Sci and Math are having a full conversation.
My first tries at Science Comedy.
This was originally a series of 4 posts of mine put in this Substack on Dec 18, 2024, Dec 26, 2024 and Apr 5, 2025.
I gathered them here in one single re-Post, with minor editing.
I do not authorize psychological nor psychiatric formulations, interpretations nor diagnosis, etc. I do not authorize any Religious use of my texts. Rights Reserved.
Part 1.
I am amazed by your confidence in the scientific experimental method, your empiricism. Your overwhelming reliance on informal logic to use beyond doubt premises in the Scientific Theory to deduce hypotheses to then test them empiricially against reality.
That I can see as the Scientific Method, I have no disagreement with that, it’s the experimental part that bo..
Just consider informally that there might be a limit where the limitations of my use of informal logic will be negligently zero. I will match reality in it’s observed behavior with a minimal amount of discrepancy from my predictions.
thers me... as I was trying to show, thank you... But your scientific experimental methodology seems lacking!, you use standard errors!, what kind of nonsense is that!, listen to it: Stan dard Errors!. Errors!, Standard!.
Did you eat Alice in Wonderland instead of reading it?.
No, I ate at Alice’s while reading it wondering if that was my promised land. Just to wander outside of your heavy skepticism against empiricism. And scientific one at that...
You are not talking about Sets are you?. Alice caught you trying to wonder around skirting outside her limits?...
No, Alice put a dent on sets everytime she complained about hers. Now I can´t add one and one without getting from her: me too, me too, me too.
Yeah, she’s no actress when she complains about theater...
And she does get one part of the induction method...
Just she applies it innapropietaly in an empiricist fashion?
Dang again, she is as pretty naked as out of fashion.
There’s some naked truth in her adding more than you in your relationship: she adds in bigger increments, she’s your add one upper: your inductive method to love. You started proving for one, and then for two, by guessing the form of the relationship between you two unknown quantities...
And I would feel minus without her.
Count me plus on that.
But your methodology seems flunky, approaching zero by constantly watching where you are going might take a long time.
Just saying that Relativity superceded Newtonian Mechanics by including it and making new predictions uncannily accurate does not give credence to this skeptic that such a thing can work fastly enough in the long run. Or in all Sciences.
You are still fascinated by the relativity of the mere world relativity?.
Notice how the vacuum is not answering...
And you are forgetting that Quantum Mechanics explained many observations in the models of the structure of the atom!. So many empirical observations and new predictions explained by the Scientific Theory of Quantum Mechanics!.That is: two real Scientific Theories separated in it’s development by mere years!.
Look how flickery your trutiness pops in and out of existance...
Have you been smoking weed?.
It’s better than just sniffing it...
But no, I haven´t... smoked weed...
You are not smoking it?
Never, at all...
You are not smoking it never at all?. Is that a double negative?.
Who can tell while falling in a vacuum with constant acceleration if evertything is relative?. How long is that going to take to tell with such relative uncertainties?
Anyway.
The point I was trying to ma...
Does have a mass and a size that is not infinitely small, that’s ugly from the get go.
To make was that the scientific experimental method is also based in the Scientific Theory. It was developed with premises beyond doubt from which conclusions were deduced, the scientific hypotheses, and then tested empirically in it’s own term. The scientific empirical method was deduced and tested against reality too!.
Look, see, for making such a massive point going circular sounds excentric to me.
You just added optimism to empiricism on top of my skepciticism without any realism in your expectations. How could anyone trust your observations and predictions matey?.
You are not talking just around the infinite edges of a circle again are you?.
That is very old geometry, how could I if you beat me to it?, and you are tying to strawman me matey. Mi clause was that
Yeah, yeah, I am still using words from natural language to argue something that is not logic but we call it informal logic.
And truthfulness flickered into existance with some defeatist realism in the expectation of substracting my skepticism of the scientific empirical method, leaving Science naked, like your Alice that you like so much, out of fashion in love with a shared induction for one and then two...
Anygüey...
Part 2.
You look a little peaked...
You are not going to believe what I saw today.
