Brilliant! Extremely insightful article, and a timely reminder (thankfully constant on this Substack by Dr. Vishnoi) that we stand to lose a lot - potentially everything, if we actually lose what it means to be human - if we let ourselves be seduced by the power of what AI can help us see and mistake it for something it is not.
Great post! A footnote physics comment (which only strengthens the points you are making): One of Maxwell's great achievements, in some sense going beyond the ones you mentioned, is the introduction of the field as an abstract but fundamental physical entity with its own dynamics untethered to any material object. It liberated physics from the newtonian paradigm of particle motion being everything. It was also an important feat of abstraction to talk of the local field since most of the earlier known laws of electromagnetism (Gauss, Ampere) were formulated as integrals - in terms of currents and electric/magnetic fluxes.
“We are prone to overestimate how much we understand about the world.”
- Daniel Kahneman
Thank you Nisheeth for this wonderful thought provoking post. Took me back 30 years to conversations with my mentor Professor Roddam Narasimha. The renowned fluid dynamicist and historian of Indian classical science who called what we seem to celebrate these days “computational positivism”
Would urge you and others interested in these questions to read
Narasimha, R. (2003). The Indian half of Needham’s question: some thoughts on axioms, models, algorithms, and computational positivism. Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, 28(1), 54–66. https://doi.org/10.1179/030801803225010340
It may be time to think about a synthesis of how thinking slow (or reframing as you call it) can be combined with thinking fast may lead to a true 5th paradigm of science.
Thank you for this thoughtful response and for the pointer to Roddam Narasimha’s work, which I hadn't encountered. “Computational positivism” is such an apt phrase, and I look forward to reading the essay.
The connection you make between Kahneman’s thinking slow and conceptual reframing is compelling, and the kind of synthesis I hope more of us can explore together.
Thank you! That’s a wonderful addition, and beautifully put. The move to treat the field as a fundamental entity was a conceptual leap, and a striking example of abstraction reshaping the foundations of physics. Thanks again for deepening the essay's arc!
Observation -> Patterns -> Empirical Laws and Principles -> Theoretical Laws. These are the two loops from Observation to Discovery. When the two laws converge, we have closure. That is my experience. Both loops need intuitive leaps, comprising induction, deduction, and abduction (for want of a better term). F = ma was discovered as an empirical law. The derivation from Least Action Principles was equally difficult and that effort ended with Noether linking invariance and symmetry to conservation.
To summarise drastically what appears to (me ) to be the problem statement (and one proposed solution in the comments) here is:
Reframing or slow processing or system 2 in Kahneman's dual process framework, appears to be a human thing at present but there's a possibility of perhaps designing it into the current cognitive framework of machines?
Brilliant! Extremely insightful article, and a timely reminder (thankfully constant on this Substack by Dr. Vishnoi) that we stand to lose a lot - potentially everything, if we actually lose what it means to be human - if we let ourselves be seduced by the power of what AI can help us see and mistake it for something it is not.
Very elaborate and distinctive roles of human mind/intellect as different from AI.
Great post! A footnote physics comment (which only strengthens the points you are making): One of Maxwell's great achievements, in some sense going beyond the ones you mentioned, is the introduction of the field as an abstract but fundamental physical entity with its own dynamics untethered to any material object. It liberated physics from the newtonian paradigm of particle motion being everything. It was also an important feat of abstraction to talk of the local field since most of the earlier known laws of electromagnetism (Gauss, Ampere) were formulated as integrals - in terms of currents and electric/magnetic fluxes.
“We are prone to overestimate how much we understand about the world.”
- Daniel Kahneman
Thank you Nisheeth for this wonderful thought provoking post. Took me back 30 years to conversations with my mentor Professor Roddam Narasimha. The renowned fluid dynamicist and historian of Indian classical science who called what we seem to celebrate these days “computational positivism”
Would urge you and others interested in these questions to read
Narasimha, R. (2003). The Indian half of Needham’s question: some thoughts on axioms, models, algorithms, and computational positivism. Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, 28(1), 54–66. https://doi.org/10.1179/030801803225010340
It may be time to think about a synthesis of how thinking slow (or reframing as you call it) can be combined with thinking fast may lead to a true 5th paradigm of science.
Thank you for this thoughtful response and for the pointer to Roddam Narasimha’s work, which I hadn't encountered. “Computational positivism” is such an apt phrase, and I look forward to reading the essay.
The connection you make between Kahneman’s thinking slow and conceptual reframing is compelling, and the kind of synthesis I hope more of us can explore together.
Vijay, Nisheeth, you both might like my essay about computational positivism, philosophy of science, and their relations to AI:
https://realizable.substack.com/p/on-computational-positivism
Thanks for the pointer Maxim, will take a look!
What is this 5th Paradigm?
Thank you! That’s a wonderful addition, and beautifully put. The move to treat the field as a fundamental entity was a conceptual leap, and a striking example of abstraction reshaping the foundations of physics. Thanks again for deepening the essay's arc!
Observation -> Patterns -> Empirical Laws and Principles -> Theoretical Laws. These are the two loops from Observation to Discovery. When the two laws converge, we have closure. That is my experience. Both loops need intuitive leaps, comprising induction, deduction, and abduction (for want of a better term). F = ma was discovered as an empirical law. The derivation from Least Action Principles was equally difficult and that effort ended with Noether linking invariance and symmetry to conservation.
To summarise drastically what appears to (me ) to be the problem statement (and one proposed solution in the comments) here is:
Reframing or slow processing or system 2 in Kahneman's dual process framework, appears to be a human thing at present but there's a possibility of perhaps designing it into the current cognitive framework of machines?