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/sci/ - Science & Math


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5806558 No.5806558 [Reply] [Original]

"Most undergrads can't get through it in 13 weeks"
A senior at MIT said this in his lecture on GEB
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jFhq3Rj6DI
Is this true? /sci/ seems to think it's a pop sci book that's easily comprehended by the moderately intelligent. If so, are MIT mathematicians really that stupid? How hard is GEB to get through?

>> No.5806566

MIT undergrad is just daycare for aspies and rich kids. Obviously they're too pleb even for a pop-math book like GEB.

>> No.5806580

>>5806566
lel, no
The intelligent people also go there

>> No.5806616

>>5806566
It's not a math book though, it's a logic book...

>> No.5806626

>>5806566
Where did you do your undergrad?

>> No.5806645

>>5806566
>rich kids

Admissions are need-blind and full need is met for every admit via FA.

>> No.5806648

>>5806566
Hard to believe /sci/ is smarter than the most respected math-related uni on earth

>> No.5806661

>>5806558
I don't know how long you've been browsing /sci/, but being smarter than gauss is the requirement just for admittance and the average IQ is 140

>> No.5806668

>>5806558
I got through it just fine. It's long but builds up slowly and steadily from scratch.

>> No.5806671

>>5806661
>smarter than gauss
u wot m8

>> No.5806677

>>5806661
>and the average IQ is 140
source?

>> No.5806683

I read this book when I was 14 in a couple weeks, there's nothing difficult to understand about that book

>> No.5806879

>>5806677
Just wait for another IQ thread, and then use:
<span class="math"> IQ_{a} = \sum IQ_{n} [/spoiler]

>> No.5806886

>>5806683
I graduated from MIT at the age of 16.

>> No.5806891
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5806891

>>5806677
>being this new

>> No.5806893

>>5806886
I figured out the volume of MIT using cheerios when I was 1.3500932 years old

>> No.5806898

I've had this book collecting dust on a shelf for a few years now, is it actually worth reading?

>> No.5806907

>>5806893
Got damn.

>> No.5806908

>>5806558
I'm having a hard time getting through it. Mostly because it bores me; I expected something different, some kind of quantum physics pop science unraveling of the mysteries of life and the cosmos but instead I'm learning about logic? I should really go ahead and finish it.

>> No.5806909

>>5806898
Is it worth reading? Only if this answer is true.

>> No.5806911

>>5806908
That's because you were only half right, quantum physics isn't at the heart of all life and existence; logic is.

>> No.5806918

>>5806909
But there is not an answer presented.

>> No.5806985

A girl I have a crush on got into MIT for their graduate program in mathematics. I spend my days browsing /sci/. I hate myself.

>> No.5807007

>>5806909

My sides; stimulated.

>> No.5807032

Mathematics Ph. D. student here.

I read GEB a few times near the end of my undergrad. It is a very heavy book, certainly not on the popular level. It is fairly rigorous; generally Hofstadter simplifies the result he wants to prove rather than skipping the proof entirely. For example, his Godel numbering is simply encoding in base-1000 (and he only uses a dozen or so 'digits'), which is much easier to grok than Godel's original numbering, at least for people in the computer age. He also makes some
dramatic claims about Turing machines vs. formal system provers wit
hout justification, although intuitively it is not too hard to see.

If you have a solid mathematical and logical background, you will b
e able to fill in the gaps, and the book is then an excellent read.
Otherwise the logic for you will probably be on the popular level.
(Hence the /sci/ manta that GEB is popular trash.)

>> No.5807034

However, the book is not entirely about Godel's theorem. It discusses the limits of computability and their interaction with self-reference. He draws some very cool artistic analogies between the logical situation and that of Escher's paintings and Bach's fugues, which offer some useful perspective on the way that our subjective experience of the world can be so rich despite our minds' limitations as Turing machines. (This is the Church-Turing thesis, which Hofstadter spends some time defending.) He also draws an analogue to self-replication of DNA, and suggests that Godel's theorem shows the necessary existence (at least in principle) of viruses.

