General > RANT
Why do otherwise bright people beleive stupid things?
Numsgil:
Math is a good example. It's one of the few "sciences" (I guess it's not really a science, but what else do you call it) that deal in absolutes. Something that is mathematically true is irrefutable, beyond questioning the presumptions on which a proof is based. Compared with math, everything else is educated guess work. (<-- Math major )
Moonfisher:
Math is only an absolute trouth in theory, since you're only proving that this equation is valid with the mathematical rules that we currently have.
And the rules we create are prooven by making sure there are no possible paradoxes, that we can think of... or fixing those paradoxes with more rules.
shvarz:
--- Quote ---So it's become more or less comon practice to "tweek" your results to reflect what your client wants you to "prove", or what you had initialy predicted the result would be.
--- End quote ---
What an asshole!
abyaly:
--- Quote from: Moonfisher ---Math is only an absolute trouth in theory, since you're only proving that this equation is valid with the mathematical rules that we currently have.
--- End quote ---
The basic structure of every mathematical statement is "If A, then B". A statement of this type can be shown to be true in an absolute sense.
Proving that an equation is valid under the rules we currently have means you have proven "if the rules we currently have are true, then this is also true." The implication is an absolute truth in this case. Even though the implication is true, the implied proposition might not be. Although if we are willing to pretend that the hypothesis is true for whatever reason, this means we need to do the same for the conclusion
--- Quote from: Numsgil ---Compared with math, everything else is educated guess work. (<-- Math major )
--- End quote ---
<-- me too.
Moonfisher:
So basicaly Induction is the only way to obtain an absolute trouth
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