Louis’s Comments (group member since Jul 02, 2017)

Louis’s comments from the Astronomy and Space exploration group.

I find occums razor and Copernicus's mediocrity principle to be incredibly useful when viewing the world through that lens. At the heart of those two theories I believe is math. Statistics, specifically.

Everything has a rate of occurrence based upon a set of data points. I think the genius of both philosophies is that it tacitly admits that nothing exists in a void separate of the rest of the universe. It's a beautiful philosophy to start exploring the world.

What are people's thoughts on Elon musk's push for a colony of humans on mars? NASA is preparing for a return to the moon and mars too in 2030. Is humanity ready for this step? What does it mean for humanity and society on earth? Is it as imperative as Elon musk and Steven hawking argue? Should we focus our energy on this verses some other pursuit in space such as extraterrestrial life? Some questions to ponder!

My take on that is two fold. The first is astronomy. Obviously astronomy is laden with math. What's not so obvious about astronomy is its direct link to cultural supremacy. Cultures who could master the calendar first were often times the culture that could amass more food and thusly a larger population. That snow balls into food storage, specialists, professional military etc. Its not hard to see how ritualization of astronomy arises which then requires the math to understand it. The maya are a perfect example of this. Sumerians and tiwanakians (of Bolivia) are good examples too.

The second reason I believe the world is spoken in math are the four fundamental forces and humanity's struggle to exploit them whilst avoiding entropy. Obviously I don't think cultures of antiquity had direct knowledge of this. But they had to struggle with it regardless. I think the history of maritime invention would be a good example or perhaps even the discovery of the wheel. Ultimately math is needed to increase ones use of the forces and avoidance of entropy.

Philosophically, nothing can be more pure than math and math never lies. Interpretation and argument can be biased, but math as a solution with tangible benefits would be the purest interpretation of life.

I would ask for the current existential question that their society is grappling with. I think that would offer insight into not only their level of science but cultural value placed upon it as well.