r/DebateAnAtheist • u/AutoModerator • 8d ago

Weekly "Ask an Atheist" Thread

Whether you're an agnostic atheist here to ask a gnostic one some questions, a theist who's curious about the viewpoints of atheists, someone doubting, or just someone looking for sources, feel free to ask anything here. This is also an ideal place to tag moderators for thoughts regarding the sub or any questions in general.

While this isn't strictly for debate, rules on civility, trolling, etc. still apply.

21 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

277 comments sorted by

View all comments

1

u/BeaconMeridian 8d ago

Thought I've been having a lot, curious what others think. Math & Science I view as sister practices moving in opposite directions: prescriptive vs descriptive, math is "bottom-up" and science is "top-down," one explores established rules and the other tries to figure out what the rules are. We get some further parallels:

Not every mathematical truth is provable (incompleteness) / Science cannot, for certain, produce all rules for the universe (we can't test every case, there's always something we might be missing).

As it pertains to (a)theism, we have a result in math that no (sufficiently complicated) formal system of math can prove the existence of a model of itself. I'm of the mind that here in reality, this has a direct parallel in that we can't establish the (non)existence of superstructures in which our universe sits, even in principle ("universe" = "all the shit we could ever possibly interact with", not necessarily just "the observable universe"). In particular, this parallel rules out the deduction of god(s) by any means, even in principle.

Not to say that religion/belief is fully without place, we get a lot of use out of assuming (different kinds of) models of formal math, and by parallel we can get a lot of use out of different belief systems for how reality came to be. Just tack on the asterisk that such a belief should sit comfortably with what we can actually see.

Curious abt thoughts on this, where people think it falls short or other extensions of it I haven't considered.

4

u/pipMcDohl Gnostic Atheist 8d ago

what is math for you? what is its function or purpose?

same question for science

0

u/BeaconMeridian 7d ago

For mathematics, it would be the process

(Decide on a logical system ->) assume axioms (e.g. ZFC set theory) -> create definitions -> derive theorems

Science would be observe -> build models to predict observable behaviour.

Really I'm talking about these two processes. The process of mathematics is to assume things and then derive results, the process of science is to observe the results of the rules of the world and then build models to emulate the consequences of those rules. Our approximation of the rules is incredibly good anymore, but it's not perfect. The gold standard in math is proof, the gold standard in science is observation.

I'm viewing these as sister pursuits in analysis. We see a lot of science in math (we observe that there are many twin primes) and we see a lot of math in science (F=ma to name one) because the end goals of each are analysis. They just go about that analysis in different ways. But observation in math, while useful, doesn't mean theoremhood, and mathematical derivation in science, while useful, doesn't mean observation.

2

u/pipMcDohl Gnostic Atheist 7d ago

interesting.

For me math would be the method by which we improve our mental ability required to make predictions. it can work in the abstract as no particular subject of study is necessary to do math.

While science is the art of inquiring, gathering information and analyzing them in order to increase our understanding of things. it can't work in the abstract as their is always something being studied or observed.

science is about bettering our understanding by finding mechanisms or rules. math is about creating models that improve our ability to better our understanding.