Look, you've never been in what I'd call a real math class (based on your calc III and lin. alg. you mentioned). You said yourself that you don't know how "proof based" classes were run. You have no idea of the kinds of problems and techniques that you encounter there. Don't even pretend to know what you'll learn in upper level classes. The basic calculus stream is usually pretty crap when it comes to teaching general problem solving skills, I'm not going to deny that. In fact I often bitch about it with colleagues. I'm willing to say that the current system is "of use". Cripes. I'm not going to open up this can of worms. No, it contradicts how YOU believe a limit should behave. The belief that the limit should behave like the objects in the sequence will get you into trouble in many places. So do you think there is no such thing as any irrational number then? Every real number has a decimal expansion after all. Ehh, whatever. If you want to believe that there no such thing as an exact value of Pi, that's fine. If I have more real numbers than you that's fine. I think I'm done here, this thread is heading towards madness and I'm just not willing to waste the time on it.
My admission that I haven't taken a proof based math class was not given for the purpose of some joker who has taken one to fabricate an argument that they think is impossible to get around just because of the "global skepticism" style argument that I cannot know what goes on in there, for the sole purpose of trying to cause me to loose motivation. You know damn well that if I had taken one, my argument would not suddenly dissapate into thin air, rather it would just give me more ammunition to make my point. How can I know? A) Because the people who teach my classes have had exposure to those classes and therefore if those classes taught or understood anything better about learning then the teachers of my classes would not be running around sputtering utter bs about doing obscene amounts of problems being the only way to learn application skills. B) Because the mathematics community uses poor arguments and reasoning in relation to leanring to begin with and it is evident any time you see something produced by them. You are basically trying to claim that behind the doors of a high level math class this suddenly dissapates and it turns out all their external statements were made for the purpose of confusing other people, while they actually had an understanding of such things greater than that of psychology, philosophy or any other discipline all along. The difference between the system being of use, and ALWAYS being of use in every situation is great. I will clarify the problem with the mathmatical belief set in another thread. Not sure how soon I will be doing it, but I will provide one major point here: Pretend Math was a person. Mr Math tells you all kinds of neat stuff about how to calculate things related to physics etc. You tell Mr. Math "gee wiz Mr. Math this is great stuff! Your smart!" Next Mr.Math tells you that "even though the rationals are dense such that an infinite number of rationals exist between any 2 that you choose, there are irrational numbers inbetween them that are not equivalent to any of the rationals" You look at mr Math like oO.... Your passivity (equivalent to the lack of infinite time to either proove or disprove to yourself externally presented claims) dictates that you either accept or reject the claim without evaluation. Do you accept or reject Mr Math's claim? You have accepted his claim (and others like it) because you inductively reason based on the other things he has provided that he is "probably right". However this is unjustified and poor reasoning.
Are you deliberately trying to miss the point? You made claims about what I have and have not learned. You have no basis whatsoever to make these claims. You have not been through anything resembling the courses I have. You've interacted with your professors who have (a real math education) in the settings of the regurgitatition kind of classes. This is quite different. Calculus at most universities is not about learning problem solving skills. It's partly a weeder course, partly to teach some applications you may find usefull in your degree, and partly to take up time. If a calculus class aimed at science students was actually taught with a full level of rigour there would be a riot. There are exceptions, often these are the courses based out of a less application oriented text like Spivak, but these will usually be targeted at the math majors or specialists if they are offered at all. No I'm claiming that you don't understand the arguments in higher classes and therefore have no basis for criticizing them. It's actually becoming clear that you don't even understand what happened in your first year class. MrMaths claims will be based on the axioms he's using for the reals. I've seen these axioms, he didn't hide them. Given these axioms I can deduce on my own that there are irrational numbers. I did not have to believe he's 'probably right', I can make an argument from the axioms on my own or, despite what you may believe, I can objectively analyze his own proof. Whether you believe his choice of axioms is a good one or not is another story, but given them, there are irrationals. Do you seriously not believe things like the intermediate value theorem?
