February 10, 2025, 7:14 PM PST
I am starting this diary because (as you may have seen) I recently started a diary for my operating systems class. Another thing that I have been thinking about in practically all of my other classes, is how to go about understanding the universe.
One of my main concerns right now is that while mathematics does a good job in considering its models very precisely and completely, it sometimes fails to verify against real world data.
I just think that in a world where it is easier and easier to collect data, we may as well go out and do just that! Spending all our time building models doesn't necessarily mean that they will be good... and there is no way to tell without looking at data or observing nature anyway!
I really admire artists; artists learn about the world and sharpen their technical skills simultaneously through their work. I think that's pretty amazing, and it's what I strive to do. This is where math is different; you can exponentially sharpen your technical skills by studying math, but it isn't going to improve your knowledge of the world until you start taking a look at some data!
I think in any case that the best way to learn about the world is to interact with it to gain experience, and then express that knowledge through the most precise language familiar to you.
Note to self: Inference vs. sampling... that's something Prof. Listgarten was asking Brian L. Trippe today. Maybe I'll have to think about the philosophy of this. Prof. Listgarten seemed to think that there was a difference, whereas Dr. Trippe seemed to indicate that there wasn't, at least to a Bayesian.