[b]Jordan Ellenberg
…we’re not actually people at all, but simulations running on an ultracomputer built by other people.[/b]
And then it’s that all the way down to God.
The thesis of the book, he writes in response, when correctly interpreted, is essentially trivial. . . . To ‘prove’ such a mathematical result by a costly and prolonged numerical study of many kinds of business profit and expense ratios is analogous to proving the multiplication table by arranging elephants in rows and columns, and then doing the same for numerous other kinds of animals. The performance, though perhaps entertaining, and having a certain pedagogical value, is not an important contribution either to zoölogy or mathematics.
Next up: the thesis of your post, Mr. Pinhead.
What you learn after a long time in math–and I think the lesson applies much more broadly–is that there’s always somebody ahead of you, whether they’re right there in class with you or not.
With possible exceptions like, say, Sculptor, pood and obsrvr524.
Go ahead, ask them.
What can I say? Mathematics is a way not to be wrong, but it isn’t a way not to be wrong about everything.
Tell that to, well, you know who.
A scientist can hardly encounter anything more desirable than, just as a work is completed, to have its foundation give way.
On the other hand, define “desirable”?
It’s not always wrong to be wrong.
Just as it’s not always safe to be right.