On human greed



  • You're not making much sense.

    @Joeyg said:

    Here is one answer, for the curious.

    A typical "All Science Is Wrong And I Am Right" website, only a small step up from TimeCube.

     @Joeyg said:

    I'm a mathematician
     

    Heh.



  • @Joeyg said:

    (And "a math" is meaningless.)
    Not if you're talking about Anathem :)



  • Did you read the site at all before you made that pronouncement? - he says nothing of "all science", only the science that we know full well is wrong. He explains a lot of known results that don't have a proper explanation and unifies a lot of things that look similar but supposedly aren't.

    And he never says he is right.

    Edit: @your scoffing at "I'm a mathematician". You're right, I'm not a mathematician by any reasonable definition ("math major" would be correct but is difficult for me to say correctly). I use "I'm a mathematician" as a reflexive response to people assuming I'm an physicist, IT guy, science wonk, mechanic or any of the other things that all smart people can do, by nature.

    Apologies to any actual mathematicians here.



  • @Joeyg said:

    You can create the natural numbers from observing reality, no problem - and then the rational numbers, by replacing "one" with "one fifth" or "one tenth" or whatever.

    But how are the real numbers, or the complex numbers, connected to reality, except by coincidence? (Here is one answer, for the curious.) You need an answer to that before we can talk about sine waves or cosine waves in a pure non-mathematical sense, because those functions produce an infinity of irrational numbers.

    I'm a mathematician, not a physicist. Physics delights me, but I maintain there is a huge rift between the math, which is always correct, and reality, which is merely described by math, to an astonishing degree.

    I wouldn't dare call myself a mathematician - although bizarrely, I have an Erdos number (even if it is nearly into three digits) - but I'll take a stab at answering because this isn't a maths or physics question, or even a philosophical one. It's sociology-cum-history-cum-anthropology.

    Your question, restated, appears to be about why, of all the possible internally consistent mathematical/logical structures, the one we use bears a deep relation to reality. The answer is very simple: it is an accurate description of physical laws, and so the logical consequences must also - if the logic is true - be true for the same physical laws that were being described. When Euclid was drawing lines in the sand, he was modelling reality. If his model hadn't been accurate, it would have been discarded. We only have concepts like complex numbers as logical developments of mathematical ideas that are clearly rooted in reality.



  • @dhromed said:

    TimeCube
     

    This would be some major funny shit if it didn't culminate in blatant racism. Designwise, I love how at the end of about 89 pages worth of huge font (he clearly aims at the visually impaired) the site says: "next page". I clicked it to see if it said "haha, just kidding" but sadly, no.

    I remember in college, we invited some Belgian inventor/scientist who had invented a perpetuum mobile, and offered 100.000 for anyone who could prove his perpetuum mobile wouldn't work. We had some great discussions (it's not that easy to convince acertified lunatic, apparently) and then it turned out that if he would ever be convinced, the 100.000 would not be paid as money, but as paintings. His own, obviously.



  • I think my guy uses "synergetics".

    I swear, his stuff makes sense, but he seems to go well out of his way to look like a crank.



  • @b-redeker said:

    I remember in college, we invited some Belgian inventor/scientist who had invented a perpetuum mobile, and offered 100.000 for anyone who could prove his perpetuum mobile wouldn't work. We had some great discussions (it's not that easy to convince a certified lunatic, apparently) and then it turned out that if he would ever be convinced, the 100.000 would not be paid as money, but as paintings. His own, obviously.

     

    Me, and a few buddies, whenever we are drunk and nostalgic, try to come up with different models of perpetuum mobiles. Our first tries equalled the stuff wikipedia lists as ca. 1900, but thank to mobile internet we spend a few nights on physics websites checking equations. This was also the moment where I realized that I would never ever study physics :D Nowadays our focus shifted a bit to computer science, seeing how we all are making our way to bachelors, but hey, fun times.


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