Hacker News Reader

Comment by rvnx | Hacker News Reader

Asking: "Describe to me a completely new and credible explanation on why space-time is shrinking"

It gives me: Title: Isotropic Space-Time Contraction: A Novel Hypothesis for Shrinking Space-Time

Abstract: This paper introduces a new and credible explanation for the phenomenon of shrinking space-time, which we call "Isotropic Space-Time Contraction" (ISTC). ISTC postulates that space-time contracts uniformly in all directions due to the continuous creation of dark energy in the quantum vacuum. This process results from the interaction between dark energy and the cosmic fabric, leading to a constant reduction in the scale of space-time.

I think it can create very very very interesting ideas or concepts.

View on HN

a quick google reveals that all of the words in the "new" title already exist from human producers, and this is mix and matched together.

A quick google reveals the same of your comment. Are you an AI?

The comment answers to how GPT supposedly produces "new interesting concepts and ideas". The comment you are answering is not supposed or perceived to present anything novel. So both your argument and the comment you reply to are technically correct, neither produces any novel idea; only difference is your reply is out of place.

What exactly is a novel idea? Is there any true “novelty” that just suddenly arises in a human brain without having prerequisite experience / knowledge?

I mean, indeed most "novel ideas" are about making novel connections between existing concepts, and more rarely about creating novel concepts. However, bunching together concepts, even if in a novel way, does not necessarily constitute "novel idea" as the connections have to be in some ways meaningful and interesting, in a certain context. In the previous case, which is actually quite typical of LLMs, a "novel idea" was produced by bunching together certain terms, in a way that it looks syntactically correct and even conceptually solid in a superficial manner. But from a scientific point of view, it is non-sensical and, basically, junk. Bunching together concepts as words does not make a scientific idea or theory. This is a complex process in science, that involves different scales of argumentation, none of which is provided by LLMs. But this is as far as merely manipulating language can get one.

I'm pretty sure space-time expands according to scientific literature, doesn't it ? (this is why I picked this weird concept of a shrinking space-time)

To me it actually looks like it just took the dark energy theory and s/expanding/shrinking/g on it. It's even called "isotropic space-time expansion" in many papers.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com