The debate is interesting for many reasons and I think it has a broader meaning than maths only. In a sense it is about what we still think is human. We embrace the ‘romantic side’ of maths: the beauty in a proof. I am not a mathematician, but I still remember the beauty of a good proof as I learned in high school. There is beauty in the idea of a solid, water-tight proof but there is also beauty in the steps. The set of different rules, the one leading to another is an art. My son is studying to be a maths teacher and he told me about the wonderful feeling he has if he succeeds in proving something, even if this has been proven already by a great number of students. Needless to say that the feeling of proving something new must be euphoric. Now you could interpret this QED-project as an attack on the romantic side. If there is any feeling and emotion attached in constructing or understanding a proof, the computer version of it is devoid of that. A simple proof that even I can understand is elegant in ‘language’ but not any more in computer language (check out this pdf to see the difference. It is in Dutch but I guess that anyone with algebra background can read it no matter the skills in our Low Lands Language).

In the Dutch daily NRC Bennie Mols wrote an article about the subject. What really struck me in this discussion is the standpoint of Hendrik Lenstra (a Dutch mathematician). He claims that the act of proofing and judging a proof is basically a human act, based on pattern recognition. The act making and checking a proof helps you to better understand the subject. It evokes ‘knowledge’ as an internal phenomenon. He shares an interesting and wonderful story about a theorem he was trying to understand. He wanted to know if it was correct. He had it both computer-checked and asked another mathematician to check it. He consulted an expert in computer mathematician. The computer had to work a day on it, and showed the proof was right. The human expert got about it in a different way. He looked at the theorem and said ‘oh I can calculate that for you’. Within in few minutes he had the maths done – writing it out on a piece of paper. His conclusion: the theorem is wrong. Of course – sorry for those with a romantic view – the expert had made a small miscalculation. The computer was right. The interesting thing though, was that actually mr. Lenstra learned a lot more from the human interaction. Checking the piece of paper, understanding the theory used by the expert gave him deeper understanding about the problem. Sharing this with the computer expert, enabled him to rewrite the computer proof in a much more elegant way, so the computer now needed a few minutes as opposed to the former day of computer time.

I see many learnings is this beautiful story. Too many to ponder about in my blog that I want to be short (actually this posting exceeds my intended maximum manifold, I hope to reach a sort of Haiku blog in the future, revealing basic truths within 11 words. But I haven’t yet reached that skill). Let me highlight some:

1

whether we like it or not, automation of knowledge is bound to grow. Even the critics of QED see that it can be extremely useful to check extremely complicated proofs that human race is not able to verify with 100% certainty

2

This will not squeeze the romance out of our lives. As long as we are here on the planet (could be shorter than intended, but let’s assume we will survive the next 2.000 years) the field of ‘beauty’ will change. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

3

Knowledge and understanding is the field of humans. Up to now the computers can assist.

3

In the end it is all about the human factor. The QED is a sort of ‘bookkeeping’. Converting proofs into computer language is not like hot science, it is more the work of a monk. But that can be very satisfying.  I can imagine the writer of the pdf I referred to above in his feeling that programming a proof is a wonderful thing to do.

4

the frontier on automation is ever changing. The discussion is now about the verification of proofs. Could it ever shift towards production of proofs? Maybe then computers would become like humans more. So that would not really shift things. We would still have the two different states; the understanding state (which is emotional by definition) and the calculating mode. The shift would mean that the emotional state (up to now the privelige of human and probably animals) is now available to computers as well. We are not near that in the least.

However, I just was guided to a wonderful website of chris jordan, an artist who uses photographs to give us an idea about ‘numbers’ in waste: 32.000 barbie dolls to signify the number of breast enlargements every month in the USA. 320.000 light bulbs, signifying the amount of kilowatthours wasted every minute in the USA s as a consequence of ineffeciency. Wonderful how he brings into life enormous numbers, and a society based on overspending. And beautiful photography!

This is an interesting video from Jutta Treviranus. I like the opening sentence as an answer to the question ‘what does it take for a state to become a leader on national or global level: ‘let me argue some of your framing assumptions’. In stead of that we need to get away from the assumption that states are in the same competition, all trying to reach the same goal, fighting to get the best out of it.

The way we percieve pain is extremely dependent on context. If you look at your painful hand with a looking glass the pain grows, if you look at it with the opposite (making your hand look smaller) the pain diminish. (example form Dave Snowden’s blog, more to be found there)

Taste of any food is highly dependent on context. Beer drinkers are not able in a double blind test to find their own beer within others. But if they drink it branded, the taste difference is big. Old school would say: the consumer is stupid. However, neuroscience has prooved other wise: you really taste something different. The taste really changes when it is branded.

Taste is not a fixed state thing, neither is pain, neither is any of the most important motivators for buying anything. As a marketing director you should be more than aware that the concepts you are dealing with are highly dualistic, highly ambigeous and you can never trust on simple ideas.

