Life is all about killing the magic | Hacker News Reader

Life is all about killing the magic

micaelwidell.com

25 pointsmicaelwidell17 comments

If anything I've learned that the fastest way to discover just unboundedly large amounts of magic is to try to kill that of it which you know.

Fields don't die---they deepen fractal-like.

I agree with this.

The author said he has learned everything about computers and the magic is gone, because it understands them.

Is this really possible? The world of computers and the internet is so deep, it seems like someone could study for their whole lives and never fully understand it all.

> Is this really possible?

Yeah, you can definitely understand computers to the point that nothing about them is really mysterious. It takes a while, but lots of people have done it. There might be lots that you aren't aware of - but none of it will come as a surprise once you've learned how it all works.

I guess at some fundamental level, though, it's based on (quantum) physics, and lots of that is still mysterious to us. But that's way deeper than anything you come across with computers.

Just take a class of solid-state physics, there's nothing really mysterious in there. Just bunch of fancy differential equations. And solutions to these. Tough to get at first, but gets pretty mechanical, after you've solved a few. And after some point you can just grog the math.

I suppose this is true, so long as you're talking about the physical artifacts that we've created as a society. I think it's importantly less true if you begin to ask questions such as why this particular machine is so powerful, what it's limits are, and how its operation relates to other things.

Perhaps I misspoke in saying that seeking to eliminate the magic is enough. You have to follow more threads than the ones that originally lead you into the wings.

If you think you've learned everything about a field, you've just scratched the surface.

That is, unless you do have a good general knowledge of the field, up-to-date with recent research and have publications of your own.

I can see why one would think they know everything about a field just because one "has a good general knowledge of the field, up to date with recent research, and have publications of your own" for the following fact (noted by Donald Rumsfeld)

"There are known knowns; there are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns; that is to say, there are things that we now know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns – there are things we do not know we don't know."

The downside of attempting to kill all the magic in the world is that, should you ever succeed, you will be so bored you will want to die. I was never so happy as I was as a child, when everything was fresh and new. I try keep a little bit of magic unknown still. Fortunately that's pretty easy to do in today's world.

If understanding computers kills the magic then someone has completely missed the point. Computers are a tool to be used,not a mystery to be solved,and there is plenty of magic using them to explore to build and to solve actual mysteries.

If you understand a hammer and chisel fully it does not make you Michelangelo.

Why not try the opposite approach? That is, try to find magic in everyday things.

If he knows all there is to know about computers, perhaps he can tell us whether P = NP.

Most computer scientists feel that P != NP and it's just a matter of figuring out a way to prove it.

Then it's a good thing computer science isn't driven by feelings.

You'd be surprised by how much of it (mathematics) is. You obviously can't prove anything with gut feeling, but you can sure find things to prove with it.

It is possible for something to be unknown and still boring, not "magical" or "intriguing".

People have personal preferences, I suppose. But the approach to kill the magic seems weird - I'd expect things to become more magical the more I learn about them.

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