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Pi: Faith in Numbers - Brows Held High (Patreon)

Published:
2017-03-31 01:24:15
Imported:
2026-06
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Three point one four one five nine two six five three five...

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Pi: Faith in Numbers - Brows Held High

Uploaded by KyleKallgrenBHH on 2017-03-31.

Comments

TalysAlankil

Great video, but I'm not sure I can agree with the final part of it—and I'm sure that's kind of cliché for me, a person with a scientific background, to go "science isn't like religion", but I'll try to explain why that is. See, you present the idea that if math relies on axioms such as 1+1 = 2, it's a little bit like faith, and to an extent, you're right. But there are two differences between accepting a system derived from axioms (which is every science ever) and having religious faith. One—the less important of the two—scientific axioms are derived from observation, or are simple definitions (there are mathematical models where 1+1≠2, like modular arithmetics, for instance). Two—the real dealbreaker—is the fact that a scientific model is only viewed as valid as long as it remains consistent with observation. If it stops being consistent…well, we get a reductio ad absurdum (apologies for the gratuitous Latin, but my math classes were in French and I have no idea what the English phrase is for this): if given a set of hypotheses, we form a contradiction, then the hypotheses must be incorrect. The model is rejected, and a new one is introduced instead. See also: general relativity and quantum mechanics being introduced when Newtonian physics proved to be inaccurate for the very large and the very small. That's my biggest issues with people comparing science and religion as two sets of "beliefs", because…religion is built on accepting some measure of contradiction. It's fine if you have that sort of faith and make the decision to accept it, but isn't comparable to a system which is essentially designed to self-destruct upon contradiction. Which isn't to say that drawing the parallel is completely invalid or pointless, but it does need to be taken with a grain of salt. (Also I kind of apologize for the wall of text, I clearly have a lot of feelings on this issue)

Jooknar
>>4486505

It wasn't science he was questioning. It's math, but more deeply, the very nature of knowledge, and that's not a question science can answer. Sure, neuroscience might one day record memory and how we store facts, but what does it ultimately mean to 'know' something? Allow me to wax philosophical. Epistomologists would define knowledge as a 'Justified, True Belief'. In that to be 'knowledge', a thing must have evidence or testimony that we accept, that it must track to reality as it is, and that we must believe that it is. Absent one or all of these criteria, and we don't quite have 'knowledge'. But that's not the whole story. Edmond Gettier muddied those waters with his famous 'Gettier Problems' that illustrated that Justified True Belief does not always entail objective knowledge. Here's one from Wikipedia: "Suppose that Smith and Jones have applied for a certain job. And suppose that Smith has strong evidence for the following conjunctive proposition: (d) Jones is the man who will get the job, and Jones has ten coins in his pocket. Smith's evidence for (d) might be that the president of the company assured him that Jones would in the end be selected, and that he, Smith, had counted the coins in Jones's pocket ten minutes ago. Proposition (d) entails: (e) The man who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket. Let us suppose that Smith sees the entailment from (d) to (e), and accepts (e) on the grounds of (d), for which he has strong evidence. In this case, Smith is clearly justified in believing that (e) is true. But imagine, further, that unknown to Smith, he himself, not Jones, will get the job. And, also, unknown to Smith, he himself has ten coins in his pocket. Proposition (e) is then true, though proposition (d), from which Smith inferred (e), is false. In our example, then, all of the following are true: (i) (e) is true, (ii) Smith believes that (e) is true, and (iii) Smith is justified in believing that (e) is true. But it is equally clear that Smith does not know that (e) is true; for (e) is true in virtue of the number of coins in Smith's pocket, while Smith does not know how many coins are in Smith's pocket, and bases his belief in (e) on a count of the coins in Jones's pocket, whom he falsely believes to be the man who will get the job." We have a false premise that counted as Justified True Belief. Knowledge of anything isn't certain, because knowledge itself isn't certain. That's part of why the scientific method has to keep checking and rechecking itself. There is a certain amount of what might be called 'faith' in taking anything we 'know' as 'certain', from math to science to theology. And I say this as a non-believer who's deeply rooted in science. I see in myself where my own certainties brush up against what others would call 'faith', and I can't entirely disagree with them.

Bardcraft

22/7 is a great movie. Love that you reviewed it and love the conclusion you came out of the movie. I love Arronofsky even if he borrowed a lot from Satoshi Kon's Perfect Blue after 22/7 (mostly Requiem for a Dream and Black Swan), but the fact he borrowed it allows other people find his work. I really love it.