Soaring violence evident daily (reading newspapers, watching TV, seeing driving habits) makes me wonder why the world changed and I did not notice. Thinking about the situation I understood that violence is just the most extreme evidence of much deeper problem, which is how people understand the world. The average person believes that he is the center of the universe and all other objects just circle around him. This is an ignorance that can be compared to pre-Copernicus era when people defied all evidences and refused to believe that we are not the center of the universe. How did it happen that we moved backwards in time?
Well, the answer is very simple. All starts with loving parents that love their children in a way that makes the toddlers being the center of the small universe (the family). These parents does whatever they can for the benefit of children making themselves unimportant. Children are very clever and in no time they learn that they are the most important in the world, they start to rule the family and they ignore their parents, teachers and friends. In few years you get a person (I find it difficult to call him human being) that does not respect anything or anyone and will do whatever required for his own benefit even if this means stepping over bodies.
Is there anything that can be done? May be, if parents will realize that buying toys and paying for special classes does not replace love and discipline. Will it happen? Probably not, how can someone raised in a wrong way understand that it was wrong.
Thursday, March 15, 2007
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
I religions really different from science?
As a young Mathematics graduate I was sure that life and nature can be mathematically described by a set of axioms which unfortunately are unknown yet. I remember feeling good just because of the confidence that the world can be described in predictable manner therefore I have full control of my life (provided this set of axioms will be discovered). The beauty of pure abstract Mathematics was alluring and I indulged in studying the most abstract subjects.
I can not understand why I decided to study applied Mathematics but this decision changed my life. Suddenly I noticed that even for very simple nature phenomena very crude modeling was applied. Initially I believed that somewhere a really accurate model exists but later I was not sure anymore.
As a young Mathematics graduate I was sure that life and nature can be mathematically described by a set of axioms which unfortunately are unknown yet. I remember feeling good just because of the confidence that the world can be described in predictable manner therefore I have full control of my life (provided this set of axioms will be discovered). The beauty of pure abstract Mathematics was alluring and I indulged in studying the most abstract subjects.
I can not understand why I decided to study applied Mathematics but this decision changed my life. Suddenly I noticed that even for very simple nature phenomena very crude modeling was applied. Initially I believed that somewhere a really accurate model exists but later I was not sure anymore. Finally I realized that my believe in power of Mathematical modeling was a simple substitute for religious faith. Like the true believers I found comfort in a religion (this time called Mathematics) that served as a solid anchor in a chaotic world.
Later in my life I changed profession to computer programming. One day someone showed me an article that drafted an ingenious algorithm for solving formidable set of equations using a pure statistical methods. Initially I could not accept that some probabilistic methods are as good as pure mathematical reasoning but I was honest enough to admit that my "religion" is probably wrong. Since then I was left without a religion living in chaotic world doubting all. Now I only can envy the people that choose to blindly stick with some faith never asking real questions.
Unfortunately most scientists are not better than the religious fanatics. Just look at people involved in "string" theories, inventing new worlds with many dimensions that obviously has no supporting evidence and worse there is no way to prove or disapprove them. They just play around with Mathematics pretending (or believing) that product of their imagination has any relationship with real world.
I can not understand why I decided to study applied Mathematics but this decision changed my life. Suddenly I noticed that even for very simple nature phenomena very crude modeling was applied. Initially I believed that somewhere a really accurate model exists but later I was not sure anymore.
As a young Mathematics graduate I was sure that life and nature can be mathematically described by a set of axioms which unfortunately are unknown yet. I remember feeling good just because of the confidence that the world can be described in predictable manner therefore I have full control of my life (provided this set of axioms will be discovered). The beauty of pure abstract Mathematics was alluring and I indulged in studying the most abstract subjects.
I can not understand why I decided to study applied Mathematics but this decision changed my life. Suddenly I noticed that even for very simple nature phenomena very crude modeling was applied. Initially I believed that somewhere a really accurate model exists but later I was not sure anymore. Finally I realized that my believe in power of Mathematical modeling was a simple substitute for religious faith. Like the true believers I found comfort in a religion (this time called Mathematics) that served as a solid anchor in a chaotic world.
Later in my life I changed profession to computer programming. One day someone showed me an article that drafted an ingenious algorithm for solving formidable set of equations using a pure statistical methods. Initially I could not accept that some probabilistic methods are as good as pure mathematical reasoning but I was honest enough to admit that my "religion" is probably wrong. Since then I was left without a religion living in chaotic world doubting all. Now I only can envy the people that choose to blindly stick with some faith never asking real questions.
Unfortunately most scientists are not better than the religious fanatics. Just look at people involved in "string" theories, inventing new worlds with many dimensions that obviously has no supporting evidence and worse there is no way to prove or disapprove them. They just play around with Mathematics pretending (or believing) that product of their imagination has any relationship with real world.
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