OK SL. I will show you. Specifically, "Lectures on Physics", Vol III Chapter 5. I will dedicate a thread to you for your personal consumption. Now, SL are you prepared to respond with scientific input or do we get the King of Sarcasm as a replacement to science? Geistkiesel
I have had plenty of exposure to high level math type settings. You are simply trying to create the illusion (perhaps even to yourself) that I cannot know what types of things are discussed in these classes because it would deal with your insecurities if that was the case. Unfortunately back in reality there is plenty of information floating around all over the place regarding the type of reasoning skills are used in high level mathematics classes. There are all kinds of books, all kinds of papers, proofs etc on the internet, all kinds of open lectures. There are people who have PHD's in math making the same arguments that I do, and that I have convinced of certain things. Except this is only relevant to someone with the poor reasoning skills that are exactly what I am referring to. Unfortunately your insecurities do not dictate reality. I have shown clearly throughout the threads that we have argued in that I have a better understanding of the topics in question than you and several other graduate math students that have been arguing here. Your naive and superficial evaluations of what people understand and do not understand are caused by nothing more than your ability to block out any ideas that you do not already agree with and therefore understand. As for "making your own arguments for x" you are mistaking reasoning ability for alignment of bias... You no longer have an interest in seeking reality or what is logically dictated, because you now have an interest in going somewhere in the math community. And you don't get there by disagreeing with the status quo. Unfortunately this is the very nature of power and futility... The harder it is and less reward you get for going a certain way, simply the less people and less effort someone will put into going down that road. No doubt the "mathematics community" has done their best to make this the case for people disagreeing with what is most often believed.
You do realize that math is just a self consistent way of describing nature and abstract ideas? What mathematical "reality" are you seeking? Or is it just that you can't understand math so you feel the need to beat on it?
ROFL what does self consistent mean? A minute ago it was based on axioms now its tied to reality? Oh brother...
Yes. That is a valid point. However, the fact is when they are specific and the responses create an untennable challenge to the conventionalists views, they resort to personal attacks, innuendo, slander, distortion, interjection of distracting off topic issues and other misrepresentations to avoid the issue. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Also you could just look at it like Superluminal is the crank and when asked to be specific he resorts to those things... Asking a crank to be specific would only deal with certain types... If someone sees there is a problem but doesn't follow it long enough to be able to specify the nature of the problem you could ask them to be specific and they might give up. However you haven't dealt with their concern when you do this, youve just exhausted their motivation. It seems in this scenario crank is defined as someone who is in search of truth rather than approval from their peers for accepting (aka "understanding") the status quo.
Ahhh children. Science and the way we go about it is the essence of the search for truth. Our truths are the truths of the universe. Yours are the truths of the shaman and the priest. Please meditate on this. Enlightenment takes much devotion and practice.
Heed your own words and provide us with physical data supporting SRT reciprocity or explain GPS findings. A topic where you have just thrown in the towel and basically said "I know I am right and SRT is valid, I just can't prove it, therefore you are wrong - a crackpot and I am right, hence therefore I refuse to participate in this discussion any further". Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Here you have asked for specifics and find they are to complicated. Make up your mind.
I wish I could take your word on this as sincere but I am afraid I don't. Your most recent thread disputes this concession.
MacM, Until I show you evidence of reciprocity, I conceed defeat. I won't dispute it. You are right to ask for evidence of it. Just because we see that it is required and must happen if one accepts the postulates as true, dosen't make it so. Right? GPS is beyond my ability to use as a defence. As I said before, it is a labrynth of technicalities the allow both sides to support their views.
By the way. In regards to mathematics, are you aware that one of the founders of many commonly accepted mathematical practices, or at least an important figure in math history, Cantor, founded his mathematics on an extreme faith in god? The motivation behind looking at scientific method as useful can pretty much be summed up as follows. You have a bunch of stupid hairless monkeys. Rather than think they find out they can just discover the most simple laws of nature (physics) by gathering large amounts of raw experimental data and not actually deducing anything from the data. Stupid monkeys then generalize and decide that every intellectual task can be solved by gathering large amounts of information and never actually reasoning with it. Stupid monkeys come across psychology, quantum physics, etc where the amount of information that can be gathered is limited (external evidence in psychology's case) Consequently you have easily impressed people like superluminal who continually spout scientific dogma containing words like "proof", "evidence", "truth" without the slightest understanding of what these things are.
k99, Thanks for that enlightened post. Apparently you think scientists sit around gathering data going "duhhh what do dat mean???". You are a bit off the mark. Why do people like you constantly misrepresent what science is about? Which is making observations, and REASONING from them the nature of nature. You must be religious and believe in GOD. So I apologize for my previous statement. What I meant to say was that you are a weak minded sheep who needs to be guided by your intellectual superiors as you stumble about blindly in your ignorance, err I mean faith.
