Any change in technology leads almost inevitably to an improvement in the welfare of some and a deterioration in that of others. To be sure, it is possible to think of changes in production technology that are Pareto superior, but in practice such occurrences are extremely rare. Unless all individuals accept the “verdict” of the market outcome, the decision whether to adopt an innovation is likely to be resisted by losers through non-market mechanism and political activism.
(Joel Mokyr, The Political Economy of Technological Change: Resistance and Innovation in Economic History.)
…Two weeks ago I quoted Jasmin Blanchette, a Dutch computer scientist who complained about “proofs [that] look more like LSD trips than coherent mathematical arguments.” I thank Alex Best for informing me that the expression goes back to the very interesting Teaching Statement that Scott Aaronson posted in 2007. Blanchette sees formalization as a remedy, but it occurs to me that the comparison cuts both ways. Most people who write about that sort of thing claim that enlightenment is what is sought by those who take steps to achieve altered states — through wine, poetry, virtue, meditation, or a drug like LSD. Enlightenment is also what I am seeking in a mathematical proof, and I’m sure most of my colleagues feel the same way. Nick Katz likens a routine sort of mathematical enlightenment to Molière’s M. Jourdain, realizing that he is speaking prose. Most precious are the rare proofs that induce a sense of transcendent bliss, bringing tears to one’s eyes. No such weeping with joy, either by programmer or by machine, has yet been recorded in the annals of formalization.
In connection with today’s entry, however, I am thinking of a different form of enlightenment. Imagine that in your condition of heightened consciousness you find yourself speaking a throwaway word mechanically — like “luddite.” Suddenly you tell yourself that what you hear is not only nor even primarily your own voice, but the entire history of semi-conscious associations that planted that word in your manifest vocabulary. While this is obvious in retrospect, it is only your altered state that impresses upon you the realization, the intimate feeling, that it is the word, with its accretion of dead slogans and long unexamined thoughts, that is speaking through you, and not the other way around. In this situation — here I have to tread carefully, to protect my professional reputation — enlightenment can be experienced as a form of liberation.
The essay continues at siliconreckoner.substack.com.
Any change in technology leads almost inevitably to an improvement in the welfare of some and a deterioration in that of others. To be sure, it is possible to think of changes in production technology that are Pareto superior, but in practice such occurrences are extremely rare. Unless all individuals accept the “verdict” of the market outcome, the decision whether to adopt an innovation is likely to be resisted by losers through non-market mechanism and political activism.
(Joel Mokyr, The Political Economy of Technological Change: Resistance and Innovation in Economic History.)
…Two weeks ago I quoted Jasmin Blanchette, a Dutch computer scientist who complained about “proofs [that] look more like LSD trips than coherent mathematical arguments.” I thank Alex Best for informing me that the expression goes back to the very interesting Teaching Statement that Scott Aaronson posted in 2007. Blanchette sees formalization as a remedy, but it occurs to me that the comparison cuts both ways. Most people who write about that sort of thing claim that enlightenment is what is sought by those who take steps to achieve altered states — through wine, poetry, virtue, meditation, or a drug like LSD. Enlightenment is also what I am seeking in a mathematical proof, and I’m sure most of my colleagues feel the same way. Nick Katz likens a routine sort of mathematical enlightenment to Molière’s M. Jourdain, realizing that he is speaking prose. Most precious are the rare proofs that induce a sense of transcendent bliss, bringing tears to one’s eyes. No such weeping with joy, either by programmer or by machine, has yet been recorded in the annals of formalization.
In connection with today’s entry, however, I am thinking of a different form of enlightenment. Imagine that in your condition of heightened consciousness you find yourself speaking a throwaway word mechanically — like “luddite.” Suddenly you tell yourself that what you hear is not only nor even primarily your own voice, but the entire history of semi-conscious associations that planted that word in your manifest vocabulary. While this is obvious in retrospect, it is only your altered state that impresses upon you the realization, the intimate feeling, that it is the word, with its accretion of dead slogans and long unexamined thoughts, that is speaking through you, and not the other way around. In this situation — here I have to tread carefully, to protect my professional reputation — enlightenment can be experienced as a form of liberation.
The essay continues at siliconreckoner.substack.com.
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