I have been solving Rubik’s cube for 10 years. Some of the moves are impossible for human like rotating the up and down faces (or left and right faces) at the same time. For human, it would be rotating the middle and rotate the whole cube instead.
It’s not like woodworking where the errors are part of the “soul” of the piece, or like creating art, where creativity is the core of the endeavor. It’s just trying to spin stupid planes on a stupid block as quickly as possible. Before you’ve even started, you’ve failed.
I also put running into this category. What are you going to do? Run a 0:00.00 mile? What’s the point of training to run faster? At some point we’ll decide someone is the fastest “natural” human and then we’ll move onto cybernetic humans because what are we going to do? Continue to watch people not be amazing?
I’m not sure what my overall point here is except to say I feel like when it comes to mechanical capability, shooting for the “best” is just stupid and pointless. When it comes to artistic capability, sky is the limit.
If someone started looking at me do my hobby with my friends and decide I was a failure, that’s their perspective. But I think the response the kids give to that these days is “touch grass.”
I'm sorry for the snark, but your comment is extremely sad to me. It's shocking how much digital ink is spilled on HN explaining really simple human feelings to people who pretend that they don't understand them. Comments like yours are among the worst things about this place.
Why? Because the mountain is there. And it's a challenge.
Asking for a friend ...
Justifying anything by bending logic and doing mental gynmastics.
Well ., LLM already doing that. Try arguing LLMs that they are wrong on their hallucinations .
Some people do stuff just because it's fun, not to be the best of the best. If you only do something to be the best, why do anything at all?
To be the best, I'd presume.
However, you cannot beat a robot in Rubik’s cube solving and you cannot run so fast that time itself stops. So what are you doing.
You said they enjoy doing it. But I have a hard time imagining someone laboriously perfecting something (but never actually doing so) as an enjoyable activity. In fact, it sounds like hell to me.
Constantly striving towards further and further unattainable goals (even if it's just after finishing one project having a further one to do and etc. etc. etc.) is basically the most fulfilling life possible for a human. It's a major reason people are often much less depressed when they are busy with their work or studies.
According to your logic, people who are deep in their working lives should be experiencing hell, while retired people should be extremely happy. Do you actually think this is true? I mean honestly I have no idea what you think because you're all over this thread demonstrating that you have little to no grasp of basic human psychology
- The act itself is fun - Competing with others can be fun - Improving oneself in a measurable way is satisfying
Many people like doing what they are good at, and not everyone is good at art.
For example, you could solve the final layer by repeating 3 algorithms. Or you could learn about 100 algorithms for 100 permutations. At higher level, you would know that using A algorithm would be faster than B because the one next to it is easier to perform.
You could look in blind cube where you look at the cube, memorize it then solve it while blindfolded.
Solving Rubic's is enjoyable because the next time you break your own record is unpredictable. It's similar to gambling in one aspect and to playing 2048 in another: as you play more, the time between your "win"s increases, but so does your ability to focus, and push forward without success.
Before my knee decided it wanted no part of my existence, my goal was to have all my "distance"[1] times within 200% of the world record. Seemed doable with some work (had some within, some just outside, others a way off.)
[1] 800m to 100k
Kind of like chess. Humans have no chance against computers. But it doesn't mean people stopped playing chess, quite the opposite actually, and computers are put to good use for training and analysis and human chess is improving probably like never before.
You can call human cubing and chess an "art" if you will, the way you spin the cube and move the chess pieces have some "soul". From a purely utilitarian perspective, both traditional arts and activities like solving cubes are useless, so they are also similar in that regard.
I can do Rubik's Cube. I can never beat a machine or many of the other people who can do it. It does not stop me enjoying the combination of memory and muscle memory and the satisfaction of the completed cube.
There are many things for which I will never reach a global maximum, but the maximums I do reach please me.
I think it's important to note that humans still arguably do better in this case. The robot seems fast, but it cheats compared to a human. It sees all four sides at once, and the timing does not include picking up the cube or setting it down.
I will be impressed when we have a robot that can pick up a cube, look at it with two cameras from the same direction, solve it, and put it back down in under ~3 seconds (which is the record for a human). I doubt very much we are there yet.
In human cubing competitions, humans have a few seconds to look at the cube before the timer starts.