There is a relation to marketing and marketing research that might be a little more than ‘artificial’. We have this concept of ideas that seem to travel quicker than the speed of light in society as well. If two particles are connected in a way transcending our common ideas about time and space, why wouldn’t it be possible for human beings? Sometimes it seems that changes and trends occur so suddenly and quickly that you would almost suspect that the ‘traditional spreading models’ do not apply. In the Dutch daily NRC, an interesting research is being quoted today. Nicholas Christakis form Harvard Medical School and James Fowler from the University of California (San Diego) published a study in the British Medical Journal (online edition, December 4th 2008). In this study they claim that happiness is contagious, it spreads within social networks. The interesting part of the research is the fact that the spreading model is not completely ‘rational’: if one person claims to be more happy, the chances of a friend living within a mile of happiness increases with 25%. Really interesting is the notion that the odds for indirect friends are also growing with 10% of increased happiness.

This indicates some entanglement in the system, a system that in some way connects the individuals that participate in the system. A bit as if two particles are connected in a more profound way than time and space as we know it can account for. I am sure that this idea can be laughed away, and I can think of quit a few explanations to counter the idea. Yet I do feel there is an interesting field of research here.

I have some personal experience related to this subject (a system change within my own thinking and feeling which had consequenses for behaviour of others that normal reactions could not account for in my opinion). I wonder if there are other examples as well. I am quite aware of the fact that looking for ‘positive’ examples is not the scientific way to prove a point. But actually I don’t want to prove it at all. I would like to get a clear picture of it.

The gist of their presentation was that the complexity of the Indian society  is not easy to dive in to. They sort of summarized the indian culture in 5 words, but none of these actually meant what you would have thought if you read them without context. The word ‘quality’ for instance was applied to gear that needed repair every day, but that proved to be very usefull. The ease to adapte was another aspect of quality.

The most interesting word was ‘Masala’ that apparantly is a sort of symbol for the complexity of Indian society. Literary the word means ’spicemix’. But it is a metaphor for the ‘no fixed state’ that everything is in according to Indian society and for the fact that in india opposites are often held for truth.

This is a difficult concept for western society and especially for the Management culture that is up to now mainly binory driven (a bit can be either true or false). Maybe the Indian society is better equipped for the growing complexity than our own.

Again, a masterpiece. One big letter from ‘an entrepeneur’ to the chinese premier Wen JiaBao. I would like to mention it for one reason: it illustrates brilliantly the concept of ambiguity. The main character is a poor man. He hasn’t even got a name. You sympasize with him. However Adiga cleverly plays with the archetype of the ‘poor and honest’. This book is definitively not a new Uncle Tom. As a reader you are drawn into his life, but that is not exactly made easy. You sort of experience the ambiguity of motives and intent.

The book gives you some insight in the Indian world, but in a part of it that is not only strange to us, but strange to the writer as well as shown in the video from the Booker site.

Maybe this book should be added to a list of marketers reading list, since I notice that often in marketing the concept of ambiguity is not very developted: the one and clear motive is more easy to understand and to act upon, whereas in reality often our motives are a mix of different, often even conflicting motives.

This leads me to the interesting phenomenon of the predictable disaster. We know traffic is going to be awful tomorrow morning. We can all prevent this problem with a simple action (take the train, work at home) but we won’t. There are a lot of explanations to be made for this: ‘prisoners dilemma’ (if others stay home, I can drive without a problem), the fact we get used to traffic jams and take them into account, a serious jam is like an accepted excuse for arriving too late, thus the ‘punishment’ is not very severe, we need to get at work if we like it or not.

I would like to emphasis in this occasion another explanation that could be relevant. Human mind is very subject to the ’stability fallacy’. We feel that the world is a stable place and we tend to believe the current state to be the platform we will stay on. Because our memory is highly contextual, the memories of different states are not as accessible as they could be. We know in a rational way that thinks can be different, but it is hard to really feel it. Therefor we are prown to a kind of misleading feeling that things will not be as bad as expected.

I have always felt that the one of the underestimated effects of qualitative research is the level of engagement it arouses. Usually research is only judged on the level of insight it produces. But since insight without action is useless and the level of ‘action prowness’ is basically defined by the word ‘engagement’ this factor should always be used in assessing the methods. Without engagement any research delivers nothing but a clever report: expensive paper. With the choice of methods researchers should includen not only the level of insight expected, but also the level of engagement the method arouses.

1: the quality of the presentations in terms of presentation skills and powerpoints was very high. This was a feeling most spectators had. It sets a standard. But it also introduces a complete new theme in the researchers grand narrative: researchers have always been more content driven. The qualitative now switch to the more emotional ‘looks’. I think this pattern of ‘better surface’ will continue to exist because the best presentations set the standards. I wonder how this theme will evolve further and how it will spread to the main conference (more quant driven and less ‘fancy’)

2: in conferences like this all of the cases about techniques and methods look like success stories. This is inevitable. You want to get a message accross, a new approach that you share. You are not going to show any downsides apart from the obligatory ‘problems’ that in these presentations always appear to be minor points, easily to be adressed. Your new method is always going to be the beauty and not the beast. I don’t want to argue that this makes the congress less valueble: new plants should be pampered and watered and so should new approaches.

For the latter I would like to share an initiative that I think is really brilliant: the mistake bank. I got the link from the website of John Caddell. Maybe we should open an anomynous mistake bank for our profession! Lets unleash the beast!