Why do we believe in math?

[Savy]

You see? It's tricky to answer. Ultimately, if you keep asking why anyone believes anything, eventually that well dries up... so to speak.

So don't believe in shit until it lets you get an edge in life? If you ask me (no one ever does understandably) what my thoughts are on things like the big bang etc I come to the conclusion that they probably aren't right they are just much more right than everything else. Lots of very ITK scientists have problems with the big bang, or pick from a list of other long theories, yet that doesn't mean you can believe in any old shit to begin with.

It's very important to remember that the scientific community is their own little group of self jerking off wankers too. Not just religion. Anyone who spends their whole life on something and is shown to be wrong is going to be pretty cunty it just so happens that science has a way of moving forward to more correct* answers, religion, spirits, don't.

It also isn't an excuse to reject all the other really good stuff because ohh that's science therefore all science must not be true.

*More correct as in more usable for society not necessarily objective truth that's a whole other ball game.

[MadMojoMonkey]

So don't believe in shit until it lets you get an edge in life?

I said nothing of the sort. I'm not telling anyone what to believe. I'm looking at the struggle to understand belief, and it's importance to humans.

If you ask me (no one ever does understandably) what my thoughts are on things like the big bang etc I come to the conclusion that they probably aren't right they are just much more right than everything else. Lots of very ITK scientists have problems with the big bang, or pick from a list of other long theories, yet that doesn't mean you can believe in any old shit to begin with.

Science doesn't make "facts" in the way that math does. Having problems with scientific theories is a core aspect of being a scientist. We're comfortable with some ideas and not at all comfortable with others... and we don't overlap one to another. ALL of our models are incomplete. It's just a matter of how deeply you dig past what "seems reasonable" to get to things that truly aren't well explained.

@ bold: You can definitely believe any old shit to begin, in the middle, and to end with. People are idiots. Self included. We believe all kinds of bone-headed things. Belief is murky, and inconsistency in a belief system is often not a fatal error.

It's very important to remember that the scientific community is their own little group of self jerking off wankers too. Not just religion. Anyone who spends their whole life on something and is shown to be wrong is going to be pretty cunty it just so happens that science has a way of moving forward to more correct* answers, religion, spirits, don't.

It also isn't an excuse to reject all the other really good stuff because ohh that's science therefore all science must not be true.

*More correct as in more usable for society not necessarily objective truth that's a whole other ball game.

Yeah. Point? Scientists hang out together because they agree about the utility of scientific method. They further clump into groups of chemists and physicists and engineers, etc. Then further clump into specializations, some of which can span an entire campus's science efforts. This certainly established a group-think tendency, and to a large extent, that's the goal. Sometimes it's detrimental to creative solutions, though.

[Savy]

I said nothing of the sort. I'm not telling anyone what to believe. I'm looking at the struggle to understand belief, and it's importance to humans.


Science doesn't make "facts" in the way that math does. Having problems with scientific theories is a core aspect of being a scientist. We're comfortable with some ideas and not at all comfortable with others... and we don't overlap one to another. ALL of our models are incomplete. It's just a matter of how deeply you dig past what "seems reasonable" to get to things that truly aren't well explained.

@ bold: You can definitely believe any old shit to begin, in the middle, and to end with. People are idiots. Self included. We believe all kinds of bone-headed things. Belief is murky, and inconsistency in a belief system is often not a fatal error.


Yeah. Point? Scientists hang out together because they agree about the utility of scientific method. They further clump into groups of chemists and physicists and engineers, etc. Then further clump into specializations, some of which can span an entire campus's science efforts. This certainly established a group-think tendency, and to a large extent, that's the goal. Sometimes it's detrimental to creative solutions, though.

Sorry none of my post was intended to disagree with things you said. I expected you to agree with everything I said to a fairly strong degree and you did. It was more just pointing things out that maybe aren't clear to others.

The don't believe in shit until it gives you an edge is actually something I believe in and am pushing. I don't think it's correct/true just a good exploitative measure to take in life. Pretty open to interpretation though I suppose.

I'd think you, of all people, would see the humor in me using that trite abbreviation used by kids and idiots in pointing out something ridiculously arbitrary.

More so just bad editing on my part, I'd made a funny post (or so I thought, it wasn't) using QED and the such. Still a point worth making (i.e. your post still doesn't make sense due to English) but ye my bad. It comes across more so dickish than I had planned.

Strangely enough you might have been in the few that did find it funny. I juts didn't want to have to explain and have poophead attacking me. #LIBERALCENSORSHIP

[wufwugy]

science has a way of moving forward to more correct* answers, religion, spirits, don't.

They both move forward in the sense you provide, as well as they occupy mostly different space. Fundamentalism has made a big mistake, in my estimation, by treating religious ideas as scientifically viable. They're not and they never really have been. Religious ideas have never really been about the physical world but about the metaphysical world. They attempt to describe the unknown, at least as far as it interacts with human experience. Science has made less stuff unknown, but it has no answer for other stuff. Even if we think that religious things are human phenomena, human phenomena are derivative of physical phenomena, which can mean that there is something else to them other than which is understood using just raw material, so to speak.

I don't really know. The point I just want to make is that the two ideas occupy different space as far as I can tell. That doesn't mean one has the right ideas, but it does mean it's folly to use one to nullify the other.

[Savy]

They both move forward in the sense you provide, as well as they occupy mostly different space. Fundamentalism has made a big mistake, in my estimation, by treating religious ideas as scientifically viable. They're not and they never really have been. Religious ideas have never really been about the physical world but about the metaphysical world. They attempt to describe the unknown, at least as far as it interacts with human experience. Science has made less stuff unknown, but it has no answer for other stuff. Even if we think that religious things are human phenomena, human phenomena are derivative of physical phenomena, which can mean that there is something else to them other than which is understood using just raw material, so to speak.

I don't really know. The point I just want to make is that the two ideas occupy different space as far as I can tell. That doesn't mean one has the right ideas, but it does mean it's folly to use one to nullify the other.

More correct is the important phrasing.

Science and maths has never been there to prove anything wrong it's there to, see important phrasing, move towards more correct answers. Science and religion have only ever clashed because religion says things about life that we know aren't true. That's actually really important in what I said about science. If that didn't happen science would just be some bullshit too.

Maths/science also isn't a discernment (autocorrect dunno if that means what I meant it to) of loads of really great shit we have thought about life.

I don't understand how you can "believe" in math. Math is a set of rules, wherein we agree on a set of beginning assumptions. 1+2=3 only makes sense because we all agree on the definitions of 1, 2, 3, +, and =. An alien race could come down, and say # € × ! 0 and be conveying the same information...but it doesn't look like 1+2=3 because their agreed upon definitions are different.

Why does 1+2=3? Because by agreed upon definition, we said so. There isn't anything to believe, just stuff to understand.

At some point, math applies itself to things. Areas of shapes. Descriptions of fluid dynamics. These still only make sense because we agree on definition...and are applying them to what we see.

The question, in essence, is asking why we believe in "words".

I was more so seeing this as thinking that maths is an explanation of life and will result in such given the right resources. I really don't believe that to be true.