Complexity sucks and how do you define a cat mathematically? Is mathematics rubbish?

[becomingagodo]

I was just watching a youtube video, it was about John Conway. Basically, he said everything is simple, except cats. Can you mathematically define a cat? or are cats just too complex?

And another thing doesn't complexity suck. Think about it. Einstein wrote everything should be simple, but not too simple. He didn't write everything should be complex, but not too complex.

Lastly, is mathematics rubbish? or is it logic? Now logically or meta-mathematically everything turns really bad. Logic is filled with paradoxes and Mathematics is filled with uncertainty. Yet, physics has in reality no logical paradoxes and the only uncertainty is the uncertainty prinicple, however even then you could call it trivial. Not knowing the position or momentum of a particle is trivial, however not knowing the continumm hypothesis is not. Has the foundation crisis of mathematics been resolved?

Anyway, mathematics is on a shaky foundation, it might all fall apart. Even, then you can't define a cat. Mathematics is too complex, its not simple. Saying that mathematics can overcome this, and I believe that Godel uncertainty principle can be overcome and Frege and Hilbert dream can be completed.

[Thing]

You are Stephen Wolfram and I claim my five pounds.

[Ziggurat]

I was just watching a youtube video, it was about John Conway. Basically, he said everything is simple, except cats. Can you mathematically define a cat? or are cats just too complex?

You can't mathematically define anything except other bits of math. What you can do is model things mathematically, and in that regard, whether or not something is too complex depends on what you want to do. If you're just catapulting (ha!) your cat into your neighbor's yard, you can model the cat as a furry sphere at it will work well enough. If you're trying to figure out how much force its knees experience when it leaps onto your bed, you need a more complex model including its skeletal structure, but such models are common enough and can be handled fairly easily by modern computers. If you want to model its immune system based upon first-principles quantum mechanics, then it's too complex.

And another thing doesn't complexity suck.

Yes and no. It's hard to model complex systems. But without significant complexity, you don't get life. That would suck even more, wouldn't it?

Lastly, is mathematics rubbish? or is it logic?

Logic.

Anyway, mathematics is on a shaky foundation, it might all fall apart.

Not a chance.

[aggle-rithm]

I was just watching a youtube video, it was about John Conway. Basically, he said everything is simple, except cats. Can you mathematically define a cat? or are cats just too complex?

And another thing doesn't complexity suck. Think about it. Einstein wrote everything should be simple, but not too simple. He didn't write everything should be complex, but not too complex.

Lastly, is mathematics rubbish? or is it logic? Now logically or meta-mathematically everything turns really bad. Logic is filled with paradoxes and Mathematics is filled with uncertainty. Yet, physics has in reality no logical paradoxes and the only uncertainty is the uncertainty prinicple, however even then you could call it trivial. Not knowing the position or momentum of a particle is trivial, however not knowing the continumm hypothesis is not. Has the foundation crisis of mathematics been resolved?

Anyway, mathematics is on a shaky foundation, it might all fall apart. Even, then you can't define a cat. Mathematics is too complex, its not simple. Saying that mathematics can overcome this, and I believe that Godel uncertainty principle can be overcome and Frege and Hilbert dream can be completed.

I see your problem.

You forgot to carry the two.

[Dancing David]

Um, some questions have no answers.

[Molinaro]

BAh.. here I was expecting to see some interesting personal attack on the JREF member, Complexity. :o

[AkuManiMani]

I see your problem.

You forgot to carry the two.

This response is Win.

You get the golden cookie award (#)

[Dymanic]

If what we're talking about defining a cat perfectly, I'd be interested to see that accomplished in any terms.

[dahduh]

Can you mathematically define a cat?

$$ \Psi_{cat} = \int e^{{i \over \hbar} \int{({
{R \over 16 \pi G}
-F^2
+\overline{\psi} i \not D \psi
-\lambda \phi \overline{\psi} \psi
+{\left| D\phi\right|}^2
-V(\phi)
})}} $$

http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/971047eaa80613e36.jpg (http://forums.randi.org/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=11457)

[Complexity]

BAh.. here I was expecting to see some interesting personal attack on the JREF member, Complexity. :o


That's what I thought, too.

Just another of Bago's anxiety attacks.

[sol invictus]

$$ \Psi_{cat} = \int e^{{i \over \hbar} \int{({
{R \over 16 \pi G}
-F^2
+\overline{\psi} i \not D \psi
-\lambda \phi \overline{\psi} \psi
+{\left| D\phi\right|}^2
-V(\phi)
})}} $$


I don't think you could make a cat out of that. There aren't any stable atoms, for one thing.

[godless dave]

Complexity doesn't suck; you can't; no.

[Gagglegnash]

Hi

Question: What happens when I multiply two negative numbers together?

Answers:
Math: You get a positive number.
Everything Else: You usually get a positive number.

Yes. Math is good for some things.

[Soapy Sam]

What happens when you multiply two negative cows?

[Ron_Tomkins]

What happens when you multiply two negative cows?


Isn't it obvious?: You get Invisible Bigfoot.

[MattusMaximus]

becomingagodo, I can only tell you this in reference to cats...

Schrodinger's Cat is both alive and dead! Oh yeah!!! :cool:

Btw, the title of this thread reminds me of a joke from my undergrad physics days - let us approximate a chicken with a sphere... :D

[Whack01]

I think it would be indescribably cool if we could fully mathematically simulate the development of a human embryo from its DNA molecule by molecule. Even the first few cells would be impressive enough. Sadly I do not have a few billion dollars laying around nor the decades of study it would take to start a project like that.

Even if successful though, how would the data from such a thing be represented in a useful fashion?

[Dark Jaguar]

Well they do make models of protein interaction in fact.

Further, math "rubbish"? I'll have to tell my computer that...

[Gagglegnash]

Hi

What happens when you multiply two negative cows?


Well - when two negative cows love each other very, VERY much....

[Dancing David]

What happens when you multiply two negative cows?


It really annoys the other cows! Man all that pissing and mooooaning.

[Dancing David]

becomingagodo, I can only tell you this in reference to cats...

Schrodinger's Cat is both alive and dead! Oh yeah!!! :cool:

Btw, the title of this thread reminds me of a joke from my undergrad physics days - let us approximate a chicken with a sphere... :D


Which came first, the chicken or the sphere?

[PixyMisa]

Btw, the title of this thread reminds me of a joke from my undergrad physics days - let us approximate a chicken with a sphere... :D
"Assume a spherical cow of uniform density..." :)

[LostAngeles]

My cats are actually used to define mathematical objects, specifically, infinity. This is done by taking their cuteness. Finite numbers are defined by the level of irritation they cause. Love for them is technically defined as the difference between their cuteness and the level of irritation they cause. The desire to be rid of them defines infinitesimals.

Just... don't take the Fourier transform of any of them, please.

[Fredrik]

Btw, the title of this thread reminds me of a joke from my undergrad physics days - let us approximate a chicken with a sphere... :D
That joke was used in episode 1x09 of the TV show "the big bang theory", so now you don't have to be a physicist to enjoy it. :)

[Ateius]

Well - when two negative cows love each other very, VERY much....

:dl:

[blobru]

This must be the video bagodo is talking about:

FdMzngWchDk
Part 2:
k2IZ1qsx4CM
John Conway talks Life.

Altogether about 6 minutes from a BBC science program, I think, from the host's accent.

The host is quite a piece of work. He'd make a good Bond villain.


ETA: it is BBC -- "What We Still Don't Know: Are We Real?"
Host: Baron Martin Rees of Ludlow, cosmologist.

[aggle-rithm]

What happens when you multiply two negative cows?

Bovine spongiform encephalitis.

[Yiab]

Can you mathematically define a cat? or are cats just too complex?

Neither. Given any mathematical definition, system of semantics, and object, one can test whether or not the object satisfies the definition under the assignment the semantic system represents.
When you ask "can you mathematically define a cat" you are in essence asking "is there a definition in mathematical language which, when applied in the natural way to the real world, will be satisfied if and only if the object in question is typically thought of as a cat?"
In this case, the answer is obviously yes:
Let C(x) represent the proposition "x is a cat".
Now under the obvious semantic assignment, everything which meets this definition in propositional logic is a cat and everything else isn't - the definition just doesn't help at all.

And another thing doesn't complexity suck. Think about it. Einstein wrote everything should be simple, but not too simple. He didn't write everything should be complex, but not too complex.

... And because Einstein said it should be, it sucks if things are any other way.
Personally, I adore quantum mechanics. I like very much the idea that the universe actually has a fundamental level - something classical physics never included.
But Einstein hated quantum mechanics. So doesn't it suck?

Besides, my experience tells me the limit of complexity and the limit of simplicity are simply the same place viewed in different lights.

Lastly, is mathematics rubbish? or is it logic?

It is math. Please define both "logic" and "rubbish" in a meaningful way.

Now logically or eta-mathematically everything turns really bad.

"turns really bad"? Meta-mathematics is amazingly interesting to me.

Logic is filled with paradoxes and Mathematics is filled with uncertainty.

You would rather that Peano arithmetic were provably complete and consistent? Then mathematicians could be completely replaces by trivially programmed symbol-manipulation machines and we'd never have any interesting math to think about.

By the way, classical logic sans quantifiers is provably complete and consistent, so if you want to have something so unexpressively boring, you have the option.

Not knowing the position or momentum of a particle is trivial, however not knowing the continumm hypothesis is not. Has the foundation crisis of mathematics been resolved?

What foundation crisis?
You seem to be labouring under the unfortunately common assumption that mathematics is the empirical study of Platonic forms, and that every formulatable question regarding mathematical objects must have an answer independent of our ability to discover it.
If you let go of the idea that mathematical Truth is somehow floating out there in space, this whole idea of unprovable results becomes unproblematic.

Anyway, mathematics is on a shaky foundation, it might all fall apart.

Yes, it might fall apart. Nothing interesting is certain. How is this bad?

Mathematics is too complex, its not simple.

Mathematics is complex and simple and the only meaningful way of defining complexity and simplicity.
On a more practical level, if you find it too complex to do interesting mathematics, there is a very simple solution: don't.

I believe that Godel uncertainty principle can be overcome and Frege and Hilbert dream can be completed.

Godel never had an uncertainty principle, nor did he deal in uncertainty at all in his incompleteness theorem. In fact, he went out of his way to make certain that his proof of the fundamental incompleteness of arithmetic was constructive and finitistic, meeting the requirements for Hilbert's program.
His incompleteness theorem proves, in no uncertain terms, that if Hilbert's program is capable of success then it is useless (i.e. inconsistent).

In order to get a system in which every statement is provably true or provably false, it must be either uninteresting or of suspect consistency. Some methods of overcoming the limitations elucidated by Godel are infinite-length proofs, infinitary quantifiers and second-order logic (which lacks compactness - one of first-order logic's fundamental properties).

[zosima]

cat_complexity(percent of all complexity) = log(n_possible_cats)/log(n_possible_things)

Gee that was simple lol....

The study of complexity in computer science is rad, and is quickly offering us a new perspective on different problems in science and philosophy.

Physics, even pretty advanced physics, really uses a relatively small and very believable subset of mathematics. There are huge fields of mathematics that lack physical relevance.

When you say mathematics is on shaky footing, the only thing I could imagine you are talking about it Godel's theorem. That issue has long since been settled. While people would often like to draw wider claims, really all it says for sure is that we can't identify all possible or all consistent theorems from a set of axioms by enumerating all the possible combinations of those axioms. Not really a threat.

[ElMondoHummus]

becomingagodo, I can only tell you this in reference to cats...

Schrodinger's Cat is both alive and dead! Oh yeah!!! :cool:

Reminds me of a joke I heard:

"What happened to the cat? It looks half dead."
-Mrs. Schrodinger

[LostAngeles]

What happens when you multiply two negative cows?

Hi




Well - when two negative cows love each other very, VERY much....

Last night, I was doing my math modeling homework concerning population dynamics. Our current model (which is very simplistic, esp. considering we've had two lectures thus far) uses a constant growth rate. Well, it comes out, once you have the difference equation that if your growth rate is between -1 and -2, at your next time interval, you have a negative population that then gives rise to a positive population at the next interval. The absolute values of these are approaching zero, but if the growth rate is less than -2, then they blow up towards positive and negative infinity.

So when explaining the flaws in the model, I got to mention our negative cows.

I love you all.