At this point, you doing Science, I am willing to risk by saying: no...
Save your sarcasm for another time, this is important.
Oh, there’s Mathematics in it!.
No, there was a question for me that I did not know how to answer!.
How is that surpising Nature lover?, it just hit you there’s much more to know now?.
Because it came from my Alice’s niece!.
Oh, noooo... she wants to go into Science instead of Mathematics?. This is catastrophic!: more Nature lovers teaching other Nature lovers than can’t do Mathematics!.
Look I
Don’t understand Mathematics is ALL around us!. It rules the Universe and the Nature that you love so much!.
Are you done?.
I am done, your to be political niece, guessing, asked you something about Science, am I right?, Hum?.
Yes, and I did not know what to answer.
I sense so much humility in you... Nature walker...
She asked me what a Scientific Theory is!.
Wow, she is smarter than you!. How old is she?.
Twelve.
Definitively smarter. What did you mumble to her trying to reply?.
That a Scientific Theory is a set, an aggregate of Laws that describe how the Universe works...
Mon Dieu, Sacré Bleu, et tú come si coma sa so chalantly confused that brilliant future Mathematician!.
Yes, and I am ashamed, I sinned in the eyes of my best friend...
Sorry not!, we can try to fix this and inspire that brilliant future Mathematician political niece in a more rational path!.
You and me Buddy, you and Me.
Ok!.
...
...
....
Are you going to tell me what a Scientific Theory is?.
I am thinking...
Stop thinking if you are going to tell me and just tell me what to say to her!.
Ah!: A Scientific Theory is a collection of statements about reality that are General, Predictive, Falsifiable, Objective, Non Contradictory, Non Trivial, Explanatory and Emprifiable.
General in the sense they do not describe specific things. They are useful for sets of several statements about Reality.
Predictive means they describe how something is going to behave in the future. In Reality, or Nature for Lovers like you. And it says something more than what the Theory can deduce when usually paired with observations of the Real World.
Falsifiable means that it is always possible to think or design one crucial experiment that proves a given Scientific Hypothesis is False. Sometimes the crucial experiment cannot be done now or in the past, but it is possible to at least think it, and propose it as a Fasifiability test.
As a test we are definitively wrong claiming something is true, and therefore it has to be false. So we don’t just come up with one hypothesis, discard it, then another, etc., to pretend to explain something that is outside of Science and it’s Method.
Falsifiability is the most important thing to know if something can be studied by Science and it’s Method.
Objective means that it has several characteristics: It exists independently of what we think about it. It can be meassured, not just talked about it. There is agreement on what we are meassuring. But, basically it is a way of seeing something in an impartial way.
Non Contradictory means that no set, or no pair of statements within the Theory when logic is used to make deductions from those statements leads to a contradiction. This implies individual statements part of a Scientific Theory are True beyond doubt. And the aggregate of them is also True beyond doubt. No lies and no bullshit...
Non Trivial means that it describes, it predicts, it explains something important, something relevant about the World, about the Universe, about Reality, about Nature.
Explanatory is self explanatory: It describes, it explains! how Nature, the World, the Universe, the Reality! is!, how it behaves when we are watching it and when we are not!.
Empirifiable means we can use experiments, meassuring aparatuses, hypothesis, models, etc., to observe, to verify that what we deduce, what comes out of Scientific Arguments: a Scientific Hypothesis!, actually matches the Reality we observe, the Reality we meassure when we do Scientific Experiments.
How am I going to say that to my future 12yrs old Niece!.
I see you are rushing into this political Unclehood, but tell her Truthfully, without Nature lover sugar coating...
Without fumbling pretending something other than Physics, Chemistry and Biology are Sciences...
...
Yeah, I get Mathematics is the Queen of the Sciences...
See!, you can be truthfull!. And perhaps you can eventually be the proud Uncle to an extraordinary future Mathematician!.
I am conflicted...
Look, Alice probably knows your shortcomings already: You are a Scientist!, not a Mathematician!. How could she not want that for her brilliant Niece!.
