Hacker News: MrDrDr

New comment by MrDrDr in "What Do Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems Mean?"

MrDrDr — Thu, 21 May 2026 13:35:05 +0000

> “incompleteness theorems” established that no formal system of mathematics — no finite set of rules, or axioms, from which everything is supposed to follow — can ever be complete.'

There is usually a 'not sufficiently complex' clause in that definition. Presburger arithmetic is complete: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presburger_arithmetic

New comment by MrDrDr in "A recent experience with ChatGPT 5.5 Pro"

MrDrDr — Sat, 09 May 2026 10:31:04 +0000

I like this distinction, but it would then seem the only 'invention' would be the axioms of your mathematics. There exists numbers (natural, imaginary...), there exist shapes (a point, a line...). All the work from that point on could be 'discovered'. I agree that I don't see LLMs inventing in this way. But again, it raised the question - what are our brains doing when we 'invent' something?

New comment by MrDrDr in "A recent experience with ChatGPT 5.5 Pro"

MrDrDr — Sat, 09 May 2026 10:07:05 +0000

> "Even though I can motivate it in retrospect, ChatGPT’s idea to use h^2-dissociated sets to control relations of order at most h feels quite ingenious. As far as I can tell, this idea is completely original."

The question that keep bothering me is can an LLM generate an idea that is truly novel? How would/could that actually happen? But then that leads to the question - what are we actually doing when we think?

Perhaps it's as simple as the ability to just make mistakes that matters, the same things that powers evolution. As long as the LLM can make mistakes, it's capable of generating something genuinely novel. And it can make more mistakes much faster than we can.

New comment by MrDrDr in "Grok 4.3"

MrDrDr — Sat, 02 May 2026 17:30:43 +0000

Agreed. I see this debate as an active discussion as to what intelligence is, not how it's currently (poorly) defined This is a philosophical discussion, and there is no correct answer, but IMO some answers will prove more useful than others. I would like to define intelligence as the ability to solve problems. Lots of other life forms have this ability, and its clear that LLMs also have this. Now, while they may not be poetic (in the literal sense of the word), or conscious, in that 'they' do not experience the world. I think there is a strong case for arguing they conform to a meaningful definition of intelligence. They solve problems.

New comment by MrDrDr in "Grok 4.3"

MrDrDr — Fri, 01 May 2026 09:34:52 +0000

Please elaborate.

Should AI First Do No Harm?

MrDrDr — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 19:53:35 +0000

Article URL: https://joelratnasothy.com/should-ai-first-do-no-harm/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47592568

Points: 2

# Comments: 1

New comment by MrDrDr in "Miscellanea: The War in Iran"

MrDrDr — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 18:13:14 +0000

N.B. The video is from May 2004 (during the Biden administration)

New comment by MrDrDr in "Miscellanea: The War in Iran"

MrDrDr — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 18:11:56 +0000

That this was so predictable, is the hardest thing to process. A friend shared this video by Jiang Xueqin https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7y_hbz6loEo&t=2s I find this guys hard to take seriously, his logic is erratic and often just absent. But his prediction has been frighteningly spot on regarding Iran. Towards the end he predicts American boots on the ground - and them turning into American hostages. I found that last part truly unbelievable until I heard Trump will have moved 3000 marines to the region by Friday.

The System Gets the Technology It Deserves

MrDrDr — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 13:03:54 +0000

Article URL: https://joelratnasothy.com/the-system-gets-the-technology-it-deserves/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47412098

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

New comment by MrDrDr in "UBI as a productivity dividend"

MrDrDr — Sat, 14 Mar 2026 18:37:07 +0000

I'm not sure UBI would work. But what's that got to do with communism? Communism failed (IMO), because it was incompatible with human nature. People form social hierarchies and like to own property. Would UBI prevent that?

New comment by MrDrDr in "Graphing how the 10k* most common English words define each other"

MrDrDr — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 11:08:56 +0000

I remember thinking about this when the semantic web was first being discussed. If you think of it from the perceptive of a child, your first 'foundational' words are learned though direct experience. Then while you continue to learn words this way, we can also use those words we 'know' to define secondary or tertiary terms that we have no direct experience of. I'd like to see a graph like this with someones take on the minimum number of necessary foundational words and how that graph would look.