Throughout, because Hofstadter is an AI researcher, he talks about the nature of minds and brains. All this self-reference and near-paradox that we find even in our most rational of thoughts suggests that there is nothing inherently mystical about its appearance in our less rational experience (the joy of art or music). It also demonstrates that (a) the appearence of self-reference and paradox in subjective experience does not preclude a logically deterministic mind, and (b) logically deterministic behavior does not preclude self-reference and paradox in subjective experience.

Just as machines are incomplete by Godel's theorem, so too are we incomplete. Consider the sentence "XXX cannot know this sentence", where XXX is you. Then everyone else can see that this is true, but you never can. Contemplate that.

There's a lot in this book, and I highly recommend reading it multiple times.

>> No.5807064
File: 37 KB, 200x342, 1364866046203.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
5807064

That video.

>um, um, um

>> No.5808389

>>5807032
As I thought. Is it a good read though? Currently reading Kurzeweils Singularity. IMHO not all popsci is trash.

>> No.5808404
File: 48 KB, 298x450, 187104.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
5808404

Not all "pop-sci" books are simple.

>> No.5808412

>>5807032

>He also makes some
>dramatic claims about Turing machines vs. formal system provers without justification, although intuitively it is not too hard to see.


check the Bibliography

>> No.5808417

>>5807034
what is your research and what are your private (mathy) interests?

>> No.5808461

>>5806558
if you already know the math behind it it'll be an easy read,

if you don't, it's going to take at least 13 weeks to manage to figure it out from the fuckawful stupid shitty faux explanation he tries to give

>> No.5808480

>>5808417
My current interests are drifting around algebraic topology, topological quantum field theory, loop quantum gravity. I have not decided on a specific research direction yet, but part of me thinks that I should do something more marketable.

Philosophy of science and logic are side interests, hence GEB (and LSD for that matter, which interacts wonderfully with mathematics training).

I also enjoy functional/real analysis and probability theory. Lately I have been studying Baysian reasoning (since I have no statistics training), which is very cool. I regret not learning this stuff earlier. And there's big money in stats (and none in topology).

>> No.5808489

>>5808404
>babby high school math

>> No.5808491

>>5808480
What is interesting about probability theory?
And does it have any relation to structuralism (or at least the mathematics used in algebraic topology) whatsoever?

And are you joking or are you really kicking LSD? If so, what have you "seen", mathematics wise, using it? And aren't you afraid it'll destroy your brain capabilities?

>> No.5808497

>>5808489
I don't think you've read that book.

>> No.5808548

>>5806645
Poor kids don't realize this. They are told to go to community or forever live in debt. I've told this to so many community college kids and they've called bullshit on it in one facet or another. Once I showed them the truth they couldn't believe that shit.

Even then I think they just throw loans your way and call it a day.

>> No.5808569

it's a very large book. I got through ~200 pages or so before the due date came up and barely made a dent into the actual meat of the book

>> No.5808672

>>5807032
I'm a pure math student. Is this useful for any... applications in math or CS? Or is it just knowledge? Should I spend time on it or spend time learning another field of math?

>> No.5808735

>>5806616
Provide for me a definition which divides the two.

>> No.5808738

>>5806911
A million times this.

>> No.5808798

>>5808491
There's lots of counter-intuitive results that you can obtain through probability theory, even without screwing around with infinite sets. (Or more often, completely intuitive results that you don't expect to be described by simple math. See The Logic of Science by E.T. Jaynes.) You can consider probability theory as a generalization of ordinary logic, where your usual rules of inference appear as limits when your probabilities approach unity.

But if you want it, there is a measure-theoretic formulation which has all sorts of cool properties. For example, if you bet double-or-nothing until you win, you will always beat the house. But only if you have an unbounded amount of money to start with.

