Social Sciences are Dumb

[Garnier Fructis]

That is the definition of ambiguous. A concept which is Subject to different interpretations is ambiguous.

It's only ambiguous insofar as one refuses to check the author's intended definition.

Here's another way to put it: with minimal to moderate effort, you can tell exactly what a term or symbol means in a given piece of mathematical writing. Whether this is by reading the definition or deducing the meaning from the form of the theorems (one can decide whether 'ring' includes '1' by the statements of theorems), it can be done.

This is why we aren't running around with contradictory and inconsistent mathematics: because working mathematicians know that they have to check what another mathematician means before they use their result.

[namecraft]

I'm smart but stupids are dumb

[Zelorra]

Economics is the science that says after a crash "I told you there will be a crash". The only catch is that no one ever said it.

[satimy]

Austrian vs Chicago economic arguments are fun to listen to. The Austrians completely reject econometrics, and believe they are largely innacueate

[HumbleDuck]

This is part of why studying philosophy is useful. Some think that mathematical objects are created. Others believe mathematical objects are discovered. Likewise, there are plenty of different theories of truth, the two most popular in the West being the correspondence theory and the coherence theory.

I subscribe to the correspondence theory. A proposition is true not if "..and only if it has been observed, repeatedly, directly or indirectly". This is nonsense. A proposition is true when it corresponds to reality. I take this to be the case regardless of whether the statement is scientific.

Reality: observable
Correspondence: observed repeatedly, directly or indirectly
A proposition corresponds to reality: a statement is observed, repeatedly, directly or indirectly.
I don't see how your words are different than mine, I just used terms most used in physics, that's all.

[Theodarzna]

Yeah, let's think we can tackle something as ambiguous and open-ended as human nature and act like smug cunts through our academic careers.

Don't clunk Economics with them; we actually try to do harder math.

Social Sciences are great, STEM lords just don't like something that might require human interaction.

Economists are the worse, they combine the worst pigheaded arrogance of a Gender Studies major with the rigid certainty of a STEM person and the general prickishness of a Business major.

[Garnier Fructis]

I subscribe to the correspondence theory. A proposition is true not if "..and only if it has been observed, repeatedly, directly or indirectly". This is nonsense. A proposition is true when it corresponds to reality. I take this to be the case regardless of whether the statement is scientific.

If you're implying that mathematical statements are only true if they correspond to reality, then you're basically saying that the overwhelming majority of modern mathematics is wrong.

I never understand why philosophers feel they have the right to tell mathematicians what kind of mathematics they can do. We mathematicians are going to do whatever mathematics we feel like doing, as mathematics is our domain.

[HumbleDuck]

It's only ambiguous insofar as one refuses to check the author's intended definition.

Here's another way to put it: with minimal to moderate effort, you can tell exactly what a term or symbol means in a given piece of mathematical writing. Whether this is by reading the definition or deducing the meaning from the form of the theorems (one can decide whether 'ring' includes '1' by the statements of theorems), it can be done.

This is why we aren't running around with contradictory and inconsistent mathematics: because working mathematicians know that they have to check what another mathematician means before they use their result.

We are talking about math as a whole, not one author in one paper.
Yes, a complete mathematical structure is not ambiguous, but the axioms of such structure are in fact the authors interpretations of the domain, thus another structure can be built upon same ground with different axioms which is complete and results in different outcomes while both theories being absolutely consistent. You can construct infinite amount of complete and consistent theories on one domain, all resulting in a different map.
This means while a mathematical structure should by definition be unambiguous, math as a whole definitely is not.

PS. But in natural sciences you can roll out structures which do not match observations even if they are consistent, complete theories. There are less valid interpretations of natural sciences than math, hence less ambiguity.

[HumbleDuck]

Are you Terrance Howard?

For reference: http://www.nydailynews.com/entertain...icle-1.2360225



No, it's not. Once an author defines something it is no longer ambiguous unless they have poor wording in their definition. Then of course no one is going to take their shit seriously.

We are talking about math as a whole, I explained it a couple of posts back.

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If you're implying that mathematical statements are only true if they correspond to reality, then you're basically saying that the overwhelming majority of modern mathematics is wrong.