New comment by MrDrDr in "Ask HN: How to be alone?"

MrDrDr — Mon, 09 Mar 2026 11:52:13 +0000

I think it becomes easier with age - but I went through a period where I found it very hard. This book changed the way I thought about things - you may find it helpful: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_Mind,_Beginner%27s_Mind

New comment by MrDrDr in "How far back in time can you understand English?"

MrDrDr — Sat, 21 Feb 2026 17:18:58 +0000

The other difficulties with older texts is not just the different spellings or the now arcane words - but that the meaning of some of those recognisable words changed over time. C.S. Lewis wrote an excellent book that describing the changing meanings of a word (he termed ramifications) and dedicated a chapter to details this for several examples including ‘Nature’, ‘Free’ and ‘Sense’. Would highly recommend a read. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studies_in_Words

New comment by MrDrDr in "I miss thinking hard"

MrDrDr — Wed, 04 Feb 2026 13:59:59 +0000

I also recognise ‘thinking’ as a valuable and enjoyable activity - and have also obsessed about problems for days (even in my sleep)to reach a deeper understanding. But I think the issue here is the impact of AI on just that - ‘understanding’. It might be true that with AI we no longer need to have as deeper understanding in order to ‘ship’. And even if that is true I think there are plenty of other domains you can think deeply about without AI getting in the way e.g. mathematics or philosophy - where is object is often to understand in and of itself, not just the products it may generate.

New comment by MrDrDr in "Douglas Adams on the English–American cultural divide over "heroes""

MrDrDr — Thu, 22 Jan 2026 15:06:14 +0000

This does not surprise me - and America is a big place, and I'm sure there are areas where Arthur would be seen in a similar light but I've worked in the US and the UK and this type of things reminds me of the phrase 'separated by a common language'. Slightly off topic perhaps but another area where I see a strong divide in sensibilities are the NewYorker cartoons - my wife (born in north America) thinks the are hilarious. I usually don't understand what's funny about them.

New comment by MrDrDr in "A decentralized peer-to-peer messaging application that operates over Bluetooth"

MrDrDr — Mon, 19 Jan 2026 16:37:53 +0000

Thanks for posting - this is really interesting. An idea perhaps whose time may have come. Out of interest (no criticism implied) but do/have you use this tech? and if so what was your experience?

New comment by MrDrDr in "Ask HN: What's a book that fundamentally altered your mental models"

MrDrDr — Sun, 21 Dec 2025 21:55:45 +0000

The origins of virtue by Matt Ridley. A good follow up to the selfish gene. Changed my thinking regarding altruism.

New comment by MrDrDr in "Transparent leadership beats servant leadership"

MrDrDr — Thu, 04 Dec 2025 16:30:11 +0000

IMO: I think there is a helpful distinction to be made between leadership and management. Leadership provides purpose and inspiration. Management provides, coordination and motivation. I’m not saying one person can’t do both.

I do agree that most management books read like parenting books - but I’d add that whats more important than the method is consistency in whatever approach you believe in. I’m not sure that managers/leaders will ever do that well relying on a book or a special ‘way’ they have read. They really need to have worked this out for themselves.

New comment by MrDrDr in "Mathematics is hard for mathematicians to understand too"

MrDrDr — Wed, 03 Dec 2025 12:56:54 +0000

Thank you for posting! - I was not aware of this.

New comment by MrDrDr in "Mathematics is hard for mathematicians to understand too"

MrDrDr — Wed, 03 Dec 2025 12:43:47 +0000

I think this would be extremely valuable: “We need to focus far more energy on understanding and explaining the basic mental infrastructure of mathematics—with consequently less energy on the most recent results.” I’ve long thought that more of us could devout time to serious maths problems if they were written in a language we all understood.

A little off topic perhaps, but out of curiosity - how many of us here have an interest in recreational mathematics? [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recreational_mathematics]