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I think falling for the Science as religion trap is a bad choice in the long run. Why not Math as a religion, dumb down complex problems, if it's wrong for the

I think falling for the Science as religion trap is a bad choice in the long run. Why not Math as a religion, dumb down complex problems, if it's wrong for the common Joe, it's okay cause he wouldn't understand it anyway.. not a good strategy.. I think if Science has a knowledge management problem, that should be addressed rather than dumbing down of things for public consumption.

bloaf 6y ago
Do you have an example of a mainstream presentation of a complicated math discovery that doesn't dumb down the complex problem? I will point out that math discoveries don't have quite the same kinds of asterisks as the physical sciences.
paganel 6y ago
> Why not Math as a religion Math is indeed a religion deep down, at least according to people like Hume, you have to "believe" in things like induction, you have to "believe" that natural numbers "don't end at some point" (for lack of a better word) or that two parallel lines don't finally meet, because who's there to watch them till the end of the world to say that they don't in fact meet? (Hume writes it down way better than I could ever do).
- bollu 6y ago
  That's not how it works, though. We can study any set of axioms we want. Mathematics often study "multiple incompatible worlds". For example, euclidean space where parallel lines never meet, and projective space, where parallel lines do meet at infinity. This is a general theme of math; we can study different sets of "beliefs" when we don't know which one is the "correct belief". Thus, we come out on top, since we know what happens in all possible worlds.
  - paganel 6y ago
    > what happens in all possible worlds. Talking about "all possible worlds" is religious-talk (at least that's what Hume would say), afaik we only know of one world, talking about the "possibility" of other worlds is what established/institutional religions do.
    - mkl 6y ago
      Not literal worlds, mathematical possibilities. Analysis like "If XYZ is true, then [conclusion 1], but if XYZ is false, then [conclusion 2]". It's not religion, it's logic and mathematics, and we absolutely can look at all possibilities in many circumstances.

bloaf 6y ago

Do you have an example of a mainstream presentation of a complicated math discovery that doesn't dumb down the complex problem? I will point out that math discoveries don't have quite the same kinds of asterisks as the physical sciences.

paganel 6y ago

> Why not Math as a religion Math is indeed a religion deep down, at least according to people like Hume, you have to "believe" in things like induction, you have to "believe" that natural numbers "don't end at some point" (for lack of a better word) or that two parallel lines don't finally meet, because who's there to watch them till the end of the world to say that they don't in fact meet? (Hume writes it down way better than I could ever do).

bollu 6y ago
That's not how it works, though. We can study any set of axioms we want. Mathematics often study "multiple incompatible worlds". For example, euclidean space where parallel lines never meet, and projective space, where parallel lines do meet at infinity. This is a general theme of math; we can study different sets of "beliefs" when we don't know which one is the "correct belief". Thus, we come out on top, since we know what happens in all possible worlds.
- paganel 6y ago
  > what happens in all possible worlds. Talking about "all possible worlds" is religious-talk (at least that's what Hume would say), afaik we only know of one world, talking about the "possibility" of other worlds is what established/institutional religions do.
  - mkl 6y ago
    Not literal worlds, mathematical possibilities. Analysis like "If XYZ is true, then [conclusion 1], but if XYZ is false, then [conclusion 2]". It's not religion, it's logic and mathematics, and we absolutely can look at all possibilities in many circumstances.