Here is a short movie (with subtitles) on Romanian parents whose kids emigrated to the US. It is hilarious, at least for people who have gone through this.
Funny enough, my own parents went through an abridged version of this, even though my mother has a Bachelor in Computer Science. She did her university studies just as Computer Science was introduced, and she got a degree after writing FORTRAN programs on punch cards. After graduating, her parents convinced her that there was no future in this discipline, so she became a mathematician.
Here is a funny article on religion published in the Cosmopolitan in the 1920s. The author was scared by religious fundamentalists who tried to introduce bills limiting the teaching of evolution. Sound familiar?
When it comes to social issues, I am always more comfortable in Romanian circles than in the US. I never feel the need to engage in a conversation on the existence of God, since I genuinely consider any person who believes such a thing to be intellectually inferior --- he prefers to rationalize a feeling rather than "truly feel" a logical conclusion. (Of course, my position is not politically correct in the US.) The truly interesting question, to me, is whether we should allow discrimination on religious grounds --- after all, would you want a professor who has proven himself to be intellectually inferior? While I cannot give a definite answer, I think it is OK to accept religious people as scientists, since there is a lot of technical work in science --- i.e. there are many useful skills, and they seem to be distributed independently of the particular feature on which religious people show inferiority. Thus, rejecting religious people would reduce the pool of talent, rather than concentrate it.
Via Luca, here is a bad philosophical piece on how efficient algorithms show that God exists. There are, of course, many cringe-inducing examples of bad philosophy that abuses concepts in computer science. This is just one that I saw today.
To quote some from last week, consider some talks from the Barriers workshop at Princeton. "P vs NP is really the deepest question in Mathematics, since it talks about the essence of Mathematical proofs." "The decades since P-vs-NP was posed really convinced us that this is the right question to ask about computational efficiency." "P!=NP is a law of the universe."
Now, "computational efficiency" means many things in many contexts. If you're sitting inside ATT routers, O(lg n) may be trivial to achieve, but a prohibitive cost. If you're aggregating over Google's data, O(n2) may be trivial, but prohibitive. And if you're optimizing the bus schedules in NY, O(n!) may be trivial, but prohibitive.
P is not the universal definition of "efficient." The P vs NP question is a misnomer for the question "Can you beat backtracking for the following list [...] of problems?", which is, by all accounts, a fascinating question. But substituting P with "efficient" and talking about the universe is just bad philosophy abusing sounds concepts in Computer Science.
Any attempts to ascribe metaphysical (or "metamathematical") meaning to this question is, like religion, a failure to accept the most plausible interpretation of reality, leading to an urge to replace it with a feel-good half-logical explanation.
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23 comments:
>since I genuinely consider any person who believes such a thing to be intellectually inferior --- he prefers to rationalize a feeling rather than "truly feel" a logical conclusion.
The existence of God is easily proven through a logical argument to a logical conclusion, and so is it's negative. Logic is not some grand arbitor about what should or should not be believed. Also, logical conclusions have no need to be felt, they follow from the premisses due to inescapable nessesity irregardless of feelings.
In short, your feeling of superiority is not very impressive.
"since I genuinely consider any person who believes such a thing to be intellectually inferior"
Some people might argue that a person that says such a thing is intellectually inferior.
(sigh)
You're entitled to your opinions, but surely you realize by now that the way you express things is offensive? And that there might be ways of expressing the same sentiments without being so off-putting? (Or maybe you prefer being that way for its shock value?)
I could just as easily say the following:
I never feel the need to engage in a conversation with Romanian computer scientists, since I genuinely consider the Romanian computer scientists I know to be obnoxious The truly interesting question, to me, is whether we should allow discrimination on personal grounds --- after all, would you want a professor who has proven himself obnoxious? While I cannot give a definite answer, I think it is OK to accept obnoxious people as scientists, since there is a lot of technical work in science --- i.e. there are many useful skills, and they seem to be distributed independently of people's personality. Thus, rejecting obnoxious people would reduce the pool of talent, rather than concentrate it.
...and regarding your question, I don't see why it's even an issue. Professors/researchers -- hell, people in any job you can think of -- are evaluated based on their performance in the job. Regarding your specific concerns about "intellectual inferiority" (as if such a thing could be measured and quantified), we don't give professors IQ tests or ask for their SAT scores. It doesn't matter how "smart" someone is, what matters is the research they produce. So religious beliefs, in particular, are a non-issue, just as political beliefs are.
When are problem 3, 4, 5 and 6 coming out?
