The Illuminati Discussion

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Yes, you're absolutely right. Imagination is extremely important, but not at the sacrifice of knowledge. You can't do something against logic and better judgment for the sole reason that you "have faith." That's not imagination, that's a forfeiture of critical thought. Regardless of whether imagination or knowledge is the most important one, the fact is that they're both extremely valuable and both work best without the expense of the other. And Einstein would probably agree with me on that.

Also, it's worth noting that I would be hard-pressed to find a field that requires a greater amount of creativity than mathematics. Chever and his fellow mathematics students are going into a field where they will discover and create concepts, constructs, and models using, basically, pure expressions of logic. Math is often likened more to an art than a science, as made beautifully clear in G.H. Hardy's (he was a renown British mathematician) 1940 essay on mathematical aesthetics.

"A mathematician, like a painter or a poet, is a maker of patterns. If his patterns are more permanent than theirs, it is because they are made with ideas."

There are some endeavors that require a tremendous amount of both knowledge and creativity, and mathematics not only no exception, but embodies this.

Uh yes I know that: it was shown that it is impossible to prove many things using a strict formal logical calculus alone, despite the best efforts of Bertrand Russell and Alfred North Whitehead.

In any case, I don't see how programming, something I also enjoy immensely, is an 'uncreative' exercise. In fact, creativity is really the only thing it is, in practice. I appreciate math and programming equally, but programming is probably more of an art. More so than even proof writing.

Granted, I probably still don't use the right hemisphere as much as the left, but it comes into use. I was showing a girl who I will be going out with next week my rendition of the legend of Sithon and Manola in English and she said that some psychic told her she was the reincarnation of one of the seven daughters of Phou Ngeun, the king of a winged people from the sky. Rather than expressing my disapproval of seers openly, which would be a very left-brained response, I just grinned broadly and said "I believe it". (The winged women were said to be very beautiful and―Lord―this girl is a damn sunbeam.) That's 'right-brained', isn't it?



Carl Sagan's final book, and his next best after Cosmos, dealt with the balance between skepticism and wonder lucidly. That book was a very very strong influence on my life.



I'm not sure I would consider mathematics entirely an 'art', and here's why. I go by the Donald Knuth definition of art vs science. "Science is whatever we understand well enough to explain to a computer. Art is everything else." Proof-writing in its entirety is definitely an art. However, computers may be able to equal or exceed us at proof-writing in this century. Maybe Knuth's definition is outdated.



Agreed.

what knowledge has to be sacraficed to believe in a God, or G-unit as my holmy in the hood calls it? and you're twisting what im saying to make my statement seem blunt, I never said it's good to go against reason, and I never once said someone should forfeit their logic.. they are two different sides of the brain and you need both.. simple as that. Of course basic knowledge is critical for inventing, but to me those are instincts and common sense, not specific details of any particular science. I will quote him again. Imagination is more important than knowledge.. and it is.. it is the essence to true inward peace.. wisdom isn't direct knowledge, it's basically philosophy and neutrality..




i withdraw my statement then.. and I agree, especially because of a John Nash quote.. but I guess it depends what kind of math you're into.. the deeper you go the more fuzzy it gets, the more the rules begin to bend and twist, and the more everything kind of blends together. . but math to a simpleton like me is no artform

Maybe inner peace isn't that important.

If you have inner peace, you probably aren't paying attention.



There are disputes in higher level mathematics, but I wouldn't really say the rules bend and twist so much. A proof in abstract algebra is not unlike a proof in something more concrete.

Interdisciplinary research is mostly a feature of computer science and various other fields where math is applied. In fact, it's becoming pervasive these days.

I do not mean offense to your beliefs,
nor do i try to class all religious agendas as evil,
no, my point is simply that religion is the shepard of sheep
and the shepards temptations can lead and drive people
for the shepards own personal desires or agenda