26 Comments
Jan 12, 2022Liked by Mathew Crawford

Okay. So what size n, if n = PPEs, does it take for CNN to achieve zero transmission of Truth?

Considering a layered mitigation strategy... which I hear works... the more layers the better... your PPE protects me, my PPE protects you...

Or can we only asymptotically approach TruthZero? Scary thought.

Can we achieve TruthZero? Or do we need to learn to live with Truth? What if there is a reservoir of Truth out there? What if Truth propagates through animal hosts who can't choose their pronouns? Perhaps Truth is already endemic.

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The other day I named "Vaccine Zero" the low calorie solution to ending the pandemic. But I think "Truth Zero" is brilliant branding. You've hit the nail squarely on the head. Nicely done.

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Maths = racism and bigotry

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Yeah, but so is writing a Substack article, I would think. Equally, and possibly greater equity impact. I could probably write a proof by contradiction.

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Jan 12, 2022·edited Jan 12, 2022Liked by Mathew Crawford

Proofs are also racist and bigoted!

This man's posts are 99.99999% racist and bigoted! : https://terrytao.wordpress.com/

An example,

"The inverse theorem for the U^3 Gowers uniformity norm on arbitrary finite abelian groups: Fourier-analytic and ergodic approaches"

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Genders only make sense if you model them with set theory.

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Are you set to write something about it?

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Cismale: G ={m}

(G is the gender identity set which is the set of all genders that make up your gender identity)

Cisfemale: G = {f}

(Binary) Bigender: G = {m,f}

Androgyne: G = {{m,f}}

(An amalgamation of both genders is a set element, unlike bigender where the two elements are separate and distinct)

Agender: G = {}

(The gender identity set is the empty set)

Neutrois: G = {{}}

(The empty set is itself reified as a gender and made an element of the gender identity set)

Pangender: G = P (the power set of all genders and gender identities)

Non-binary: there exist some x in G such that x != m & x != f

Maverique: G = {x}, neither m nor f nor {} is contained in x not even in amalgamated form.

Genderfaun: m is not an element or contained in any element of G

Genderfae: f is not an element or contained in any element of G

Demigender: G is a set equipped with fuzzy inclusion for one or more elements

Genderfluid: Inclusion in G changes with time or other variables

Genderflux: Gender element equipped with fuzzy inclusion function that changes with time or other variables

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I didn’t follow even half of that but I got all of it! In so much as I nearly sent this to my 16 year old to crack the maths question but I knew I wasn’t going to be able to tell if she was right and then I skipped on to the DNA part which spoke to me and I love what you did. And I def don’t love “Goopta”! In fact since she wants to be in biomedicine she will appreciate if not fully understand the maths, so I will send it to her, as it will spark further chat not so much on the Covid induced health crisis but on the critical thinking logical thinking spot the rat essential survive the world guidance.

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"I didn’t follow even half of that but I got all of it! " - excellent!

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Jan 12, 2022Liked by Mathew Crawford

Rewrite as recursion formula:

a_{n+1} = a_n + 2 * a_{n - 1}

Take any sequence of length n. It can end in four ways: GC, TC, CT, GT. In each case, there is exactly one possibility to fill in a letter. You get sequences of length n+1 ending in: GTC, TGC, CGT, GCT.

Take any sequence of length n-1. If it ends in C, replace this C by CGC or CTC. If it ends in T, replace this T by TCT or TGT. No rules are violated that way, and you can't get the same sequence twice. Therefore, a_{n+1} >= a_n + 2 * a_{n - 1}.

On the other hand, any sequence of length n+1 ending in GTC, TGC, CGT, GCT can be compressed into one of length n by eliminating the middle letter, and these are distinct. Any sequence of length n+1 ending in CGC, CTC, TCT or TGT can be compressed into one of length n-1 by eliminating the first two letters, and you recover each sequence twice. Therefore, a_{n+1} <= a_n + 2 * a_{n - 1}.

The DNA analogy is great!

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You can go either forward or backward to get the recurrence relation. Once we have encoded the sequence, thus, it's all symmetrical. You can also use a characteristic equation to solve the problem as I'm sure many have, but that approach is less fun or interesting.

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Jan 12, 2022Liked by Mathew Crawford

Very amusing!

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I'll wager you're the mathematician in the comment section?

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Jan 13, 2022Liked by Mathew Crawford

I wouldn't call myself a mathematician. I have joint degree in applied mathematics and computer science so I am familiar with the concepts. Most of my career has been on the computer side. It's fun to see some math!

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Jan 12, 2022·edited Jan 12, 2022Liked by Mathew Crawford

lol, this was the first thing I tried to read when I woke up this morning. Not a good idea. Let me give it another shot now and see if I can get the neurons firing.

Edit: okay, this actually wasn’t that complicated when I slowed down and didn’t let the formatting overwhelm me. Which is maybe a good part of the point being made here?

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If you enjoy math, it's worth the effort. I pulled the problem from a national olympiad, but the official solutions were not as elegant or funny as mine.

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Jan 12, 2022·edited Jan 12, 2022

God bless your Mom and Dad

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I need a tutor. But what I think you’re saying is that if Goopta makes one statement on the Crusty News Notwork, followed by 3 to 4 statements that may either affirm or reject the first statement, while also cloning himself in the process (or not, if Goopta prefers, up to him) we then have a perfect mathematical computation for the entirety of the pandemic. Did I get that right? I might have got lost a bit on the DNA particles in the end. Are they injected into Goopta? Is it mandated? I’m going to go back and review.

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I'm going to lie down now...

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Readers without substantial experience with combinatorics may just be thrilled to have awesome math-letes in whom we trust, knowing figures don't lie but liars figure. :~)

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Yeah, at this point I throw down my cards, "I'm out."

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What the hell was that? 😂😂😂

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Reminds me for some reason of that book, Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid.

Probably because I registred the same reaction: I get that I don't get all of it, but what I do get helps me get the gist of what I don't get.

For Goopta truth is like hopscotch, apparently.

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I tried to model it as a bijection between two sets, each divided into a number of subsets that begin with 0 followed by a trail of 1’s, where each point is connected to the other points in its subset as well as the point in the other set that it’s mapped to, such that a path can be traced through all the points in both sets.

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Very good.

However and this is not critical the use of mathematics makes us use less than 10% of our brain capacity and we are trapped being human calculators which prohibit us becoming spiritual people.

But in this war we need all sides to come together from every aspect.

The problem with mathematics is that one is unequal one and that the most important numbers are infinite and this is from a philosophical point of view.

The same I try to tackle the problems we face from such a philosophical view being more or less self educated but interested in all things that matter I believe that the capability of the human race is by far more than we are made to believe and that we are held as a human bonsai for ever since our creation.

My writings may be heretic and sometimes vile but the essence of truth you will find within my thoughts as Zen is the basis of human spirituality.

https://fritzfreud.substack.com/p/becoming-human-project-for-a-global

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