think such things through in the way Eric describes Einstein. At the end of the day, though, Franzén's more my speed.
> 
> 
> [⛧] Though her less recent discussion of Thiel and the relationship between Thiel and Weinstein smells like smoke. Of course Carroll is exactly the type of person the anti-establishment would accuse of Scientism. :face_with_rolling_eyes:

