How to Think Like a Mathematician - with Eugenia Cheng

[@rah1090]

So I hope nobody missed the part where she said category theory is much about looking at a subject from the perspective of its relationship with other subjects or how it fits together with other subjects in order to gain a deeper understanding of it. The METHOD of applying mathematics to (insert any subject other than sociopolitics here) is all she trying to illustrate. If you couldn't use the method she illuminates to abstract that much out of the talk then it went right over your head.

[@xavierkreiss8394]

It certainly did that.

[@StansSmiley]

Precisely!

[@Linguages2024]

Time Code 3:34 Pure mathematics is a framework for agreeing on things 4:35 Science hierarchy pure math > applied math > science... 5:56 Plan 1. Analogies 2. Interconnectedness 3. Relationships 4. Pivots 5. Intelligence 6:18 1. Analogies 13:18 2. Interconnectedness 26:54 3. Relationships 35:27 4. Pivots 40:51 5. Intelligence

[@dong8912]

I like to think that throughout the lecture, she was subtly showing us that mathematicians stick to facts when working on problems. She used several facts that many people would find uncomfortable to use, such as the privilege hierarchy. She was sticking to facts over feelings and opinions (unless she explicitly mentions that what she said was her opinion), and not caring if people will get offended, cuz I think she knows people will get offended, but proceeds to state facts, which I feel like is key to think like a mathematician.

[@mongoharry]

The speaker points out that because they set up their problems carefully and use logic to reach their conclusions, mathematicians generally find it easy to reach consensus. I'd encourage anyone who feels that this video has gone too far in the support of any political agenda to use the same method and demonstrate its error.

[@GuilhermeCarvalhoComposer]

The problem in this talk, as I see it, was not that she supported any political agenda but that she assumed the modelling and simplifications done here are sufficient to argue anything as complex as human interactions. Mathematicians find it easier to reach consensus where such clear definitions of operations and objects are possible without loss of generality (or even of usefulness). This is very clearly not the case in almost every topic touched on here. The most basic reading of sociology, anthropology, philosophy (or even musicology, for that matter!) will show that the objects studied by those disciplines, which she is tackling through maths here, very strongly resist such a bare-bones epistemological approach. In other words: while she is *technically* correct in her operations to obtain those diagrams, she is doing so by silently ignoring nearly every crucial aspect of the problems she's addressing. She is misunderstanding and/or misinterpreting the situations she's addressing. Sure, the diagrams "work", but you won't say anything meaningful with them. Just the platitudes we saw here. As for any political agenda present here (because there is one, and that is absolutely not a problem), this kind of approach is pretty much a disservice, as I see it. I tend to agree with her positions, with what she is trying to say and convince her audience of. But the way of going about it is infuriatingly poor from any epistemological point of view I can think of (not to mention super cringe-worthy), and undoes the whole project.

[@saudmolaib2764]

@@GuilhermeCarvalhoComposer I agree with you when you say that her method for convincing her audience of her political agenda is not good. In some cases her diagrams assume beliefs (--beliefs which many would considered controversial--) without sufficient evidence or justification. With that said, I do not believe that convincing us of her political opinion is the primary point of her talk. Towards the start of the lecture, she says that she's not going to tell us what to think but how to think. As a mathematician, a high standard of evidence and justification is the norm. So if her main goal had been to persuade an audience of her beliefs, she would have given more evidence than she did. Instead, the main point of the lecture was that using these diagrams helps organize complex scenarios in a way that allows us to reason about them more effectively. You say that these diagrams oversimplify the situation. First, the diagrams can readily be made arbitrarily complex by adding more branches and more dimensions, as you see fit. However, in any attempt to understand a real-world scenario, we must limit the complexity at some point and therefore sacrifice some accuracy. The key is to find the right level of complexity for your needs, given that there is usually an inverse relationship between the ease of understanding/application of a model and the accuracy of a model. (This is true for a mathematician's model as much as it is for a sociologist's or any other person for that matter.) Honestly, I am a bit confused about what you are saying in your second paragraph, and I'd rather not comment on it until I understand what you are saying. What makes her "technically correct"? How do you know that she is "silently ignoring nearly every crucial aspect of the problems she's addressing"? What does she do to show that "she is misunderstanding and/or misinterpreting the situations she's addressing"? Looking forward to your response!

[@marietaylor5174]

I was going to view this video for a minute or two but ended up listening to its entirety. This has opened me up to a much more in-depth way of processing information. Thank you Ms. Cheng.

[@anaidceniceroscruz6752]

I was panicking with my homework... I just needed to remember why I choose this career.

[@pujamaharjan4726]

Mathematics is not only about numbers, .mathematicians are also human being.I am really impressed how she explained society issues, thinking by concept of mathematics, and trying to understand by everyone point of view. The people of world really needs this type of knowledge to understand eachother, without creating hate.

[@henrykkaufman1488]

Finally I see a lecture where someone makes a case that mathematics is about learning how to think. For someone with abstract enough cognition it's obvious and even sometimes frustrating, seeing everybody arguing instead of thinking, getting carried away with emotion and misinterpreting or cherry picking data that fits someone's worldview. If your worldview consists of large, general ideas that you don't have a definition of then you don't know where you are. And those large, general ideas make you stay ignorant and feel safe at the same time.

[@xavierkreiss8394]

It's quite possible to think without understanding anything about mathematics

[@henrykkaufman1488]

And your response is a great example of that. I said: "mathematics is about learning HOW to think" not "mathematics is about learning TO think".

[@xavierkreiss8394]

​@@henrykkaufman1488 Thanks for your reply. I know HOW to think, only not in that way. Maths is learning how to think in a particular way, it's a system of reasoning, and many people just don't "get it". Fortunately it's quite possible to live a successful life without maths. A great many people are perfectly intelligent yet helpless when it comes to maths so they choose a career and a life without it. Mine was in journalism. And no other subject that I know of triggers such strong reactions of loathing in so many people. They (we) may in a minority yet their (our) number is still signiificant. All those people know HOW to think. A friend with whom I get on very well is passionate about maths. Two years ago she tried to explain certain points to me, and for 6 weeks we exchanged FB messages and emails. Then she told me she was very sorry (and she was) but she couldn't help me because she didn't understand how my brain worked. But she readily acknowledges that it does. We often have some interesting exchanges on all sorts of topics (NOT maths!) and she values my judgement on them.

[@henrykkaufman1488]

@@xavierkreiss8394 None of my comments here suggested that someone without mathematical knowledge doesn't know how to think at all, or that mathematical, rational thinking is the only way to think. I mostly pointed out that it is only rational thinking that makes communication possible. A fact that, I suspect not incidentally, this conversation is an example of.

[@jukker95]

All cognition is emotional first and rational second. You are also sometimes carried away by emotion and are unable to see how that is affecting your rationality. Happens to everyone.

[@matthewwriter9539]

2:00 fake fake news...the fact that this term somehow makes sense is perhaps one of the top 10 scary things in the world today.

[@NetAndyCz]

One would think that 'fake fake news' is just 'news', but apparently some people make fake 'fake news' in order to see if people can distinguish between them and 'news'.

[@NomenNescio99]

Please look at Tim Pools youtube channel, he is left of center but still a very intellectual honest person, focusing on objective facts and valid reasoning. A combination that sadly is becoming less common with every passing day. I think you will find some very interesting perspectives on the fake news allegation that often is tossed around today.

[@ajasonchen]

@@NetAndyCz Applying your logic something and I'm kinda thinking god made Trump as a test to determine how intelligent humans have evolved.

[@MikeVeracity]

Fake news is not news. News is something that actually happened recently. There is a huge amount of censorship of news though.

[@NomenNescio99]

@@MikeVeracity If I point to motorcycle and tell you that it's a secret portal through time and space that leads to the kingdom of spacelord Ubetere does not turn the motorcycle into a magic portal. It simply a wrong, false, incorrect statement. The motorcycle still is a motorcycle, something that shouldn't even be questioned. It's probably a much better use of time to question my mental health. Now, if someone points their arm towards something and says #fakenews without presenting further evidence, it does not mean..... Most accusations of fake news do not come with supporting evidence. But as fake news is considered so evil, racist, sexistic, Islamophobic. So who dares to defend truth? You will only be next person found guilty of wrong thinking and rolled in tars and feathers by the media and Twitter mob, you will be fired from your job, your friends don't dare to speak to you, as the financial situation gets worse without a job your wife will divorce and your house sold in the process. Quite a brilliant way to implement censorship, much more effective than the soviet union. And we were prepared to nuke our planet to avoid the soviet union - but now we are allowing something much worse to poison the core of our free society, the freedom of speech. So, please, fall in line and denounce fake news, who wants to be a racist?

[@tellingfoxtales]

This woman is an excellent speaker. I don't necessarily agree with everything she says, and I also think she prioritises some things over others that I would not, but I found her talk very insightful.

[@101yayo]

The point was you can apply maths to understand different viewpoints in politics. Therefore thinking like a mathematician.

[@mostafatouny8411]

Such a very beautifully articulated and a pragmatic view of a professional pure mathematician. we need more like these other than just straying in beauty and curiosity.

[@rereadable]

This talk is, at its core, about communicating more effectively with each other. Regardless of whether or not you believe this talk is about mathematics, and regardless of your political or personal opinions and beliefs, the speaker is focused on how identifying and categorizing the world can help simplify extremely complicated situations such that the average person can understand them, with particular focus on being able to understand people on the opposing sides of binary arguments to facilitate productive conversations and solve the problems causing said arguments. With that in mind, I suggest anyone outright dismissing or condemning the opinions of anyone else (including the speaker) in the comments might do well by themselves, and the people with whom they are arguing, to revisit the talk. You don't need to agree, bur that doesn't mean you shouldn't be respectful (if not considerate) and listen.

[@bertaga41]

Your first paragraph sums it up perfectly. The reason her approach and others like it are so important is because the issues are so explosive. You just have to say "Trump " or "gay marriage" and anger and hatred seethes and we need a solution for this because the alternative is too nasty for all of us.

[@MrOlgrumpy]

Spoons make us fat because they make food easier to eat,scooping the last of the ice cream,gravy etc from the bowl.

[@ericinohio8999]

Thank you, Professor Cheng. I am a math spouse, and after 27 years I still look for insights into how my wife’s mind works. This will be helpful, I know.

[@m3morizes]

To everyone complaining about the wokeness: she used those examples to explain the interconnectedness/relatedness, you could just as easily use other "non-woke" examples if you disagree with the assumptions she made. The whole point was about the power of generality and abstraction, not that you should be woke because math tells you to. It's ironic, because the point is to analogize your thinking, which includes replacing the examples she gave that you may not have liked with examples you more agree with. Or you could just dismiss the mode of thinking that invented the internet, computers, and now AI. I would be weary of wandering to close to the "stupid" quadrant, though.

[@kennethstudstill]

I suggest "Using Category Theory to Analyze Society - with Eugenia Cheng" as a more precise title that would bring a more interested and receptive audience. People with differing political views will relate "How to Think" with the political views of the video, causing them to think more negatively about all the contents of the video.

[@TheRoyalInstitution]

Great feedback, thanks!

[@xCorvus7x]

At the time you have commented, has the title not specified that the talk was about how the think like a mathematician?

[@bernardofitzpatrick5403]

Love the way you think - very helpful.

[@neji-hyuga-]

It's putting set theory into more better use.

[@kennethstudstill]

@@xCorvus7x It did and still does at the time of writing this late response.

[@The1Helleri]

4:39 What many people actually do is to conflate Mathematics (an umbrella term for a group of learning disciplines) with Arithmetic (A specific learning discipline under mathematics that has to do with numbers).

[@xCorvus7x]

'Learning disciplines'? Isn't that quite vague a term? Please, if you will, elaborate on why you see the different mathematical disciplines this way.

[@The1Helleri]

@@xCorvus7x Because it's defined that way and has been commonly used that way for the last few thousand years. The word _Mathematics_ itself is Greek in derivation and means learning/knowing/studying. Biblio mathema (Books on Mathematics) have been written since ancient Greece and very few of them have to do strictly with numbers (mostly shapes, natural law, argumentative dialogues and postulates). Because Mathematics is any methodology or set of systematic rules developed toward the ends of acquiring accurate new information in it's application (i.e. a learning discipline or a discipline that helps one learn). So for example: Geometry deals with shapes. Arithmetic deals with numbers. Logic deals with what follows reasonably from a premise (irregardless of the validity of the premise). And these are all Disciplines under the header of Mathematics.

[@xCorvus7x]

@@The1Helleri Thank you very much for your response and this education (I feel that this should be at least mentioned in school, somewhere along the way). I just realise that without mathematical tools, empirical studies don't make sense, so mathematics actually seems to incorporate all that is needed to learn, in some way or another.

[@arhythmetic]

If you are here reading the comments: Hi, Eugenia, and thanks for the talk! :]

[@kaleimamahu]

As a fellow mathematician I find emotions to be natural. Emotions are categorical syllogisms of reality thus born into existence is an afterthought.

[@renunciant]

And sometimes they aren't about reality at all.

[@David-zl3bi]

wtf ? lost me...

[@David-zl3bi]

"born into existence" ???

[@btan3495]

I liked how you used basic fundamentals of logic and math to address real life issues. While some may find the examples potentially polarizing, i think that the choices made must have been thoughtful and I defer to your better judgment and find it brave and commendable. If we can look beyond the examples, the approach is something that I identify with and bears similarities to what I am trying to do, albeit you do it in a far more precise manner. I really respect and identify with what you are doing. Keep up the good work. First time, I've come across your name and video but already, I can see the caliber and dedication. Kudos. Gambatte ne.

[@jamesmaybury7452]

The danger of theory without quantification, well demonstrated here. You can let yourself feel like you are being logical and justified when all you are doing is hiding your prejudices in a logical framework. The true power of logic is to take your hypothesis, eg. That “the people in power should be the ones to make the changes.” And see if that can work out logically in a wider system, given the other observable facts like human nature. If your hypothesis requires a fallacy to work out or ends in a contradiction then you should rework the hypothesis and retest.

[@r.b.4611]

Yes, the dumbest things I've ever heard have come from smart people who have devised complex logical systems, but have neglected to adequately test them against reality.

[@Torterra_ghahhyhiHd]

this is the dark side of the mind it self because, this elements characteristic can create new frame depending the non count hable characteristic elements bring ups so any divergent arrows bring up changes bring downs many arrows. and convergent arrow circuntance is when phenomenon of values happens. this is on godel hard problem. and hard math paradox problems. everything become wrong if before wholes of essential stuff was right , maybe just because a butterfly fisics particle theorem. math not necessary have meaning until you put it in the model some says.

[@jamesmaybury7452]

R.B. Nice way of putting it. It is either happening more or I’m becoming more aware of it.

[@r.b.4611]

@@jamesmaybury7452 You put it pretty well to begin with mate. My favourite example is when William Lane Craig said there are 3 meta levels to suffering. Then he applied this logic to animal suffering. Of course he is a Christian so he has to somehow justify the belief that we have dominion over the animals and can do whatever we want to them, anyway... He said the top layer of suffering is meta-awareness of the suffering, so while a pig may suffer, it doesn't realise that it's suffering and thus does not really suffer. I'm paraphrasing of course, but essentially he used logic to disprove the fact that animals can suffer. Of course a SCIENTIST would just do some brain scans and compare behaviour between us and other animals and INSTANTLY conclude that it's all the same shit and we probably suffer in much the same way. Smart people >.

[@TheReferrer72]

@@r.b.4611 We do have dominion over animals that's just a fact. However to say a animal does not suffer is idiotic, and easily testable.

[@SparkyLabs]

Bravely bang on. Sadly most will miss the nuances of what she is saying.

[@asdfafafdasfasdfs]

Supposedly rational people proving that they're not... the talk is basically about being neutral - prioritizing logic over emotions, she mentions e.g. how Oprah is more privileged than a poor white man, but they get instantly offended at the mere sight of "privilege" and similar political terms.

[@Ludwig1954]

A brilliant speech. I particularly like her conclusion where she applies logic and empathy to feelings. The common factor of logic and empathy is that both are non-judgemental. So is pure mathematics. So to bake a perfect pi, just take judgement out of the recipe and let people choose whether they want to eat their pi with apple sauce, chocolate pudding, powdered sugar, pink icing or even just the pure pi. But - dammit - let them choose later on and only for themselves. Do not let them stuff their particular version down your throat.

[@shaunhall7894]

The title is misleading.

[@wakkawakka1618]

Right. Cause how to think would be too inviting.

[@nelsonc5339]

This lecture wins the award for packing the most flame-war inducing topics into the shortest time. Brilliant! Well done Eugenia! Enjoy reading the comments. 😉 (seriously though, as a “cis” white rich male, I learned a new perspective on category theory from this. Ordering the book! Thanks!)

[@NomenNescio99]

She constantly disregard basic logic, you can't use any part of your assumption as a part of the proof of the assumption, that's called circular logic. Also, other times her political views are treated as axioms and the results will of course be in line with the axioms used. Compare classical vs non Euclidean geometry to understand why that methodology is bullocks. Please go ahead and subscribe to whatever dangerous political views that want to destroy the western civilization you wish to subscribe to. Our society is still free, or at least until the neo marxists like this lady have taken over. But please don't blame your views on mathematics, as correct math had next to no part in this lecture.

[@error.418]

@@NomenNescio99 She didn't use assumptions to prove assumptions. She didn't prove anything. She talked about frameworks of thinking. She also stopped and recognized that someone with an opposing view could take things a different way, but with a framework people with opposing views can have a more thoughtful discussion. All I'm seeing you do is get angry and cling to your views, not really unpacking things and providing thought or substance.

[@matthewwalsh7813]

To people calling her a racist: you and I probably agree on a fair number of political issues. I disagree with some assumptions she made in this talk. But if you watch this video and your only takeaway is that she is a racist, I think you you might have missed the forrest for the trees here...

[@mgmartin51]

The new way of “winning “ arguments is to call your opponent a racist. That way nobody has to think.

[@OnlyObserving-c6b]

@@mgmartin51That’s exactly what she does in her book. She bashes a specific racial group without substantiating why she’s doing it. And it’s funny, because she preaches in that same book that to argue logically you must carefully state the assumptions you’re making. Woke logic at its finest!

[@duduzilezulu5494]

​@@OnlyObserving-c6bSince you read her book would you be able to prove your statement logically?

[@OnlyObserving-c6b]

@@duduzilezulu5494 Which statement? I made a few.

[@mygreatbigfoot1679]

The forest, actually.

[@_Noopy_]

Also one of THE MOST important things I found missing in her talk, was the weights on the arrows of her diagrams. It's a very crucial point. If a thing has many factors that doesn't mean all those factors are equally probable, or equally important/relevant. If someone X says, A -> B --> C And then she comes in and says oh, it's actually, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H .... all interconnected like a graph. Hence, it's all a very complicated interconnected system. Well we'll have to do a probability/relevance/importance analysis of all those pathways in her graphs. And if in the end, it turns out that the path: A --> B ---> C accounts for let's say 95% of the probability or everyday occurrences, then that someone X is not far off, and her analysis is farther from the practical truth. This is I feel where her analogies of a social system to a mathematical system, can be improved. But her analogies are a very good starting points.

[@alcyone1349]

Lovely lecture. Thanks Ri.

[@equesdeventusoccasus]

The philosopher in the room is asking what is the meaning of two? How does two relate to the human condition? How can we possibly concern ourselves with such trivialities as chairs, apples and bananas until we answer the more fundamental question? After all, if a banana or apple is made of large bolts of cloth and filled with beans they are all chairs.

[@drewlop]

I see a lot of comments on here saying "keep politics out of math/science," but I think that's backwards: her talk is all about getting math into politics! She states her main claim pretty clearly in the part starting at 19:19: > what we should really do is think about how these things are all connected. and then i think we can think about who has more power in this situation and personally, i think that it's the people who have more power who should take the responsibility to change something and find an arrow to break. but at least, *even if we disagree about that, at least if we've understood this interaction, we can have a more sensible conversation about which arrows should be broken and who should break them.*

[@fyngolnoldor4891]

Except all she does is list a bunch of factors that play a role in the outcome and does no qualitative or quantitative analysis of how much each of them contributed to the end result. Furthermore, she then takes purely ideological constructs regarding power and oppression and tries to justify the pyramid of oppression (though in this case it looks more like a parallelepiped) with her diagrams. I find this utterly disgusting and a complete misrepresentation of what mathematics is or should be. Mathematics has NOTHING to do with politics and it should stay well clear of it. As an Eastern-European I can tell you that the only academic fields that were NOT destroyed by communist ideology in my part of the world were those that were fortunate enough to have nothing to do with politics, such as mathematics. And now this lady is trying to pervert it with her social justice ideology. SHAME ON HER!

[@nofreeride1822]

Smart does not equal wise. Another Leftard who builds strawmen and thinks she is tearing it down, not realizing all she is doing is firmly solidifying her confirmation bias. She is not using math, there is no deductive reasoning. She is projecting.

[@peacefroglorax875]

@@fyngolnoldor4891 I feel the emotion, but mathematics *is* part of politics as game theory.

[@fyngolnoldor4891]

@@peacefroglorax875 I would argue that Game Theory is its own thing and politics uses it sometimes. The converse isn't true: game theory isn't influenced in any way by what has/is/will happen in politics.

[@howardmorgan4196]

You worry me - Eugenia was using the "bunch of factors" completly unevaluated, just as illustrations - her focus was the process, and how it might help resolve differences. I saw no ideolgy in play -the process would work equally well for left or right, indeed it would help them get together@@fyngolnoldor4891

[@thewiseturtle]

Yes. Intelligent thinking is three dimensional problem solving. I can look at my own and someone else's needs, and rotate, translate, and/or reflect them around within the larger environment that we are both operating within, to find a single solution that helps us both get something that we need. Maybe not exactly what we were expecting, but something positive towards our goals. Physical thinking is 1D and is just focusing on one's own body's needs. Emotional thinking is 2D and focuses on one's own body's needs plus another's body's needs. But intellectual thinking is 3D and solves the problem of getting both of our needs met in a way that truly works, given the goals of the community/environment that we're in, so that we can effectively get our needs met in a way that helps the third, larger group, get its needs met too.

[@hikaroto2791]

that was a talk beyond my expectations

[@eduardoaraujo8174]

"Math is the language of the universe" (myself or somente else that I dont know), and this is probably the deepest phrase anyone can make

[@NerdyRodent]

Wonderful talk, very well done.

[@afireinside0]

I loved this lecture, I am currently reading her book and examining my own ways of thinking and the ones that surround me. The sportsman black rich man example is something I hear everyday. "Is classism, not racism". When it's both. Thank you!

[@another_august]

Those who come to here can understand mathematics is useful. If you could persuade the people who hate maths, then you are great.

[@TheSidyoshi]

The LOGIC-EMPATHY isomorphism! AWESOME TALK. I think she is trying to show that maths is not some abstract thing that lives in a bubble on the top of an ivory tower. It's intrinsic in how the world works, even how we think about things. She is making abstract mathematics something you can feel. I don't think there was anything wrong in what she said. Politics, the economy, social structures ... understanding these with mathematics is part of being human, whether you know it's there or not. Sometimes you feel something and you don't know why. She just thinks that maybe you can try to figure out why you feel that way, organise the ideas. Without abstractions we aren't human. We can't relate. We can't communicate. Language is the first abstraction. Learning language is doing mathematics. Your mind FEELS the rules, when a sentence makes sense and when it won't, when words go together and when they can't. Ditto music. You feel it. Ditto morality. You feel it. Ditto fish swimming. They feel it. They understand fluid dynamics at a different level, by feel. It's like feeling the wind when riding a bicycle. There is a sense in which our minds are just computers, but instead of number crunching, human minds crunch ideas. She just trying to show that mathematics is THE basis that allows us to model ideas. It's THE meta-idea. There is Mathematics behind everything. Everywhere you look, the world, the planets, the stars, the atom, the cell, the eye, we see patterns, and that's all we can see. Is it because there are patterns out there in the world? Or, is it that our limited minds can only see patterns? If something isn't a neat, simple pattern we can't even see that thing. At least I can't. It's the matrix. Pun intended.

[@abdullahilbaki9334]

Very nice discussion about the effectiveness of Pure Mathematics

[@JohnPorsbjerg]

god bless her for not dancing around politics like it's some kind of swear word. she could have talked about colored blocks or material properties but this is making a much much much better point

[@flooph6830]

the video is about how to think. though some may not like the way she presented the concept, i think its a good way to describe it. cool video.

[@thegoodkidboy7726]

"Three types of priviledge" I've been tricked.

[@ronaldohlund1985]

She I so good, even stand-up quality. This is so an important subject, to introduce mathematics to ordinary life topics. We can find the answers by taking into concern the complexity, not find answers just by simplifying all the time. The best answers can activate the acting of reducing a problem, not activate the blaming as it was the only goal from the beginning.

[@dixonpinfold2582]

You're happy with this post? It's incoherent.

[@spitalhelles3380]

The beauty of maths is that there are no boundaries to your imagination.

[@anthonybiel7096]

Thank you Eugenia for having formalized clairvoyance in its pure state!

[@MrJoel9679]

Loved this. Eugenia was brave talking about her professional skills and showing how they help her personally, because we learn a little about her. We don't know everything about her. That makes her in part, vulnerable. Just remember the stupidity graph at the end though. Eugenia is aiming for you to benefit as well as herself. If like me you disagree with some of the conclusions and assumptions made during the talk, it is up to you to be more intelligent in discussing those issues. I really liked this talk because it is a challenge to grow stronger, not just have an opinion. That's exactly what healthy societies need.

[@deborahdunlap7168]

The comments on this thread amaze me. She used assumptions of privilege that are based on a mountain of statistical data. She said nothing about blame except that she thought any group of attributes of power superior to another should probably bear more responsibility to try to ease conflict between them. She also said that her thought could be argued. She never once used the word "woke." So I am very curious as to how in such a short few years that in the word "woke" has become a common word, what logical chain presented to you by whatever media you watch, read and/or listen to has led you to such an extreme reaction? Does the very mention of a phrase or certain phrases automatically elicit the label, "woke"? What is your personal full definition of "woke"? Is this a Pavlovian reaction or is there a mental logical chain that leads to the conclusion to apply the label? What does "woke" stand for to you? For those who have such an intense reaction to it, it seems to be being used as an "all things evil" label. How did that occur? What phrases used in the video immediately brought forth that label? Inquiring minds want to know.

[@hugeopossum2767]

There's a linguistics term called "thought terminating cliches" which is a good explanation of this and many comments threads. Essentially, by throwing out these cliches, the person essentially shuts down any further critical thought processes and shuts down further debate. Everyone is guilty of this, not just one group of people, but it's most seen play out in real time in comments threads.

[@nefaristo]

In the overabundance of potentially good stuff to hear, I think I'll trust the comments and stop what in the intro seemed a good lecture about how to *avoid* identity politics in the public discourse.

[@VvDOPAMEANvV]

Awesome presentation!

[@topper3200]

She is a sociologist /social psychologist, who also happens to be a theoretical mathematician.

[@fakegandhi5577]

Unless, you require that a person with those titles have experience and knowledge of the literature, results, and ideas of the field. Actual psychologists use evidenced results to reason about things (maybe a patient). She just helps people to build a logical framework to reason with the results.

[@magnets1000]

@38:28 "we all feel everyday sexism all the time" - really?

[@SonaliSenguptasengupso41]

Very Interesting approach of the talk. Pure mathematics involves abstraction which sounds like moving from subjectivity to objectivity.

[@daleputnam8300]

She gets political because that is an area of society that seriously needs more logic instead of emotional argument and opinion entitlement...I am skeptical about the optimism claim though.

[@michaelstreeter3125]

In my own discipline (Business Systems Analysis) we have "the 5 whys" for trying to understand why something went wrong. I liked the breakdown of the United Express Flight 3411 incident. Now I have to think about how to use the lattice. Liked this lecture -- in spite of all the other comments (a rich, white man wouldn't have been criticised so harshly). The second time I watched it with my wife and 10yo daughter.

[@jerrybains5660]

Where is the mathematical proof a white man wouldn't be criticized so harshly? YOU AND Eugenia Cheng criticize white males harshly on the basis of a hateful paradigm of "white privilege" -- as if the civilization that white men created from scratch with no help from the likes of you over the past 1000 years had fallen down out of the sky and white men had merel;y got there first and hogged it all -- so your own words prove conclusively that you're a liar.

[@truthteller007]

Dear Dr. Cheng I love your mind. Dr. Cheng I have had a problem with the commutative property of multiplication for 46 years when I argued my point when: A=1apple and B =0 for example, so I say yes B X A = 0, but not A X B = 0 (sorry I do not have the not equal to symbol in my keyboard) or rather A X B = C and B X A = C exept when B = 0. as you have a apple and you multiply it zero times you still have a apple. I would greatly appreciate explaining how I am wrong or hopefully agreeing with me. Thank You! anxiously awaiting your reply.

[@MsSlash89]

Nope; if you have an apple and multiply it by zero, in the end you still get zero. Any number multiplied by zero gives you zero, no matter the order. So not AxB and BxA are indeed equal to zero. You say that if you have an apple and multiply it by zero you still get an apple. That’s not true: it would be true if you multiplied that apple by one, not zero. Let me know if it is clearer.

[@wolfgangornig3556]

Nope Think it as that: There ist a box with an infinite number of apples owned by Frutana. You can take out as many you need for your math. 4*2 you take out 4 apples, 2 times. You now have 8 apples. Put them back. 4*0 you Take out 4 Apples, 0 times. You now have 0 Apples.

[@Alacrates]

You could make a very similar video, with these kind of concepts concepts supporting very different positions. (Right wing positions, for instance.) She uses concepts from math/logic to elucidate certain political situations, but since she doesn't prove any positions to be true, or refute any positions, this type of thing really doesn't change the political conclusions ppl come to. A lot of this is pretty intuitive to people as well - they know it but might have a hard time explaining it. I've read that people don't often make logical mistakes, outside of specially created puzzles. Most often our mistakes are due to perceptual errors: not having the correct information, missing key details, etc.

[@dixonpinfold2582]

Your comments stand out for being coherently expressed. Most commenters in support of the lecture seem to have suffered a lot of blows to the head. Thanks.

[@wdujsub7902]

Her logic was fabulous and listening to her arguments was really a treat. Some people can argue that the added politics kind of ruined the talk in some way, but I did not feel that she came here to mathematically prove that any point of view is better or worse than any other (liberal vs conservative) that some viewers might have thought so according to the comment section. I can see such arguments amongst all people around me. It is important to not forget that we all feel that we are being reasonable, but with different starting assumptions.

[@another_august]

Really? I couldn't find the way you think!

[@gonnaenodaethat6198]

Very true and a great logical way to think about it, but the privilege thing was way off mark and factually wrong as well as police violence so one can see why people would have an ich to scratch in correcting those errors. All the other opinion based political stuff was fine and id agree that arguing against them under minds the point of the lecture.

[@wdujsub7902]

@@gonnaenodaethat6198 yes in most of these talks I see a bit of politics which honestly I do not like one bit, because no matter what is the subject it always polarises people into groups, but the Logic part of the talk was really a treat to me. I noticed that All of the talkers that I have watched have the same liberal world view ... but so be it. As long as it will not get too political and focuses mainly on the Topic i will keep enjoying these

[@gwendolynn7314]

It's prejudice to just someone by their color. I didn't get through the 2nd chapter of her book and I refuse to read it. It's not logic, it's politics!!

[@Syntax753]

Absolutely brilliant!

[@SolWake]

Looking at the comments, I see a trend of people frustrated about the involvement of politics in what should be a scientific talk. And, taking a leaf out of Eugenia's talk, this makes perfect logical sense if science is apolitical. As Ian Hacking articulates, and Foucault more broadly, this is not the case and it is very much impossible to divorce science from the sociopolitical world in which it is conducted. The most obvious example that anyone engaged in scientific research will tell you is that one of the greatest concerns for a scientist is FUNDING. You can't do science without funding. And funding comes from sources with sociopolitical priorities, e.g. the government sets priorities about what is important. It could be something as innocuous as, "We need more stroke research", so scientists ask more scientific questions about stroke. Fantastic! Or, it could be something like, "We need to make scientific advancements to make military-grade lasers a reality", so scientists ask more scientific questions about that. Even "advancing human understanding of the universe through science is important" is a political stance, and not all humans share that stance. I think some more content about what science is, its relationship to epistemology, and how it is situated in broader society would be helpful to understand how science is inextricably tied to politics. Science is conducted by humans; each human is born and raised in a society with a dominant culture and with a particular worldview. This worldview shapes the types of scientific questions we ask. For example, "To what extent do white, black, and Asian children in North America differ in intelligence, as measured by IQ?" is a perfectly legitimate scientific question--and similar studies have been conducted in the past. This question is predicated on the sociopolitical worldview that race exists and that race is a meaningful category by which to distinguish intelligence. I won't argue the pros and cons of this worldview, but I do argue that this scientific question arises from this particular sociopolitical worldview and it is by this worldview that the results of the study would be interpreted.

[@yourinternetfriend6778]

You're missing the point of a lot of comments - I suspect on purpose. The title doesn't mention that this is a political talk and the topic could have very well be presented without any involvement of her personal political opinions. RI is purposefully misleading it's audience.

[@dixonpinfold2582]

You breezily ramble on about science but the subject is math. You failed. But thanks for letting us know that "Science is conducted by humans."

[@SolWake]

@@dixonpinfold2582 I was more responding to people's points about this video being in context of a science channel. But yes, you are correct that I failed to split this particular hair between pure math and science (let's not get into "Mathematical Sciences"). In certain contexts, I'd agree it's an important distinction. I don't think it's so important in this context of a science channel and the speaker's "scientific affiliations". But, to correct your beautifully pedantic gripe, "Mathematics is engaged by humans."

[@dixonpinfold2582]

@@SolWake Oh, come off it. "Science is conducted by humans" quotes perfectly the start of your last paragraph. Cheers.

[@SolWake]

@@dixonpinfold2582 Yes, it is. And I acknowledged your point.

[@ecelsozanato5603]

Fantastic, dr. Cheng! Thank you!

[@WilliamFritz3511]

What is math not useful for? Would be my question to my younger self

[@mescale]

You are so welcome! Thank you too! Illuminating!😺

[@melvladimir]

Thank you! Now I have got the explanation how a very strong logic and a very strong empathy can be in the same person. Most tests put that on the opposite sides, so you either logician or empath. I am both!

[@2explore1]

You speak so wise. Thank you.

[@Sahil-fj6yp]

np

[@hukes]

I couldn't bear watching this until the end.

[@saudmolaib2764]

To all those hating on this video because of the liberal leaning political examples, consider this: Suppose you are a mathematician. You're an intelligent individual, so you study prime numbers and how they relate to the million dollar Riemann Hypothesis. One day, you go to a colleague's lecture, but the numbers in the examples he gives are all prime which are one less than a power of 2, which you would know as Mersenne primes. After the lecture, you go to your office, deeply disturbed. You hate Mersenne primes. You conclude that the lecture was rubbish and choose not to waste your time thinking about the techniques presented in the lecture. This is a ridiculous scenario, of course. But by focusing your attention on the examples which you dislike, you have missed the meat of this lecture. Many of you think the point of this talk is to "shove liberal ideology down your throat." Clearly Dr. Cheng is left leaning, but the thesis of this talk is not left-leaning. Instead, what Dr. Cheng demonstrates are techniques which can allow us to think more clearly about topics from everyday life. In particular, the diagrams she presented are extremely helpful for analyzing why something happens. I'm not being very specific about the techniques because they're in the video if you want to learn them. You may not agree with the examples she gave, but if you try to apply the same techniques to different examples, they will still work. They allow us to be critical of a world in which it seems that everyone is trying to manipulate us. It's important to do this to all aspects of our lives whether we are on the left, on the right, or just somewhere else.

[@anderskallberg7969]

The youtube comment-section needs more people like you

[@nikolarajkovic3558]

In simple terms: you don't need to agree with what she says in order to find value in the method and technique she presents. Did I get it right?

[@saudmolaib2764]

@@nikolarajkovic3558 Yes, this is the moral of the story! Thank you!

[@xzist]

No, the moral of the story is: you shouldn't unnecessarily bring your political / radical views (no matter what side of the coin they fall) into an educational lecture which has nothing to do with them. Its annoying and needlessly distracts from whatever your main point happens to be. The moral of the story is that we shouldn't be forced by the lecturer to wade through their political views to get to the meat of their argument.

[@jayasri6764]

So,Basic skepticism is a difficult thing? Makes sense,when you are so politically motivated.

[@anthonyheller9711]

She seems to be disguising some rather strong moral opinions within the confines of a talk about pure mathematics.

[@willwright3358]

@@Stroheim333 did you grok her presentation?

[@nelsonphillips]

Its not really pure mathematics when its applied. Might need to go back the your outrage buddies in 4Chan.

[@bartomiej4361]

My thoughts exactly, this presentation would have been so much better without the bias coming from her personal views!

[@MATHTODAY650]

It helps me a lot.Thank you

[@reggaefan2700]

She learned well from her time in Chicago. She talked so much about Black men...lead me to think she has a black spouse.

[@rauldempaire5330]

@@reggaefan2700 Nope ... she is married to a regular Chinese.....

[@no410production]

when a video finally confirms that you are, indeed, Unfortunate

[@kevinfishburne]

I get what people are saying, but I appreciate someone playing with bridging cultural values and mathematics/reason. Yes, it can be offensive, but it's a little fun too. It'd be a bit unstimulating otherwise. At least it's not the usual left/right beatdown of dogma we get everywhere else. I wish everyone with a "cause" spoke like that.

[@moniquenavarro4131]

Just amazing content! So I pressed!

[@nebpoma]

So what is the nature of mathematical reasoning: reduction, deduction, induction.. .?

[@reggaefan2700]

She learned well from her time in Chicago. She talked so much about Black men...lead me to think she has a black spouse.

[@fakegandhi5577]

I love this question! It reminds me of Thomas Kuhn's stance on science. It cannot be defined!! Any definition would limit the methods, connections, and discoveries in the field. We have labeled these things in the past but then a paradigm shift (revolutionary idea) occurs and blows everything out of the water. That being said, I think it is important to distinguish between the nature of math reasoning and math proof. I think math proof is about manipulation of symbols via a logical structure that we trust to be accurate. This is like deduction since it builds on axioms and finds the consequences of the logical structure (axioms). Often the axioms of these structures are so basic and intuitive that they are hard to deny without changing our entire views of reality. As for math reasoning, I think abstraction is a better word than reduction in this case. Abstraction could be seen as "noticing a pattern". In practice these patterns might be hunches that we want to explore. Math is not ambiguous like words so we can reason about it better and explore it if we represent it (or something that resembles it) in math. Math (the developed logical rules) is symbolic so we can replace things with symbols to hide details and better expose patterns. I think mathematicians have many patterns stored in "muscle memory" of potential logical manipulations for specific situations to achieve some result from it. So if I were to choose a word I would choose abstraction but that's me...

[@rosskrt]

@@reggaefan2700 what the actual f you twisted mind

[@mr.computation5044]

Miss Eugenia Cheng is the best. I never listened to a better speech of a mathematician. I feel very impressed. Brilliant!

[@mrdanger4851]

Thank you for this video, This is how I think all the time and now I know I'm not alone. Y personal mantra has become "It's hard to be open minded in a narrow minded world" .

[@SanamenteInsano]

I find it interesting.. why werent people applauding?

[@manuellayburr382]

They applauded at the end. What do you want cheerleaders lol

[@testimonialicochique]

The lecture was interesting at many levels, and it's quiet ironical that comments tend to blame a political background or a lack of mathematic-academic content. If you look through history, mathematicians weren't apolitical or weren't only focused by one occupation. Transversality between subjects and multilayering thinking may seems unorthodox, but breaking some rules don't harm if it is raising questions in some curious minds.

[@yourinternetfriend6778]

You are mixing up mathematicians being political and mathematics being political. Of course humans can have political opinions, but such opinions have no bearing on mathematical truth.

[@dmm3124]

Not everything in mathematics is equal. Some things are greater than, or less than.

[@truthteller007]

That is only when other factor or conditions or values are varying or not the same for example: 2+2=4 or 2 feet of iron rod plus 2 feet of iron rod equals 4 feet of iron rods at 4 degrees Celsius but are not equal to 4 feet at 60 degrees Celsius.

[@c_b5060]

Historically, British society has been structured around social hierarchies, with the aristocracy and upper classes holding significant privilege and power. Contemporary discussions around privilege in Great Britain often center on issues of class, race, gender, and other aspects of identity that impact social mobility and access to opportunities. The presentation by this speaker shows how much she has let this social hierarchy permeate her otherwise logical mind. She describes her situation, and then believes that it applies across the world.

[@katgod]

For many populations it is, i.e. India, USA, I suspect it is in China also but don't know for sure

[@rajendralekhwar4131]

Excellent session

[@renunciant]

I came here to have a voice to read her book in, stayed because her talk was interesting!

[@jeffwong1310]

I don't think anyone will be against the usefulness of a subject with the surplus of interesting matters. I think a lot of that is related to how we educate young people in the current system .Mathematicians are also human, so they have story. If we tell more stories of them to the students, we can for sure trigger more of their interest towards science and maths. For instance, the competition between Leibniz and Newton in terms of who actually invented calculus would be a very interesting story to tell.

[@procastrination8328]

Exactly, the system is completely upside down, instead of stoking fires of interest first then teach the methods educational systems just teach the methods and leave you be to figure out the story for yourself, causing kids to think they are an "anti talent" at something they might have a passion for.

[@2002kika]

It's really good talk. Got to learn so many things.....

[@4Urehealth]

Amazing how many of the commenters on this thread don’t realize that math fundamentally helps us to think logically and perhaps we need to get back to applying logic and facts to sift through the hogwash of political discourse especially in US politics ... Some of us seem uncomfortable with confronting the realities of the real world.

[@SomeoneBeginingWithI]

+

[@nelsonphillips]

Paul it has been targeted by outrage trolls. This happens sometimes when the notion of white privilege is mentioned, even in passing. What has happened here is a really go example of targeted trolling. The key to identifying it is the comments are all similar and slightly off topic or at least pushing it of topic. Interesting to someone that has seen this a bit is that it tries to evolve. For instance, you may notice most of them are responding and trying to fight their position. This is a new phenomenon as before they just dumped their comments and ran. But, this also seems more costly as there is less of them doing it. They may have target specific campaigns now because the organised outrage with the shaver commercial was just a swarm of negativity. Its clearly different here.

[@matthewwriter9539]

32:00 as a poor white male I can say that the poor vs rich privilege is the most important of all to society. See 35:00 47:00

[@kateguillot8401]

Of course you would say it's important, its the only one you're familiar with. You can't accurately gauge how important racism is because you don't experience it

[@matthewwriter9539]

@@kateguillot8401 Really?!? The irony is that THAT statement is by it's very nature racist. You are judging me by my race to have never experienced racism before. I heard a woman burst into tears when she found out that the baby she was pregnant with was a boy and she didn't want to give birth to a future rapist. (Saw the video on KZbin but still) What if I told you that when I was 16 I went on a trip out of state, within 3 hours of arriving at my destination I was walking down the street minding my own business when I had to be sent to the hospital for 3 weeks because I was beat up by a group of black people because they assumed I was racist just because I was a white male. Now what if I told you that a white male was killed in my city by a group of transgender people who thought that he was anti-lgbt...yet the day before he had told me that he was gay, and that I was the first person he had ever told. What if I told you that I hated letting my best friend of over 15 years down, because I can't date him because I am not gay? However let's take a step back. There are many things that you and I haven't experienced that we have read about, and we know in some small part what it is like. I am not a brain surgeon, I have never opened up a human head, and I don't claim to be an expert on the human mind, yet I have read about it. So because I am not an expert, I am not a doctor, then by your logic I can't know where the heart is, what part of the brain has the temporal lobe or how many lungs a human being has. As an autistic person I have difficulty with social situations and so I took special classes in school, including signing up for social studies and psychology classes in college. Racism, sexism and other forms of inequality were among the topics discussed. I have seen my share of discrimination due to my autism. You are also clearly ignoring the fact that an Asian woman agrees with me in this exact video at the 33:00 to 35:10 mark.

[@gwendolynn7314]

Exactly

[@gwendolynn7314]

@@kateguillot8401 that's an ignorant statement!!

[@FredMontier]

There it goes... the Magnificent Math Ship to the bottom torpedoed by PC !

[@janeza382]

I assume liberals are not into math

[@zacharydavis8665]

Is there anywhere that we can find the slideshow she used? I want to print some of those graphs and post them around my room. I supposed I could go on and make them myself.

[@psyboyo]

Can we talk about math, and not politics? "No."

[@101yayo]

The point was you can apply maths to understand different viewpoints in politics. Therefore thinking like a mathematician.

[@psyboyo]

She was pushing propaganda all along, and we all saw it, we all felt it, and here we are, denouncing it. That's it. If there was a point to it, it vanishes the moment you realize she has a political agenda. [at @@101yayo]

[@DarthTwilight]

"What is it useful for?" It's the language in which God wrote the universe, so the answer is "Anything relating to the physical world, and just because chalkboards are so much fun."

[@adamhannath1417]

45:00 The point about emotions being true really spoiled this lecture even though it was her pinnacle argument. Using the example of being afraid was short sighted. Emotion is a knee-jerk, often incorrect, response to stimuli. Once the situation has passed you often see in hind-sight how your emotional response was inadequate. This is how we develop logic, by understanding that our emotions are incapable of assessing situations, only reacting to them.

[@tannereckmann5404]

When you are seeing "in hind-sight how your past response was inadequate", is this not it's self an emotional frame? Looking back doesn't make you logical, in the way that sitting in math class doesn't make you good at math. Though having a particular emotional state while looking back or while sitting in class, such as feeling an aversion/fear toward confusion/misdirection to the degree that it over powers the previous motive, may cause you to use reasoning in a way that would be more sturdy, but the odds that people are correctly practicing deductive reasoning consistently is pretty low, as even i cant afford to state all my premises here or else my conversation would be to "Boring and unproductive". Emotion again beating logic because logic is to slow and to difficult for people to fallow unless it is required.

[@adamhannath1417]

​@@tannereckmann5404 Hindsight is an analytical process, understanding that past emotive response was lacking is not emotive, it's constructive and analytical. An emotive response to an inadequate emotive response would be emotive , i.e. anger, fear. As I said earlier, emotion is a knee jerk reaction that disregards outside input. This doesn't disqualify emotion, there are many emotional responses that are validated purely through there positive attribute: happiness, empathy, sorrow (but even this requires a level of environmental input as many who live with bi-polar or anyone who has ever encountered a con-artist may respectively discover). It is when that emotion becomes the validation of an action or hypothesis that interacts with the world outside of oneself that a lack of questioning becomes dangerous and/or creates segregation and marginalises the opinions others. This is what causes toddlers to tantrum, an inability to understand or accept that their feelings are not the same as the world at large. As adults, the ability to analyse and rationalise one's emotion is what is described as sanity.

[@adamhannath1417]

@@tannereckmann5404 it allows you to gauge the outcome and refine your response to future stimuli. Someone who has analysed their reactions to a situation where the response resulted in a negative outcome, Would more likely have a better outcome coming across a future situation with a similar emotional response. someone who doesn't will repeat the process

[@jerrybains5660]

@@tannereckmann5404 - He obviously meant looking back self-critically. That process is not an emotional frame at all. Looking back emotionally is obsessing -- you know he didn't mean that. Deductive reasoning has nothing to do with it. It has been known for centuries that Aristotle's framework of deductive and inductive logic does not even begin to explain how men reason logically about the world. Practically the whole history of logic from Ockham in the 14th century to Peirce in the 19th-20th is all about what Aristotle left out. Look up "abductive reasoning or inference to the best (thinkable) explanation".

[@SakaiUnlimited]

I love maths.... even though I don't get it sometimes😅😅

[@DavidEllerman]

Although Cheng in this talk (and book) and other books is about applying category theory, she seems to only use the arrow-theoretic aspects all of which is just graph theory that long predates category theory. The new concepts in CT are universality (universal mapping properties) and naturality (natural transformations) which I don't see being used.

[@danatronics9039]

This is brilliant, it's like an entry-level guide to systemic critique. 10/10

[@raspberries321]

She lost me at "Broccoli is delicious..."

[@fieldtinny33]

Social sciences is very hard logically because there are so many variables that seem reasonable in a particular time frame or situtatioon then can change. She needed to use a social construction like marriage to show how logic can help approach these complicated issues - not solve them as her charts at the begining show its not one or many factors in isolation but the way they relate. Not sure if this moves into caos theory etc. This is how to think like a mindset then the real detail becomes psychology based on empiracle evidence.

[@-dennis3755]

I think she was mainly intending to only explain the fundamentals of the sorts of ways category logic can be used, so a social scientist could learn from this lecture to utilize the aid of the tools she showed, but I don't think explaining the problem concretely was her goal as much as explaining it in terms of related ideas in an argument

[@avejst]

Great deduction Great talk Thanks for sharing👍😀

[@gamplie]

What is that factors of 30 cube diagram thingy called?

[@fakegandhi5577]

I come from a computer science space but a "hamming cube" seems fitting. You just would have to think of each bit corresponding to a prime factor.

[@Sahil-fj6yp]

Parallelogram

[@ifcoltransg2]

You can call it a Hasse Diagram.

[@vicsummers9431]

What is your framework for falsifying white privilege?

[@JackPassmore]

Wait... I thought a = banana, b= apple, and c= chair. What did I miss?

[@MrTimdog1985]

I like thinking like this, and it's incredibly seductive, as it much of social science, but the reason why it's probably all doomed to failure is the systems you're trying to abstract (and ring fence) are too interconnected, complex, and chaotic. What you deem relevant to that system is in some ways, the definition of politics. Sociological abstractions are incredibly efficient, but have massive errors, especially when you try to reverse engineer them back into any real world situations. And those errors can often have worse downstream effects than the problem they're trying to solve. It's why Liberalism works for the most part, because it realises the only way to win, is not to play the game at all and just curb the excesses. The devil is in the detail and how you weigh each factor and how much prevalence you give each one is fairly subjective, and post-hoc to one's temperamental and cultural standpoint. It'll probably never have the objectivity of pure Maths, at least not in any discrete way. Not at least until we have a much better grasp of neurology and cognitive systems. But yes, interesting to think about! But rather a fools errand I think.

[@vblaas246]

I agree it is simplifying and very reductionistic about the complexity of systems. However, one point she made, that you have to find the link with the most strength or power in (a part of) the relational graph and try to break that, that might be enough to not have to take into account the chaotic behavior of some systems.

[@MrTimdog1985]

@@vblaas246 Where abouts did she talk about that? Sorry must have missed it...

[@Damathematician]

I too also have a healthy skepticism of the successful of some broad adoption of her talk. Mapping math onto science outside of the physical science I think has a larger problem centered around "what the true atomic or fundamental pieces are", even before we start getting to the size, complexity, and sensitivity you bring up. At least in math we get to define what our fundamental elements and operations are. I wouldn't go so far as to say a fools errand... but a huge asterisk next to all claims: This is my mental model. Apply at your own risk.

[@MrTimdog1985]

​@@Damathematician Yeah, with a 'lightness of touch' maybe!

[@vblaas246]

@@MrTimdog1985 18:32 (not literally, but she repeats the point somewhere later) kzbin.info/www/bejne/bpbQgZamm9aDiLc

[@jimreynolds2399]

Great talk. Initially I thought it was going to be one of those contrived talks that some people give just because they are more interested in giving a talk than actually talking about something interesting that people could benefit from. It got more interesting as it went and it all coalesced really well the definition of stupid. I liked the numbers part also. Her delivery was very good also - kept your attention. She is proof of her own pre-talk statement about how maths can bring clarity of thought.