She might have given up on you!. I haven’t yet!. But, have some faith in Alice and her niece... there’s still time: Probably she hasn’t jumped yet into Euclidean Geometry!.
You sound so exhilarating about this, I’m puzzled...
Oh...
What did you do Math?.
Sci...
Come on... come clean... count me in: What did you do?.
I sent Alice’s niece to ask you what a Scientific Theory is!.
What!?.
I haven’t lost Faith in You!.
...
And I thought she might benefit from a dose of Reality from a Nature Lover and a Mathematician...
Part 3.
Math...
Yes...
I will never understand Reality, there is too much to know.
And there is in it much more you don´t know you don´t know...
Dah!...
I am serious!, most of Reality is unknown, if we think of Reality as everything material in the Universe there is much more we don´t know we don´t know than what we know we don´t know!.
Think how we don´t know how the Rocks in a far away planet in a far too distant Galaxy to be seen might be. A Galaxy beyond our visible rea...
Ching too far Math, you and your unknow quantities that can’t be solved into a single number, your General Solutions, meah!... not even a single set of them, your infinite series of equations belonging to a family that is part of another family for which...
We don´t know its Cardinality!, Exactly!. We don´t know what type of Infinite what we don´t know we don´t know belongs to!. Does it belong to the smallest Infinite? like the Natural Numbers, 1, 2, 3, etc., or do they belong to the slighly larger Infinite of the Real Numbers!. Or even a larger Set!.
Get Real Math, just because there are more Real Numbers between 0 and 1 than there are Natural Numbers, just because the infinite of the Real Numbers is way bigger than the Infinite of the Natural Numbers does not help me at all!. You and your Infinite Infinities!.
But it does help me help you to see most of Reality will be unknown to you and therefore you won´t be able to study it!.
And that is supposed to help me feel better exactly, hrummpff!, how?.
Because it makes the size of the Reality you can study and know way, way, wa
ay smaller?.
Exactly Sci, exactly, how does that not make you feel better?.
Because... actually it does help me feel better Math.
See, and there is still another problem with Reality as you see it...
Daa aa ah...
What?.
Go on, I was feeling better already...
Well, you don´t need to worry to Study Reality in its Entirety...
Hum!?, I am a Scientist!, I Study all that is Real!.
Yes, all that is Real not all Reality.
Ah!, now I can see myself feeling better.
Reality with its unknowns, known unknowns and unknown unknows is too much to be comprehended, it is too big to be defined, there are too many things we don´t know about Reality, the Set, the grouping of all that is Real.
We don´t know if all that is Real is material, we way most Reasonably asume it is, otherwise we wouldn’t be able to study it, but, for example: our equations describing the behavior of what We Know of the Universe don´t seem to be material objects, and yet they are Real and therefore are Studied by Science and its Methods.
Go on...
All you have to worry to study something with Science and its Methods is if what you are studying is Real and if right now can be studied with Science and its Methods.
That’s it!, you don´t need to consider the unknown unknowns to do Science!.
Math, you are a Genius.
No, I am a Mathematician, I am above Genius!.
(sigh)...
So how do we know what is Real Math?, I can see you struggling to give me a non Philosophical Answer!.
Whatever Science and its Methods Study is Real, everything else is not.
So...
Think about it Sci, think about it...
a... u... o... I seem to be reasoning in circles, Real-Science-Real...
It is a definition Sci, if you start getting concepts into the definition of what is Real Science won´t be able to Study It, you will not have Real Knowledge of what you are studying, you will only deal with mere Ideas as all Philosophers do when doing Philosophy. You will effectively stop being a Scientist.
It makes sense Math, so whatever fulfills all the criteria to be studied by Science and its Methods is Real, and whatever does not it is not.
Exactly, it is an Operational Definition dealing with the not clearly enough defined Reality. We define the Real as what Science and its Methods can study and not the other way around!.
Yeah, that solves a lot of problems and makes me feel way better Math, thanks!.
My pleasure Sci.
But, still Math, how do we know all of this?, how do we came to be sure what we have talked so far is True Beyond Doubt?.
