Nate_Barna comments on Shut up and do the impossible! - Less Wrong

28 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 08 October 2008 09:24PM

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Comment author: Nate_Barna 09 October 2008 10:29:54AM 0 points [-]

As it goes, how I've come to shut up and do the impossible: Philosophy and (pure) mathematics are, as activities a cognitive system engages in by taking more (than less) resources for granted, primarily for conceiving, perhaps continuous, destinations in the first place, where the intuitively impossible becomes possible; they're secondarily for the destinations' complement on the map, with its solution paths and everything else. While science and engineering are, as activities a cognitive system engages in by taking less (than more) resources for granted, primarily for the destinations' complement on the map; they're secondarily for conceiving destinations in the first place, as in, perhaps, getting the system to destinations where even better destinations can be conceived.

Because this understanding is how I've come to shut up and do the impossible, it's somewhat disappointing when philosophy and pure mathematics get ridiculed. To ridicule them must be a relief.