What is science?

There are tons of articles out there that address this question. I realize that anything I write, with the awkward style that I can't seem to improve on, would add little value to the wealth of resources on the internet. Yet, I really want to write about this. I realized that this blog of mine is more a journal than it is a blog- about 1% of all the views it has come from myself, and I find it quite interesting, or amusing, or even embarrassing, to read things I wrote a few years ago. It's like looking at a stupider version of myself. It makes me feel good that I didn't stay that stupid later on.

Anyways, that little "Note to self" aside,
What is science?

Different people refer to different things when they say "science". Even I refer to different things at different times, and sometimes different things AT THE SAME TIME.

Sometimes, the word "science" refers to the body of scientific literature. All of the conjectures, hypotheses, and theories that are currently accepted to be sensible. Sometimes it also includes hypotheses that we, today, say are invalid. The geocentric theory, for instance, is sometimes considered part of science- but we all know today that celestial bodies do not revolve around the earth.

And at other times, the word "science" refers to the scientific method. One phrase I love using is, "Let's do some science". It carries that feeling of adventure, of invention, and of altruism, the excitement that goes with doing something that no one has done before, knowing something unknown to the rest of humanity.

When one says, "We are doing science", they are referring to the scientific method, not the body of literature.

But then again, not everything that follows the scientific method is called science. Learning to hit a target with a projectile isn't called a science, although the mind does do a bit of experimentation, a bit of modeling, and in the end produces skill in being able to predict and control projectile motion. No, "science" requires more rigor. More data. MORE MATH.

And this is what makes me embrace this definition for science:
Science is the practice of mapping the physical world to the mathematical world.

I don't remember who said that, but this definition for science is the one I've been using for quite some time now. The scientific method helps identify the right mapping, and the scientific literature is the collection of maps.

With my definition for science, three things become clear:
1) If a "hypothesis" does not involve mathematics, it cannot be science.

2) It pisses me off when someone says "I came up with this super cool theory, and it doesn't even need math."  I'm sorry, but if there's no math in there, it's not worth squat.

3) Mathematics has a special, some might call it mystical, connection to the physical world.

(Note: There are the so-called "soft sciences" that don't involve much precise math. Medicine, for instance. I don't think that these sciences don't involve math. Rather, the complex dynamics of these systems make the math so hard that we are simply not competent enough to deal with it.)

The first consequence makes sense. After all, one of the biggest motivations for doing science is the ability to make predictions. And except for the most mundane things, predictions involve math.

The second, well that's a given. We wouldn't need to spend billions of dollars on funding mathematicians, and building super computers, if all it took to understand the universe was for little Johnny to scribble some ignorant non-sense on a piece of paper.

The third one, that's quite philosophical. I guess it's obligatory to cite this article here: The unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences
Why math? What's special about it? And, this is where it gets interesting, WHAT IS MATHEMATICS?

People have different definitions for math too. And, again, the one I embrace is:
The art of (finding) (non-trivial) tautologies.

That's all I can think of when I try to understand what math is. You start with a bunch of axioms, and you use logic to arrive at non-trivial conclusions. Well well well.. And what exactly is logic? (shit just got real)

Let's see. Logic is a consequence of language, it's the practice of mapping "statements with the same meaning" to one another. Again, that's how I choose to understand logic.


So, this is what I understand of what we're doing:
We have two, apparently separate, worlds.
1) The natural world that just does its thing without caring for our desire to understand it.
And
2) The mathematical world, which is a huge collection of statements that all, after loads of manipulation, mean the same things as a small set of statements put together (the axioms).

Some of the greatest geniuses of our species devote decades to find more statements that mean the same thing as others we are interested.

And some of the other geniuses devote decades to map things in the natural world to something in the mathematical world- either to the axioms directly, or something derived from the axioms.