I never understand why philosophers feel they have the right to tell mathematicians what kind of mathematics they can do. We mathematicians are going to do whatever mathematics we feel like doing, as mathematics is our domain.

I think he was referring to my definition of true statement in natural sciences.

[HumbleDuck]

Depends how you use it. I'm an engineer, so if maths is ambiguous, then I may as well just guess design loads.

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The crash doesn't have to be immediate.

No offence, but do engineers even know what math is?

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Dude, you're talking about stuff that's on the margins and largely irrelevant to the discussion, I'd guess mostly to try to impress people with how much math you know. But it's really not useful. 99.999999% of the time for real world uses, 1+1=2, and that's enough math for most people to know. No one cares if there's some remote theory or case in advanced math where it might not.

Computers think its 10 .

[twiddler]

Psychology and sociology has actually aided in the innovation of other sciences--especially CS/applied mathematics particularly in the recent years with NN's, graphs, etc. Your typical economics major is far from a biologist. I wouldn't be so proud of that elementary calculus requisite.

[May90]

All sciences are useful. Not all scientists are though.

[Macaquerie]

Well there may come a time when neuroscience and other fields have advanced to such a point where we can attain a complete understanding of human behavior from directly measurable and quantifiable physical phenomena, but until that day comes some form of social science is required.

[willtron]

No offence, but do engineers even know what math is?

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Computers think its 10 .

For the most part. We're the ones that actually get stuff done while scientists sit at a desk with their theories.

[Deleted]

For the most part. We're the ones that actually get stuff done while scientists sit at a desk with their theories.

Your view on science is sorely lacking if you believe it's a bunch of theorists musing at their desks.

[Gamdwelf]

Bro, Bro.

No it isn't.

We use calc on indifference curves.

So does sociology, Sometimes econ is just a part of sociology, or phycology, or the other way around.

[Garnier Fructis]

We are talking about math as a whole, not one author in one paper.
Yes, a complete mathematical structure is not ambiguous, but the axioms of such structure are in fact the authors interpretations of the domain, thus another structure can be built upon same ground with different axioms which is complete and results in different outcomes while both theories being absolutely consistent. You can construct infinite amount of complete and consistent theories on one domain, all resulting in a different map.
This means while a mathematical structure should by definition be unambiguous, math as a whole definitely is not.

PS. But in natural sciences you can roll out structures which do not match observations even if they are consistent, complete theories. There are less valid interpretations of natural sciences than math, hence less ambiguity.

Quite honestly I have no idea what you mean by 'domain' and 'map' here. I'm seeing words with mathematical meanings used in ways that don't correspond to any of the usual meanings.

[Garnier Fructis]

Just because one author includes 0 as a natural number and another author doesn't, doesn't imply the definition of the set of natural numbers is ambiguous as it will be clearly defined by the author.

Plus, it's not hard to simply translate results from one author's language to another's language without any loss of precision.

[Moralgy]

What do you think a theory is?

Theoretical explanations in sociology tend to be about which sociological theory describes this best. In that, conflict theory, feminist theory, social learning theory, strain ect describe why something is like it is. Not an actual theory that one might imagine when thinking of a scientific theory. Sociological theories are extremely subjective in their application, I can apply everyone of them but feminist theory to basically every situation, and I could even apply that if I wanted to stretch things enough.

[HumbleDuck]

People may use slightly different definitions especially when working in very specialized fields, but again, it doesn't matter because in each case the definitions are very clear and no longer ambiguous. Just because one author includes 0 as a natural number and another author doesn't, doesn't imply the definition of the set of natural numbers is ambiguous as it will be clearly defined by the author.

You're basically saying it's ambiguous until the paper is written. That's any science or language in existence. It's ambiguous until we strictly define it. Sure, in language you have room for interpretation but in math we give, or at least attempt to give, very finely tuned definitions.

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Because they're ambiguous, it's not his fault.

I never said only math is ambiguous, as I said it is more ambiguous than natural sciences as there is no external measure to determine value of a statement.
The rest of your argument is about ambiguity of a paper, not math as a whole.