# Can HCH epistemically dominate Ramanujan?

[Srinivasa Ramanujan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srinivasa_Ramanujan) is an Indian mathematician who is famously known for solving math problems with sudden and inexplicable flashes of insight. From his Wikipedia page:

> Imagine that you are on a street with houses marked 1 through _n_. There is a house in between (_x_) such that the sum of the house numbers to the left of it equals the sum of the house numbers to its right. If _n_ is between 50 and 500, what are _n_ and _x_?' This is a bivariate problem with multiple solutions. Ramanujan thought about it and gave the answer with a twist: He gave a [continued fraction](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continued_fraction). The unusual part was that it was the solution to the whole class of problems. Mahalanobis was astounded and asked how he did it. 'It is simple. The minute I heard the problem, I knew that the answer was a continued fraction. Which continued fraction, I asked myself. Then the answer came to my mind', Ramanujan replied."[\[60\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srinivasa_Ramanujan#cite_note-60)[\[61\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srinivasa_Ramanujan#cite_note-61)

and

> ... Ramanujan's first Indian biographers describe him as a rigorously orthodox Hindu. He credited his acumen to his [family goddess](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuladevata), [Namagiri Thayar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Namagiri_Thayar) (Goddess Mahalakshmi) of [Namakkal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Namakkal). He looked to her for inspiration in his work[\[12\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srinivasa_Ramanujan#cite_note-Kanigel1991-12):36 and said he dreamed of blood drops that symbolised her consort, [Narasimha](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narasimha). Afterward he would receive visions of scrolls of complex mathematical content unfolding before his eyes.[\[12\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srinivasa_Ramanujan#cite_note-Kanigel1991-12):281 He often said, "An equation for me has no meaning unless it represents a thought of God."[\[58\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srinivasa_Ramanujan#cite_note-58)

His style of mathematical reasoning was completely novel to the mathematicians around him, and led to groundbreaking research:

> During his short life, Ramanujan independently compiled nearly 3,900 results (mostly [identities](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_(mathematics)) and [equations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equation)).[\[4\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srinivasa_Ramanujan#cite_note-4) Many were completely novel; his original and highly unconventional results, such as the [Ramanujan prime](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramanujan_prime), the [Ramanujan theta function](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramanujan_theta_function), [partition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_(number_theory)) formulae and [mock theta functions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mock_theta_function), have opened entire new areas of work and inspired a vast amount of further research.[\[5\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srinivasa_Ramanujan#cite_note-ono-5) Nearly all his claims have now been proven correct.[\[6\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srinivasa_Ramanujan#cite_note-6) _[The Ramanujan Journal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ramanujan_Journal)_, a [peer-reviewed](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer-reviewed) [scientific journal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_journal), was established to publish work in all areas of mathematics influenced by Ramanujan,[\[7\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srinivasa_Ramanujan#cite_note-7)and his notebooks—containing summaries of his published and unpublished results—have been analyzed and studied for decades since his death as a source of new mathematical ideas. As late as 2011 and again in 2012, researchers continued to discover that mere comments in his writings about "simple properties" and "similar outputs" for certain findings were themselves profound and subtle number theory results that remained unsuspected until nearly a century after his death.[\[8\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srinivasa_Ramanujan#cite_note-ono_simpleproperties-8)[\[9\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srinivasa_Ramanujan#cite_note-ono_mock-9) He became one of the youngest [Fellows of the Royal Society](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fellow_of_the_Royal_Society) and only the second Indian member, and the first Indian to be elected a [Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_College,_Cambridge#Notable_fellows_and_alumni). Of his original letters, Hardy stated that a single look was enough to show they could only have been written by a mathematician of the highest calibre, comparing Ramanujan to other mathematical geniuses such as [Euler](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euler) and [Jacobi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Gustav_Jacob_Jacobi).

If [HCH is ascription universal](https://ai-alignment.com/universality-and-consequentialism-within-hch-c0bee00365bd), then it should be able to [epistemically dominate](https://ai-alignment.com/towards-formalizing-universality-409ab893a456) an AI theorem-prover that reasons similarly to how Ramanujan reasoned. But I don't currently have any intuitions as to why explicit verbal breakdowns of reasoning should be able to replicate the intuitions that generated Ramanujan's results (or any style of reasoning employed by any mathematician since Ramanujan, for that matter).

I do think explicit verbal breakdowns of reasoning are adequate for verifying the validity of Ramanujan's results. At the very least, mathematicians since Ramanujan have been able to verify a majority of his claims.

But, as far as I'm aware, there has not been a single mathematician with Ramanujan's style of reasoning since Ramanujan himself. This makes me skeptical that explicit verbal breakdowns of reasoning would be able to replicate the intuitions that generated Ramanujan's results, which I understand (perhaps erroneously) to be a necessary prerequisite for HCH to be ascription universal.