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To Live Your Best Life, Do Mathematics

quantamagazine.org

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Re: To Live Your Best Life, Do Mathematics

#211

Post by sametmax »

tremon wrote: post #205
sametmax wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is part of the curriculum in France. The problem I got with philosophy is that it's supposed to be applied knowledge. But it's always consumed as an intellectual one. As a result, the smartest philosophy lovers that I know are incredibly unhappy. They know so many things. But knowing something doesn't mean you are able to do anything about it. Some becomes cynical. Other become depressed. Other procrastinate to he…

The problem I got with philosophy is that it's supposed to be applied knowledge. Can you elaborate on that? On why it's supposed to be applied knowledge I mean? To me philosophy is one of the most abstract forms of thought available, and to me abstract is the antithesis of "applied". Maybe the furthest I would go is to state that philosophy is knowledge applied recursively on itself. But that already seems an abstrac…

Because eventually, you can always go deeper and more abstract. The more you do philosophy, the less you get answers, the more you get questions, and they become less and less practical. At best it becomes absurd or pointless, at worst it becomes depressing.

However, if you use your knowledge of philosophy to actually do something in your life instead of trying to think your way into the abyss of infinite dissection, it becomes a powerful tool.

This is the main difference between very old philosophers (Seneca, Gautama, Epicurus...) and more recent ones (Kant, Sartre, Schopenhauer...). The first ones try actively to make something out of their thinking. They derive a way of life out of it. The second ones try to understand more deeply, categorize more things, raise more difficult questions.

In the end, by reading the active ones, you can feel the joy, the sense of purpose and solutions arising. If you read the other ones, you can almost picture them trying to kill themself.

Re: To Live Your Best Life, Do Mathematics

#212

Post by shoover »

spynxic wrote: post #146
110011 wrote: post #63

As a counterpoint to the overly exuberant article let me chime in as a graduating theoretical computer scientist. Math is hard and despite its beauty and allure academic life doesn't take place in a vacuum- ergo there's a lot of politics and pettiness from your peers. You should expect to invest years of your life into making progress on some hard problem with little encouragement in the meantime, this takes a tremen…

> To compensate for this horrible feedback mechanism you need to basically play the popularity game Feedback needn't be a necessity in a work. Assessments and criticism will come if the work is essential, perhaps many years in the future.

How many people can live like that in any practical sense? Everything I've ever read about motivation, learning, flow, and mastery holds quick and direct feedback as the most central necessity. Applied to software development, hence we prefer fast compilers over slow, unit tests over integration, working on a desktop over an SSH connection halfway around the world, frequent releases, etc.

Re: To Live Your Best Life, Do Mathematics

#213

Post by MichaelMoser123 »

nocoder wrote: post #179
Balgair wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, Elsevier is far from a journal mill designed to H-index hack your way up the credential ladder. They are scum, yes, but they are at least truthful.

Maybe if Elsevier was open source & easily accessible more people would read it. I have tried reading many journal papers as a layman but in most cases got blocked by a pay wall. I dont like to rely on newspaper headline but like to go the source and because of paywall I get thwarted.

sci-hub should be your friend.

Re: To Live Your Best Life, Do Mathematics

#214

Post by conjectures »

fmoralesc wrote: post #202
nabla9 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Real philosophy can't be limited to some set of tools or into some set of books and approaches that fits into curriculum. Philosophy is completely open ended pursuit. I firmly believe that philosophy without mathematically oriented thinking at the core is limiting. Teaching and studying of formal logic has been traditionally part of philosophy. In practice there is no real border between philosophy and formal science…

I think you are misunderstanding Kant. In PTAFM 13, Kant is arguing that neither space nor time are intrinsic properties of things in themselves, and basically making the point that properties like position and congruence are relational, not intrinsic. Spatial relations fit with the intuition of space, which is the form of external experience (and one should think of this as the abstract form of any space whatsoever…

This highlights why math generally trumps philosophy. Take any math that is similarly well known to Kant. You don't get two educated people having diverging opinions on a solution if they start with the same assumptions. Usually someone concedes; e.g. because the other side shows that the losing position implies something that everyone accepts is impossible.

In philosophy you get this all the time because people refuse to agree on definitions like truth, consciousness, goodness, evidence etc. So debates generally involve people talking past each other until someone gets bored. If we're lucky spectators will judge by popular acclamation which side won or lost. Participants rarely concede their position.

Re: To Live Your Best Life, Do Mathematics

#215

Post by sixdisk »

sametmax wrote: post #186
ianai wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could likely be linking an association with a trend. Maybe society treats people who have the personality requisite to study mathematics poorly. Thus, over time, both the individual and society 'negatively associate'. That was my experience, anyway, and I know it has been a historical trend. Some of the best mathematicians were bullied by their cultures, isolated, and thus had plenty of time to work on mathematic…

Absolutely, it's rarely one way. But I've been a young nerd with nerd friends, then working with nerds. By some twisted fate, life forced me to improve my people skill a lot. It was painful, I didn't ask for it, but now I'm glad it happened. Now I still have a big nerd entourage, because I like to be surrounded by people smarter than me. But I can't help but notice all the things they do that drive others away. Thing…

These traits you describe, you say they are a side effect of good reasoning skills. I agree that people who think more methodically are more susceptible to these traits, however, I think they are actually characteristic of a certain immaturity in one's reasoning abilities.

