Mathematics with a Human Face

How important are creativity and the human element to mathematics? In an age of AI and progress in automating proofs, these question arise. To ask philosophically, we need to include a characterization of actual mathematical practice, and not exclude the cultural, linguistic, pedagogical, computational and conceptual development of mathematics within wider historical and social contexts. The question of the human as mathematician is emblematic forour time, when larger philosophical and cultural questions about the automation of human labor become increasingly central. Is human bias something to be celebrated or eradicated? What is the relation of mathematics to cultural concerns and values? Can we learn from confronting its history in terms of the present? In 1947, in his Lecture to the London Mathematical Society, Alan Turing raised the question explicitly: The Masters [i.e., mathematicians] are liable to get replaced because as soon as any technique becomes at all stereotyped it becomes possible to devise a system of instruction tables which will enable the electronic computer to do it for itself. It may happen however that the masters will refuse to do this. They may be unwilling to let their jobs be stolen from them in this way. In that case they would surround the whole of their work with mystery and make excuses, couched in well-chosen gibberish, whenever any dangerous suggestions were made. I think that a reaction of this kind is a very real danger. There are many philosophical questions embedded in Turing’s remark, which was not simply a throwaway, but a prescient observation about what he elsewhere called “The Cultural Search”, which he believed would become increasingly important over time, and include “the human community as a whole” (1948, “Intelligent Machinery”). In this one-day event philosophers, mathematicians, logicians, historians and computer scientists will take stock of the issues.

When 10:00 am to 5:00 pm on Monday, April 22, 2024
Building School of Law, 765 Commonwealth Ave
Room Barristers Hall (108)
Contact Email cphs@bu.edu
Contact Organization Center for Philosophy & History of Science
Fees Free
Speakers Sorin Bangu (Bergen) – introduced by Jeffrey Schatz (Bergen/Yale Law School); L. Philip Ording (Sarah Lawrence); Andy Arana (Archive Henri Poincaré); Juliette Kennedy (Helsinki); Assaf Kfoury (BU); David Mumford (Brown); Michael Harris (Columbia)