I never feel the need to engage in a conversation on the existence of God, since I genuinely consider any person who believes such a thing to be intellectually inferior --- he prefers to rationalize a feeling rather than "truly feel" a logical conclusion.
For example such a person is Knuth.
@Heuristics: The problem is indeed with the feeling that the logical conclusion induces. Most religious people can follow common arguments such as symmetry (why is your religion more true than the other guys'?), but they simply refuse to take them one step further.
@Jonathan: As I'm sure you know, job candidates do get voted down for being perceived as obnoxious, so this ideal of measuring research output remains just an ideal.
For faculty jobs (think tenure) and in CS in particular (very high rate of tenure for assistant professors), the hiring committee must predict the future output of the candidate, not just evaluate his past work.
If you find that a person is predisposed to forming an immutable opinion in advance, and then rationalizing it somehow, it is certainly something negative to say about his future work. Is it negative enough? I think not, but the question is valid.
@anonymous: Sorry, I'll make a post on problem 3 asap.
For example such a person is Knuth.
I never ascribed god status to Knuth, so I do not really see the contradiction. I can, for instance, say many good things about his books, but I also have a number of criticisms to make.
@Mihai: You might have "an immutable opinion" that you are intellectually superior to religious people. And now you might be "rationalizing it somehow".
Great troll post. I look forward to more.
However, while I like the analogy you're trying to make between logical proofs of religious beliefs and religious claims being laid on top of mathematical facts, it seems that the overall effect has actually been diminished as people are merely taking offense at your claims about religion and are not bothering to be offended by or respond to your arguments against the importance of P vs. NP. Pity.
I was thinking the same thing... How can all these CS people get so worked up by religion and political correctness, and not by P vs NP? :)
Perhaps the sane interpretation of P vs NP really is the mainstream one, which I would be very happy to see.
You lumped a variety of different comments on the P v. NP question in the same bucket as religion and then proceeded to challenge only one aspect of them.
First of all, it was made clear by a number of speakers, including some you quoted, that P v. NP should not only be considered a fundamental question on its own but also a "surrogate" for a variety of closely related questions, including questions such as whether NP has linear-size log-depth circuits which certainly would fit your definition of efficient.
Second, of course any sound implication of simple axioms, like those of ZF, say, that describe the (mathematical) world around us must surely constitute a "law of nature". However, in the sciences, "laws of nature" are accepted based on experimental evidence, their explanatory power, and (to a bit lesser extent) internal consistency. The P != NP hypothesis seems to have all three and does seem to meet the other conditions. A lot of the explanatory power has been with respect to other sciences and the "law of nature" characterization is merely a matter of speaking their language.
BTW: Many speakers pointed out that the huge implications for the rest of mathematics would primarily be if P=NP in which vase the importance is well-justified. The implications are much, much less if the question is resolved as most people expect. There is no hubris or religion involved.
On a separate question: While Mihai was being very provocative in his phrasing, he does raise an interesting and valid point. We all likely know people who are obviously smart and excellent in their core competency but whose views on other subjects (politics, evolution, global warming, existence/non-existence of god, UFOs.) that we would characterize as poorly reasoned, weak, or even whacko. We probably hold ourselves a notch above them (at least in this regard) because of it. Mihai is just pointing out the contradictory aspects of trying to hold the two views of respect for someone as a scientist in their core competency but disrespect for them in other aspects. Some of the negative comments have been for Mihai considering religious beliefs among these potentially contradictory aspects. I see no problem with that either way.
However, Mihai, while I know what you meant, in this instance your use of "intellectually inferior" is unfortunate and probably has also struck a nerve because of its Holocaust connotations, something I am sure that you did not expect.
You're entitled to your opinions, but surely you realize by now that the way you express things is offensive? And that there might be ways of expressing the same sentiments without being so off-putting? (Or maybe you prefer being that way for its shock value?)
This is annoying. Have you ever had a conversation over a beer? It's a blog, not CACM. Live a little.
since I genuinely consider any person who believes such a thing to be intellectually inferior
I love the post! And I also feel the same intellectual superiority toward people who religiously support Obama. It is clear that there are some Messianic sentiments involved within his supporters.
Paul, thanks for phrasing my religion point in better language :) As for the Holocaust raw nerve, I'm sorry if I struck it. It's clear that there are many more Christians and Muslims matching my criteria out in this world.
As for P vs NP, I do consider P to be an excellent definition of efficiency for the problems where the best we know is backtracking. However, you cannot start doing philosophy by replacing P with "efficient computation" in all contexts.