As long as the axioms are sensibly chosen, and the mapping from the natural to the mathematical world is well-made, we can make all sorts of predictions- thanks to all those mathematicians who have already worked thousands and thousands of things that follow.

And this leads to the question that's really been bugging me- can we come up with a better math?

After all, all  we need is a set of consistent axioms, and a mapping from the physical to this new mathematical world. Is our math the ONLY possible math? Is there a better math "out there" that can do a better job at explaining nature? Would artificial intelligence be able to come up with different maths than we did?

If there are different sorts of math that can explain nature, which one do we hold? The best one? The worst one? A mediocre one? Supposing there's an intelligent alien life a few thousand light years away, could they have identified a better math?

Bonus reading: The reasonable ineffectiveness of mathematics

Should we celebrate wealth?

Just about a week ago, my family moved from a flat we owned to a house we're renting. My mum had taken a loan to buy the house, and after 4 years of payments, the principal amount of the loan has barely decreased. I told my mum, "We're not using that flat anymore, and we have no plans of moving back into it anytime soon. So why don't you just sell it off and repay the loan, and keep the rest of the cash as your retirement fund."

I thought I made a sensible suggestion. It seemed to make little sense to be paying interest on a loan taken for something we didn't use. Yet, after hours of trying to convince my mum, she didn't want to sell that flat. Her reason was this- Owning property is 1) an investment, and 2) a status symbol.

The investment part of it didn't make much sense, since she would have to pay the interest on a loan, and the price of the flat may not keep up with inflation in consumed goods. I could easily convince my mum that keeping that flat wasn't a good way to invest her cash.

But it was the second reason that was more important to my mum. My parents had very humble beginnings, having to work full-time throughout the year with no properties to their names. After 20 years of hard work, steadily rising amongst the ranks from a typist's position to that of a manager in a company, my mum finally saved enough cash to buy a house, and then another. Having gone from not owning any property to owning a house outside the city, and a flat close to the city, apparently her status in her social circles rose. And selling that flat would chip away at that status.

This, I can't wrap my head around. There's absolutely no reason for people to be owning multiple houses. And yet, when we know of someone who owns several houses, people tend to think of them as being a successful person. They might have taken out loans, or been involved in some corrupt business, or cheated someone into selling property. All of that, for nothing- people can't use multiple houses.

This is especially bad when it happens in cities. Cities have limited space, and there are lots of people moving into cities for work. People need a place to stay. But thanks to property owners, people have to either pay lots of rent for space, or pay tons of cash to buy a place.

Think about it- a flat close to a city (I'm using Hyderabad for reference) would cost about INR 20 lakh. Even skilled workers probably make only INR 3-4 lakh per year. That means it takes 6 whole years of salary for someone to be able to buy a flat. For semi-skilled or unskilled workers, it would take a decade or two- that is, if they saved all of their income without spending any of it.

After all, a flat is just a little bit of empty space (construction doesn't cost much). It shouldn't cost years and years of hardwork for someone to own a little bit of empty space close to a city. Think of it in terms of resources- picture the amount of resources (say, rice and vegetables) that can be bought with an years worth of rent or a part of a flat's cost. The farmers and factory workers have had to exchange all those resources for that lump of empty space.

The best thing, for society, would be if people only owned one house/flat for themselves. Anyone who finds work in a city should be able to rent or buy a house/flat for a tiny cost. Owning multiple houses is bad for society- because- supply and demand. When people own more property than they need, they're simply hoarding valuable city space. That's bad. We should be deriding people for doing that. But we don't. For some reason that I cannot understand, we have decided to praise and respect people who hoard property. This has to stop.

So, the next time someone comes to you and says they bought a new house they don't need, think about what you should say to them:
"Well done. I respect you for your success."
or
"What's wrong with you? Why do you want to spend all that cash on something you don't need, something that someone else could really use? I'm appalled at your lack of consideration for others."

Because society isn't something separate from us. We build and shape society, through our thoughts, words, and deeds.