To ask : "Why would anyone not do what's best if they know it is?", and to have no clue of an answer, would imply a lack of reasoning ability, rather than a surplus of it. Likewise for the other questions you suggest.

I think this way of thinking is very natural to a young mind who finds the world overly complicated and is attracted to the logical nature of subjects like maths. It is a sort of escape, to mentally write off everything that is not clean and simple as "illogical".

Clinging to that world view for long time would require serious cognitive dissonance though. It is a crutch that those with a 'problem solving' mindset hopefully use for a while before seeing things with a more subtlety.

I don't claim to know what reasoning maturity looks like, but I believe embracing your humanity and own fallibility, and understanding the motivations of others (especially those you dislike / disagree with) are not trivial elements of it.

I do feel like we are on a similar page though, since you are describing the traits of others, not your own, and you say you are happy to have developed your people skills. Still, I worry that explaining these traits away as the result of above average intellect is some sort of enabling. It's the narrative they need to stay in place so they don't have to change. IQ becomes a justification for being detached and uncaring.

Re: To Live Your Best Life, Do Mathematics

#216

Post by 0x445442 »

unixhero wrote: post #196
110011 wrote: post #63

As a counterpoint to the overly exuberant article let me chime in as a graduating theoretical computer scientist. Math is hard and despite its beauty and allure academic life doesn't take place in a vacuum- ergo there's a lot of politics and pettiness from your peers. You should expect to invest years of your life into making progress on some hard problem with little encouragement in the meantime, this takes a tremen…

Maybe I skimmed the article, but my takeaway from this article was that using our abilities to think and solve mathematical problems helps us to live a life of more intellectual resilience. In my view, this wasn't about doing mathematics as an academic career, climbing up the ivory tower, publish or perish, and all that. Edit: I tend to agree. My intellectual capacity was far improved only after doing first year Engi…

Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering with minors in Math and Physics here...

While I can probably count on one hand the times I've used what I learned in the "real" world, I can say I really value my education.

I believe the real value of a math based curriculum or even something like philosophy with an emphasis in logic is that it teaches one how to think in a reasoned, dispassionate and rational way.

Re: To Live Your Best Life, Do Mathematics

#217

Post by Balgair »

doejon wrote: post #194
Balgair wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chiming in from Bio: Yep, this is true here too. I can't find the citations right now, but there was a recent study done through Elsiver's website. The group got a hold of the servers for Elsiver and took a look at page views. They wanted to know what the rates of papers being read was. It was... disheartening. They found that ~46% (again, not sure here as I can't find the source) of papers will never be looked at ou…

Is there a way ppl is reading papers using sci-hub nowadays instead of accessing the official pages (especially students I'd assume)? :)

My own experience: When I have been on a University campus' wifi and needed to look at a paper, I could download and see the entire article, not just the abstracts. This has been true for all of the limited number of times I have tried this. I have also done the same at some, but not all, conferences; typically the very large ones only. I would then doubt that the numbers are being skewed towards the scihub and other 'rebellious' forms of paper acquisition. However, this is only my experience.

Re: To Live Your Best Life, Do Mathematics

#218

Post by Balgair »

MichaelMoser123 wrote: post #213
nocoder wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe if Elsevier was open source & easily accessible more people would read it. I have tried reading many journal papers as a layman but in most cases got blocked by a pay wall. I dont like to rely on newspaper headline but like to go the source and because of paywall I get thwarted.

sci-hub should be your friend.

In addition, you can just email the authors too. Most, if not all, are very happy to send you a copy and help explain things too. Most scientists do want to talk about their work!

Re: To Live Your Best Life, Do Mathematics

#219

Post by Balgair »

fsloth wrote: post #180
Balgair wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chiming in from Bio: Yep, this is true here too. I can't find the citations right now, but there was a recent study done through Elsiver's website. The group got a hold of the servers for Elsiver and took a look at page views. They wanted to know what the rates of papers being read was. It was... disheartening. They found that ~46% (again, not sure here as I can't find the source) of papers will never be looked at ou…

Isn't that plausibly the result of publish or perish? I would imagine it would lead to people publish at the cadence of their typing rate (to be cruel), not at the rate which they can generate good ideas. Higgs said he could have not been able to operate in todays academia. Not everyone needs to have John von Neumann performance levels to do valuable work.

Yes, but to have ~half of the papers not ever be at least page-loaded? If that is what PoP has done to us, then we are really lost!

Re: To Live Your Best Life, Do Mathematics

#220

Post by fsloth »

Balgair wrote: post #219
fsloth wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that plausibly the result of publish or perish? I would imagine it would lead to people publish at the cadence of their typing rate (to be cruel), not at the rate which they can generate good ideas. Higgs said he could have not been able to operate in todays academia. Not everyone needs to have John von Neumann performance levels to do valuable work.

Yes, but to have ~half of the papers not ever be at least page-loaded? If that is what PoP has done to us, then we are really lost!

Perhaps people skim through the abstract in a way that does not register as a page-load?
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