The Will to Be Myself

[ericjherboso]

The class was an utter disappointment. I had had such high hopes for that class. Every time a new semester begins, I always find myself optimistic that this time I will find the class that turns everything around for me. Every time, I fool myself into believing that I've finally reached that point in my academic career where I will find a class

Comments

[kevinsparakeet]

This is a very interesting peice of nonfiction you have written here. Having observed these events in third person, it seems fairly accurate and provides some good insight into what was really going on back then from your viewpoint. At the moment, I want to respond with something really important and profound, but as you know that isn't usually my style.

To be honest, I'm having trouble getting past the parts of your post where you attempt to describe the field of mathematics. Naturally, the part about wanting to drop or not drop a class makes a lot of sense knowing you two, but everytime I try to construct a decent criticism, the post eventually turns to the dichotomy of pure vs. applied mathematics and your opinions of each. I'm of the opposite opinion as you in this regard, so it is natural for me to try to expound on those differences of opinion the same way people argue about the merits of PC vs Macintosh, Star Trek vs Star Wars, or the mother of all holy wars, VI vs Emacs.

However, here goes. What you do matters only when you look upon your actions from afar. You may want to move in a different direction of the crowd, but do not, thus you are part of it. You wear a mask that you say is permanent, but I say that it isn't the consistency of the mask that matters, but how much it leaves exposed. Everyone shows a bit of what is underneath their own mask to a certain degree. It is this glimpse what the rest of us will try to interact with. The larger the mask, the less we have to work with, and the less we understand.

Maybe the mask is itself an illusion unto only ourselves. It is a tool we use to fool ourselves into interacting with the world in a certain way of our choosing, despite the world seeing you without one through your ultimate actions. I can expand on this later, but I leave you with this:

You can use you illusion-
Let it take you where it may
We live and learn
And then sometimes it's best to walk away
Me I'm just here hangin' on
It's my only place to stay at least
For now anyway
I've worked too hard for my illusions
Just to throw them all away

[ericjherboso]

I think that's the first poetry anyone has posted on my blog since harm's way introduced me to ts eliot _years_ ago.

[kevinsparakeet]

Actually, this is hardly Eliot here. This is Guns n' Roses, from a song called Locomotive.

[ericjherboso]

My main complaint with applied mathematics is that it's so very useless. It doesn't get at the core of what is, but instead tries to fudge things into mimicking reality. For all that it works on a regular basis, it still feels to me like biology from a physicist's standpoint, or psychology from a psychiatrist's standpoint. It isn't helping anything _real_; it just deals with reality in a horridly obscure way.

[kevinsparakeet]

Useless in your POV, but practical for those who need to do real work with empirical observations about the universe. Applied mathematics provides the basis to which predictions can be made about reality. The difference isn't as large as you would think. It is similar to theoretical vs. experimental physics. One is useless without the other. If you can't test a mathematical hypothesis or somehow construct a model off which to base predictions or describe events, then there is no point to the entire field of mathematics except as an intellectual game.

[ericjherboso]

The whole point of math is as an intellectual game. To sully it with reality is just plain wrong. As for predictions about reality, I have a hard time jibing applied mathematics with what they purport to simulate. Things start looking too magical when you go into that stuff and much less rigorous. See The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences for more in depth on this.

Also, experimental physicists suck ass. They're only slightly better than chemists.

[kevinsparakeet]

I'll get to reading that article shortly as it looks pretty interesting. However, I will comment that unlike purely applied mathematicians in the strict sense that you purport, chemists and experimental physicists are USEFUL. I claim that these type of mathematicians simply do not exist. Pure and applied mathematics are simply too intertwined at the higher levels.

What you describe as things being magical simply aren't when you get down to proving them. Applied mathematicians use their skills to make conjectures about the real world, fitting known concepts to natural phenominon. However, their work is useless unless they prove some underlying concept about the conjecture. You cannot separate these two things. Applied mathematicians do BOTH. Pure mathematicians make similar conjectures, but only apply them to the toolkits that the applied mathematicians use in their work.

That is not to say that I don't have the utmost respect for pure mathematics, its just that we applied mathematicians stand on the shoulders of giants - you guys. ;)