Also, I am not convinced that SAT having O(n^3) algorithms would have such major consequences in mathematics. It would have super-major consequences on our algorithmic thinking, but I do not find the supposed effects on mathematics compelling.
BTW, SAT having 2^sqrt(n) algorithms would also have super-major effects on our algorithmic thinking.
@Atheist, and Jonathan: It's much harder to judge people for politics than for religion. The vast majority of people cannot really evaluate macroeconomic proposals objectively (there are so many hidden effects and interferences, that it's a full time job for large groups of people to really evaluate these proposals).
Thus, if you lack the ability to really judge a candidate's agenda, the most rational thing might be to judge: (1) what he really intends to do -- whose side is he on?; (2) whether he's smart (reasonable) enough to implement it well.
Thus, you're in an usual situation that the rational thing for most people is to just go with character judgments... And that's much trickier than judging whether some guy walked on water.
I never ascribed god status to Knuth, so I do not really see the contradiction. I can, for instance, say many good things about his books, but I also have a number of criticisms to make.
Not that I'm judging you, but I think it's arrogant to think Knuth is intellectually inferior. If not for his CS contributions, you must commend him for his excellent work on TeX (which you could argue not to be intellectually difficult -- I would argue otherwise).
Nobody's claiming that religious people are intellectually inferior in an absolute sense. (That can't be measured and doesn't seem to make any mathematical sense.)
The claim is on a particular dimension. If you read my post, I am saying that the other dimensions seem to be roughly independent of this one, so these people can still do fabulous work in science.
But if someone has thought seriously about the existence of God and concluded in the affirmative, I think it is a waste of time to try to argue with him. Most likely, he simply cannot accept it.
Mihai,
I just read the post and -- just to mention since people are talking about it -- did not find it offensive. Although I must say that Paul's comments really helped with further clarifications of your thought process...
I would want to comment on a few things though. You say (in your last comment about religious ppl):
>so these people can still do >fabulous work in science.
This sort of says that you've an inferior viewpoint about these people. Since we're talking about different dimensions and are mainly concerned about the "scientific-ability" dimension I would have preferred to say that:
"Many excellent researchers believe in religion and ...(say whatever you need to say here)..."
This basically stresses the way Paul had put up things: people have one "excellent" way of thinking about things when doing science and another "poor" way of thinking about things when dealing with other issues like life, religion, politics, and so on.
You also say:
>But if someone has thought >seriously about the existence of >God and concluded in the >affirmative, I think it is a >waste of time to try to argue >with him. Most likely, he simply >cannot accept it.
Accept what? that GOD doesn't exist? Why would you want to support that viewpoint? I mean, have you concluded that "God doesn't exist?" -- I don't really care about religion and all (I'm sort of agnostic) but I don't see any logic behind what you said up there...
So if someone did conclude that God exists, the best you can do is point out flaws in his arguments or ignore them completely if they lack a scientific explanation...
BTW: I am actually quite shocked at Jon (Katz)'s reaction... (phew). I actually din't even imagine that people might take your post so offensively until I saw these comments... very very surprised...
"since I genuinely consider any person who believes such a thing to be intellectually inferior"
Why do you restrict this to god? Atheists may believe in all sorts of silly things (ghosts, unicorns, FSM, reincarnation, homeopathy, chiropractic, acupuncture, etc.) but you don't care about that, apparently?
Accept what? that GOD doesn't exist? Why would you want to support that viewpoint? I mean, have you concluded that "God doesn't exist?" -- I don't really care about religion and all (I'm sort of agnostic) but I don't see any logic behind what you said up there...
Not thinking about the issue is totally fine. There are many things to ponder on in the universe, and everyone chooses to ignore his own subset.
But people who have thought specifically about this issue and came to the conclusion that God exists are the topic of my post. I find that conclusion irrational to the point where you shouldn't argue with them.
Andy:
Why do you restrict this to god? Atheists may believe in all sorts of silly things
Of course, but you don't expect a blog post to be a complete guide to understanding the universe and human nature :)
I think the religion problem is mostly about being rich or poor. If you're poor you don't have so many physical things to stick to, so you end up looking inside of yourself and start thinking about something which is more powerful than yourself.
So, it doesn't matter the way you find your interior peace and happiness.
Every one can be happy, you don't have to have a PhD and publish lots of articles and think about P/NP problems.
Completely agree with Razvan. I view belief in religion more as a sign of inability to find inspiration in the real world, than as a sign of intellectual inferiority. Of course, religion is also a very powerful way to enforce moral codes that are more helpful to the society than to the individual. So, in fact, even as an agnostic/atheist, I'd be a bit troubled living in a totally non-religious society.
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