As for acid, sometimes it helps to look at problems from outside of yourself. I don't think you can obtain results while on drugs that you never would have gotten otherwise, but I have found non-trivial proofs while under the influence before. It definitely speeds things up and lets you think about things in a different way. There are definitely permanent effects, mainly in the relationship between your sensory experience and the reality that you believe in, but on net they are positive. If you have a solid logical training, you can work around the lost intuition and avoid mental biases you previously weren't aware of. Otherwise I expect you'd find yourself in an acidhead muddled mess of pseudophilosophy, which seems to be the way most LSD users end up. So I certainly don't recommend it outright. And also it's very time consuming. You can't do it more than once per month or two while in graduate school.

>> No.5808828

>>5806985
Top lel.

>> No.5808831

>>5808491
Not the same poster, but I use LSD and find it sometimes leads to mathematical insights. I can't conjure any particular examples, but its mostly a case of the LSD allowing you to see things from a different perspective. Its very good for that. As to damaging the brain, all evidence points to the contrary, so I'm not concerned. Particularly since I drink alcohol anyway and that actually does damage the brain, no point worrying about conspiracy theories.

>> No.5809634

>>5806985
Is she korean? :3

>> No.5809643

>>5808831
This, I feel it makes my brain work in a modular fashion, very easy to "play by ear" to the logic and get a feel for many different interpretations simultaneously. It's literally magnitudes more connections than i come up with normally, often times to my absolute bewilderment, and it strongly distorts distress as well. It is a very helpful tool for gaining perspective if you choose to use it that way.

>> No.5809660

>>5808831
>I can't conjure any particular examples
typical pothead

>> No.5809665

I hate those american students
always asking stupid questions, that will be explained in a second

>> No.5809849

>>5809660
I don't smoke pot. But how about you tell me the last mathematical insight you had while, say, driving a car. Its hard to separate things out like that. If I had some LSD right now, I could certainly come back tomorrow, and tell you about it, but its been over 6 months since my last experience with it.

For a simple fictional example, say you're looking at a wallpaper. Typically you will think nothing of the wallpaper, on LSD you might realise that the wallpaper is approximating some fractal, and fill in the blanks subconsciously. When you look at it the next day, you will not, contrary to popular belief, find that you were simply 'tripping out', instead you will find that you have recognized a novel pattern in the wallpaper, which otherwise you would not have had access to.

>> No.5809858 [DELETED] 

>>5809634
Half

>> No.5809862

>>5809634
I think she's half.

>> No.5810724

>>5806886
I got my phd in theoretical mathematics at age 13.

>> No.5810753

>MIT kids
>smart

>Having rich parents makes you smart.

>> No.5810784

>>5810753
it's a lot cheaper going to MIT, a university with a huge endowment which pays full-need, than going to Nowhere State University, a public institution facing education cuts and offers no fin aid at all

>> No.5810792

mfw I work with Hofstadter

>> No.5810795

lel typical MIT plebs
Caltech master race

>> No.5810819

>>5808735
the axioms required ...

>> No.5811541

>>5810792
>mfw you aren't using may may arrows
>mfw you have no face
>mfw I also have no face

>> No.5811556

>>5810753
It's okay, buddy. They probably just didn't have room left in the class for you; I'm sure you would have gotten in otherwise.

>> No.5811566

>>5806566
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ve23i5K334

>> No.5811574

Maybe because if youre doing math in MIT, you probably prioritize your time doing actual math rather than spending your time dicking about with hobby-tier philosophy.

I mean the fact that you went to MIT indicates youre probably very ambitious and because so is everybody else in your class you are probably going to have very little free time.

>> No.5811589

>>5811566
That's Harvard, you fool.

>> No.5811636

>>5811589
It's actually both.

>> No.5811646

>>5811636
All of the student interview shots are at Harvard. The only backdrop that looks like it could even potentially be MIT is at 0:50, and it's still more than likely Harvard.

>> No.5811869

>mit opencourseware
>good
my sides

>> No.5811907

>>5811566
how can you be so stupid
I was doing this, when I was 5 for fun

>> No.5812569

>>5811566
HOLY FUUUCK
>mfw mech engineer maj
>"IZ NOT ELECTRICAL IZ MECH GRAD"
What the fuck...the schoolbox store sold fucking lightbulb kits in kindergarten..
>all my impotent rage