131–140 of 153 posts
I don't know Chinese, but I don't like the explanation in English at the side. I think that both diagrams are part of the same proof, not two independent proofs. I agree with the first comment by Martin Cohen http://disq.us/p/1h6y5qx > The way I read it is that the first diagram says that(a+b)^2 = 4(ab/2)+c^2 and the second says that c^2 = 4(ab/2)+(a-b)^2. Both of these simplify to c^2 = a^2+b^2. I only have a small…
From what I understand, the Chinese had often recorded many facts about nature and mathematics very early and accurately. However they never really created much laws. Laws of nature was a western invention. E.g. they observed accurately planetary movements, but never attempted to formulate the laws governing those movements. That sort of thinking was crucial for scientific thinking.
I'm sure you probably didn't mean to be racist, but this is a pretty racist comment. Not only that, but you are tacitly implying that our civilization is superior to all these past civilizations. It's been well documented what these ancients were able to do, specifically the Egyptians. Are you saying they were just simply looking at effects without trying to understand causes (just little playful kids)? are you sayin…
Christopher Columbus, was a westerner and went to America. That is just stating a fact of something that happened. That doesn't imply that if Christopher Columbus had black skin it would have been an impossible feat for him to accomplish. Isaac Newton would not have been prevented from inventing calculus if he had slanted eyes.
"Are you saying they were just simply looking at effects without trying to understand causes" As a matter of fact, yes. Chinese astronomer e.g. as far as I know, recorded lots of details about the movements of celestial bodies, but never attempted to device laws governing these movements. The greeks did with their Ptolemaic world view even if they were screwed up. It gave a starting point for Copernicus and Kepler to improve on.
"are you saying their thinking wasn't scientific" Yes, I am. There is no racist undertone there, as much as you like to hunt for it. This was a product of the society and traditions they lived in, not their skin color, slant of eyes or whatever you might want to make a big deal about.
"This of the people who brought us writing and mathematics" Should get your facts straight before you try to belittle me. Mathematics isn't simply numerals. You can do mathematics just fine without indian/arabic numerals. More important for science, it was the greeks who made the first formal mathematical proofs.
And who do you presume are these people who "gave" us writing? Are you assuming writing came to Europe from India, China, Egypt or something?
From what I understand, the Chinese had often recorded many facts about nature and mathematics very early and accurately. However they never really created much laws. Laws of nature was a western invention. E.g. they observed accurately planetary movements, but never attempted to formulate the laws governing those movements. That sort of thinking was crucial for scientific thinking.
This is an interesting idea, even if it does play into the "exotic Oriental thinking" meme. I've seen this line of thinking usually attached with rubbish like "The Westerner wants to control the world, the Eastener only wants to explain it." However I think that first making observations and then the crucial step of extrapolating and making predictions based on those is as good as any formally named 'law'.
Extrapolation isn't that easy to do with e.g. astronomy. Orbits don't go in straight predictable lines. They are ellipses where the speed will vary depending on where you are in the orbit. Kepler found that the are covered per time unit was constant, thus implying that when the orbits were closer to the sun they would speed up.
I guess you could say extrapolation was what Kepler tried to do but it took him a lot of work to figure it out. The Chinese while very advance in many respect did not try doing that. What I've read is that they did not have the Judeo-Christian belief that the mind of God could be learned. The laws governing the motions of the heavens was assume inscrutable to the human mind.
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Feyerabend's Against Method goes further: examining crucial discoveries in science reveals no pattern which could be called a scientific method. Everyone sort of freestyles it or does what works. I think modern western science discounts other sources of knowledge, because it is not just a platonic ideal but a sort of politics of the scientists, which they need to justify the choices they make.