Ah!, you are thinking of talking to your Niece again?.
Yes, she is so talented and in love with Mathematics, we were right!.
That will be for another talk Sci.
Part 4.
Math...
Sci...
Math?...
Sciii!?...
You didn’t send Alice’s niece to ask me something else did you?, be truthfull...
I... am ... a Mathematician?.
Ok.
She asked me how do we know what Reality is, What Science is, What the Scientific Experimental Method is, and what the Scientfic Method is.
She asked you briefly how do we know what is True and Real?.
Yes!, she will be a brilliant Mathematician!. I am sure of it!.
And quite a skeptic extraordinaire!.
Oh...
Yes, I haven’t asked Alice if she wants to marry me...
Oh...
But?...
We can talk about Alice’s niece.
Great!.
First the History of Science does not begin with the Greeks. It begins with Galileo.
Galileo did not do Science, he did Empiricism...
... and Empiricism is central, crucial, sine qua non to modern Science.
Except for
Mathematics, would you quit it?!, this is important for Alice’s niece!.
How could I quit Mathematics?.
Alice’s niece sil vous plait...
Ah!.
As I was say
Then centuries passed in a mixed attempt to develop a Theory that could be tested in it’s predictive explanatory non trivial power with empirical me
thods, thank you very much. Centuries that included Kepler, Copernicus, Newton, Rutherford, Curie,
And there you had to mention your Heroes!. Where is Gauss!?, Babbage!, Boole!, Cantor!, Bourbaki!, Gödel!, Gödel!, how can you omit Gödel!?.
Alice’s niece...
You know Mathematics has more Heroes for millenia than Science?.
Math...
Ok, please con
Then there were observations in almost Modern Science that could not be explained with the theories up to the beggining of the 20th century...
... then came the Theory of Special Relativity, General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics...
... then those Theories not only explained new observations, new predictions, previously not explainable but...
... more importantly explained the previous theories to then...
... become true Scientific Theories, in the Modern sense.
Ok, I think I explained that quite clearly to Alice’s niece...
Sci...
Mmm ath?...
That’s when she looked at me with some sense of admiration...
To then ask you how do we KNOW that is true?.
Correct...
Ah!.
She asked you about the Theory of Scientific Knowledge?.
Yes.
And what did you said to her?.
That the Theory of Scientific Knowledge was developed from the lessons learned from Relativity and Quantum Mechanics being the first true Scientific Theories in the Modern Understanding of Science.
Let me guess, Sci, she then explained to you the criteria of a Scientific Theory, how the Scientific Method works and what the Scientific Method is.
Yes!, she even knew it was different from the Experimental Scientific Method!.
Oh, I see how brilliant she is...
Yes!, she will be a terrific Mathematician!.
But I did not say to her that there was no way to know what was Real before we learned the lessons of the 20th Century doing Science, and therefore nothing previously written about Reality and what is Real, what is Science and its Methods is valid before that. All of that is outdated...
I think Alice’s niece can figure it out by herlsef, if she understands how we define the Real as whatever Science and its Methods study and how Sciences study nothing else than what they are supposed to study as identified by the criteria of something to be studied Scientifically, then she will figure out by Reading the History of Science that whatever was said before Relativity, Quantum Mechanics and what we learned from those Truly Theories she will know for sure all thought to be known before was neither Empiricism nor Science in the Modern Sense of those words!.
So to do Science, to understand Reality there is no need to go that far?.
Exactly Sci, what Science is, what Science Studies, what is Real, was defined without contradictions, without non sense, until after we understood why Relativity and
Quantum Mechanics are Truly Scientific Theories. Which are truly Theories in short, everything else was just Models, attempts to make progress that got us to the point we can be confident we now know those things.
And therefore if we follow the definition of what Science actually studies we can be confident we understand Reality and without contradictions.
As we see it Sci, as we see it...
Thank you Sci.
Thank you Math.
I think we both did a great Job...
Now, if all goes well it will be the turn of Alice’s niece and her Friends to do better...
Thanks.
Federico Soto del Alba.