The number of people having jobs is record low in this picture
this post was submitted on 27 Aug 2024
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Science Memes
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Because they are students? Both are high demand professions, I don't get it.
Calling a made up construct "the absolute truth" is hilarious
The way I see it, axioms and notation are made up but everything that follows is absolute truth
Iβd say if your axioms donβt hold you wouldnβt go far in your quest for truth.
The thing that is absolute is a predicate of the form "if [axioms] then [theorems]".
And the fun thing about if statements is that they can be true even when the premise is false.
Of course in boolean algebra "if [false] then p" is always true no matter "p", but itβs not telling us much.
That's not a gotcha. It's basically just the definition of an axiom.
The test to know if anything is an absolute truth is if it is called an absolute truth. If it is called an absolute truth, then it isn't an absolute truth. If it isn't called an absolute truth, then it isn't an absolute truth. Absolute truths don't exist. If someone tells you something is an absolute truth, stop listening to them.
I was about to say "incompleteness theorem"!
That's computer science alongside with Church/Turing. Maths could have tried to claim it but they doubled down on formalism so they don't deserve it.
That said though incompleteness follows from nothing but logical implication itself so it's more fundamental than physics (try to imagine a physics without cause and effect that doesn't get you cancelled because Boltzmann) and philosophy (find me a philosopher who wasn't asleep during their logic lectures).
Yeah, I meant to say that the incompleteness theorem proves that math cannot be perfectly pure and fundamental. I don't exactly care which field claims it, because I don't like to encourage artificial boundaries between disciplines. It's nice to use information theory results in physics :)
The other way around: As long as you accept that cause and effect are a thing, you must accept that there are things that are, fundamentally, uncomputable. And as our universe very much does seem to have cause and effect that's a physical law, likewise is complexity theory. Differently put: God can't sort a list with fewer than O(n log n) comparisons.
Math is a tool!
Therefore mathematicians are tools? QED or whatever
They are tool specialist by career. As for themselves, that is an individual assessment.
You guys believe in objective reality?
Not as something we have access to but yeah!
Theory without application is useless, isn't it?
BURN THE HERETIC!
But seriously though, yes, but useless isn't the same as pointless. Art by some definitions is useless, but it can still have a point, even if that point it just to be fun.
I agree. I'm pretty sure a bunch of stuff that Euler did was considered useless until it actually was used hundreds of years later. I'm pretty sure topology had a lot of people wondering what the hell to use it for until it was rediscovered multiple times.
In social science, theory requires application. Otherwise, it's just a cool story, bro.
Theory without application is often the entire point in certain academic circles and if someone comes along and finds a practical use for their mathematically based philosophical musings they delve deeper looking for the pureness
Until is has a use, technically, it is useless.
If someone needs another existental crisis here's a prompt:
- Is math universal or is it a system of thought invented by humans and it only makes sense to us?
How we express math is particular to us, though it'd be commonly decipherable. Math is more and more globally standardized as more of it gets globally acknowledged as "the most useful" way to do math. E.g. place holder 0 vs Roman Numerals. Ratios are conceptually universal to any species that bothers measuring. Quantification maybe less so. Especially if their comprehension of advanced sciences/engineering is somehow intuitive instead of formally calculated.
If a space faring species has a concept of proportions/ratios, but not individual identity of numbers, presenting Meters as a portion of the speed of light might be a universal way discern the rest of our math. Water as Liters might be more accessible, depending on how they think of water.
Sets and Axioms are purely conceptually representative and so viable as long as they're capable of symbolic abstraction at all.
Universal. How else would you calculate or solve equations?
Like our ancestors with goat entrails and a magic talking stick.
The rules are the same. Add 3 to 5 and you'll always have 8. Geometric calculations can't change how they work either. Etc.
Good thing physicists solved that problem already; if everything is made up and can only be observed through our preconceived notions and there's no way to prove a world beyond them, then it doesn't matter. The universe we can observe is reality and everything beyond that is beyond meaningful definition and is therefore useless, which is how we define "philosophy".
Math is definitely universal. The math behind things in science wouldn't suddenly change on different alien planets. Take things like V = IR. That relies on multiplication and division. It's gonna be the same on other planets. The units, notation, etc. will be different but the concepts would be the same.
I'm no STEM major, so I may be way off, but this is how I see it.
V = IR isn't math. It's a way of defining the relationship and outcome of two specific physical qualities. It says that we combine the resistance of a medium ( R) with the current flowing through it (I) into another ~~joint~~ emergent quality we call voltage (V). We do this because it makes our understanding of the physical world easier to manage since this relationship has helpful applications.
Math is simply patterns in the relationships of quantities. It excludes any physical units or qualities. In other words, math is the art of counting.
I think you're misunderstanding my point. I'm not saying the relationship of V = IR means math exists, what I'm saying is that because that relationship factually exists aliens would have a way to quantify that relationship. Because of that they would have a way to express the concepts of multiplication and division.
Historically it was also the art of making precise drawings.
Bruhβ¦ then imagine how hard a philosopherβs world would be likeβ¦
I don't understand this meme format. Are the speech bubbles the texts received or the texts sent? It looks like they're typing, so could be both.
Engineering has enter the chat: hold up...