This is waffle. 'Western Science' is an abstraction. The 'official position of Western Science' is not an accredited publication as far as I know. More to the point, if you have criticisms of individual scientists (the ones who contribute to science [ i.e., people all nationalities and places on Earth) ] who 'discount other sources of knowledge' please be specific. They may or may not have a point. We can't know unle…
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I agree with the non zero-sum point, however... China is facing a demographic catastrophe. Strongly disagree. The view on the ground in China is great. Almost everyone has their material needs exceeded, many sectors of infrastructure are second to none, education and internationalization of tastes is increasing, and the society is generally very safe. E-vehicles and e-commerce are everywhere. Rent a bicycle for nothi…
>China is facing a demographic catastrophe. you didn't refute that. you just said "life on the ground today is good." That's why its called a cliff. Things are pretty good right up to the moment you fall off. >FYI: minimum wage in most Chinese cities for an unskilled foreigner with any kind of get up and go is 200CNY/hr But that's not the same thing as minimum wage. Many many Chinese people earn less than that. When…
Obviously not everyone earns the same, then again local people tend to have more money than even wealthy foreigners at the high end, and at the low end at least tend to benefit from free housing, familial support networks, and do not have to fund international travel to maintain ties to home.
Furthermore, downvoting because you don't agree with someone is considered bad form.
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Big Pharm and meat-based diet do a lot more harm to the entire biosphere and individuals than Ayurvedic medicine and yoga. Don't even get me started. I don't know much about Eastern medicine outside of India to be honest. One exception: Chinese people buy tiger bone Viagra, elephant tusk art, rhino horn something, and shark fin soup. I was born Hindu but became closer to Buddhist as I learned more about the scientifi…
Modern medicine, big Pharma and meat based diets are orthogonal to each other. Modern medicine has saved hundreds of millions of lives, while alternative medicine is leading people astray and ruining lives every day. Sorry for the harsh words, but I've seen the damage, and I am tired of how alternative medicine is handled with silk gloves and shown infinite respect, in the name of being open minded.
B, the original comment was focused on taking what works from both and leaving the rest behind. You're making the same mistake as a billion other people...clinging to the paradigm you are currently in thinking there is nothing beyond it.
C, I'm tired of people thinking they are smart because they used the word 'orthogonal' and say things like 'sorry for the harsh words bro', which doesn't apply in this context and this is a pretty typical reddit/HN thread. Do you have any original insights into any of this or are you just gonna drop more vocab words and 'harsh words'?
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Last I checked homeopathy was western. i think your bias towards eastern medicine would be better founded if you were to say faith healing rather than eastern. Within eastern medicine one also finds people who used early forms of experimentation to derive working cures. Examples of working medical cures include boswellia used to treat bursitis, artemisin used to treat malaria. Also both Chinese and Indians had develo…
You are trivializing the significant difference modern western science based medicine and earlier medicine. Of course people could come up with all sorts of practical solutions to various ailments and conditions through trial, error and observations. That however does not make it scientific. There is no scientific theory in you Chinese and Indian examples on which to make predictions and explanations. One example wou…
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I'm sure you probably didn't mean to be racist, but this is a pretty racist comment. Not only that, but you are tacitly implying that our civilization is superior to all these past civilizations. It's been well documented what these ancients were able to do, specifically the Egyptians. Are you saying they were just simply looking at effects without trying to understand causes (just little playful kids)? are you sayin…
Pointing out that western civilization did something isn't the same as claiming only people of western decent is capable of doing something. Christopher Columbus, was a westerner and went to America. That is just stating a fact of something that happened. That doesn't imply that if Christopher Columbus had black skin it would have been an impossible feat for him to accomplish. Isaac Newton would not have been prevent…
From what I understand, the Chinese had often recorded many facts about nature and mathematics very early and accurately. However they never really created much laws. Laws of nature was a western invention. E.g. they observed accurately planetary movements, but never attempted to formulate the laws governing those movements. That sort of thinking was crucial for scientific thinking.
Maybe true. The emphasis was on calculations. For example, there was a heliocentric model in India [1], which was too complicated to come from a "simple" mechanical model, but was quite accurate. But I think we should not be too eager to jump on to "science is only from laws" bandwagon. Courses on the philosophy of science take this dogma to absurd extremes, ignoring how current science is often done. There is enough…
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Feynman can counter this much better than I can, "Feynman on pseudo science" https://vimeo.com/118188988
Ancient science is not the same as pseudoscience. The problem with a lot of the ancient sources is the lack of proofs. What I am arguing is that lack of proofs in ancient mathematical texts doesn't mean that it is all bunkum, and the authors did not know what they were talking about. I am not talking cultural relativism or "social science is a science" relativism. Again, another example: Euler is the father of modern…