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I go to abstractions because I'm a product of the enlightenment - I believe that the universe is governed by mathematics and reason, and the best way to underst

I go to abstractions because I'm a product of the enlightenment - I believe that the universe is governed by mathematics and reason, and the best way to understand it is to use those tools. I realize this does make me a bit of a weirdo in our post-enlightenment world. Using emotions instead of reason suffers all sorts of problems. The most easily characterized, and shocking to the mainstream, are things like empathy being racist and sexist. But there are deeper problems - emotions are often just plain inconsistent. We will feel different things depending on the framing of a situation, our own mood, relative status of other people involved in the situation, etc. This also makes "cheating" easier. The core problem with empathy is simply that it's an appeal to emotional decisions over reason.

dkarapetyan 12y ago
It doesn't make you a weirdo but you are throwing away the baby with the bathwater. I can't tell you how many times I've looked at a proof or a solution to a problem and thought to myself that it just feels wrong and ugly and that there should be a more elegant approach. And sure enough after a bit of digging and thinking there is a better and more elegant approach. That feeling of ugliness is not formal or logical in any way. It is a visceral and emotional reaction and there is no specific set of formal reasons I can point to that gives rise to it. The history of science and mathematics is full of examples of such emotional insights so seems to me your theory of "enlightenment" is incomplete.
- yummyfajitas 12y ago
  One shouldn't ignore intuition, empathy, or a gut feeling. It's a useful signal. But that's all it is. There are true results that go against emotion, intuition, and just feel wrong. In math, Banach Tarski is a perfect example. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banach%E2%80%93Tarski_paradox http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banach%E2%80%93Tarski_paradox If you want to use empathy as a hint to keep digging for a better solution, be my guest. I just object to using empathy as a basis for morality. Similarly, mathematical intuition isn't a substitute for a proof.

dkarapetyan 12y ago

It doesn't make you a weirdo but you are throwing away the baby with the bathwater. I can't tell you how many times I've looked at a proof or a solution to a problem and thought to myself that it just feels wrong and ugly and that there should be a more elegant approach. And sure enough after a bit of digging and thinking there is a better and more elegant approach. That feeling of ugliness is not formal or logical in any way. It is a visceral and emotional reaction and there is no specific set of formal reasons I can point to that gives rise to it. The history of science and mathematics is full of examples of such emotional insights so seems to me your theory of "enlightenment" is incomplete.

yummyfajitas 12y ago
One shouldn't ignore intuition, empathy, or a gut feeling. It's a useful signal. But that's all it is. There are true results that go against emotion, intuition, and just feel wrong. In math, Banach Tarski is a perfect example. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banach%E2%80%93Tarski_paradox http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banach%E2%80%93Tarski_paradox If you want to use empathy as a hint to keep digging for a better solution, be my guest. I just object to using empathy as a basis for morality. Similarly, mathematical intuition isn't a substitute for a proof.