Reimagining the world through math | Adrian Bijan White | TEDxYouth@EB
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYnXv0DxPjQ Video ID: DYnXv0DxPjQ ============================================================ [Music] I was always a really spacey kid. Uh I was constantly daydreaming, staring out the window. I was not focusing in class. So it came as a huge surprise to me when I ended up pursuing math as an educational career. Uh, math does not get a good rep. Uh, you know, some adjectives, dull, boring, you know, it's not it's not sexy. Uh, so I asked Chad GBT to kick us off with a joke. I asked it to make us a math joke. So why did the math book look so sad? Because it had so many problems. So arguably, ChachiD has no idea what to do with this question. So I figured we would tackle it in a different way together. Uh I'm going to I'm going to argue that math is actually a deeply creative subject. Uh it can be very imaginative and it's a subject that can allow us to reimagine the world through a set of frameworks and tools. Uh I'd like us to I'd like to take us through an example that I think really touches on this from a personal perspective. Uh the example that I'd like to share is called Pascal's wager. Pascal's wager is a classic example from philosophy. It was written out by bless Pascal. He's a 17th century French philosopher. It was originally sketched out by Algazali uh during the Islamic Golden Age 500 years earlier. So your professors won't mention that. So it's very this is a this is an old problem that spans cultures uh and centuries and it deals with personal faith. Do you believe in God? I'll read it in Pascal's words. He's very eloquent. God is or he is not. But to which side shall we incline? Reason can decide nothing here. A game is being played at the extremity where heads or tails will turn up. What will you wager? According to reason, you can defend neither of the propositions. You must wager. It is not optional. You are embarked. Which will you choose? done. What I love about this example is these philosophers are tackling a very complex problem that's highly subjective that deals with something that we grapple even to this day as a society. What I love is that they reapproach re-imagine the problem as a game of chance invoking a coin toss. This provides a structural clarity to the problem. Games have rules that put the pieces into motion, just like math has laws that help us understand the physical world. So, let's play the game. They map this out very very convincingly where there are three components of our game. First, we have X, God's existence. This can be this is either true or false, a binary variable. Then, we have Y. What are you going to do about it? This is your wager. You're going to bet if God exists or not based on your choice of personal faith. This again within the game is true or false. Lastly, these philosophers argue that there's a moral and cosmic consequence to your choice of Y and to the nature of X. Yet X is unknown that will be revealed only after death. So, you must choose. They argue that since we know nothing of X, we must base our decisions off of the potential consequences, which they argue are a mix of rewards and penalties. So they map out the consequences of the game, and they they claim, you know, within this context, there's four possible scenarios. First, we have X is true on the top left and God exists and Y is true. you chose to believe in God in life. They argue that you'll live a devout life on earth, but then you'll be blessed with eternal happiness in heaven, which is cashing out by the by the rules of the game. Then we have the second scenario. God does not exist. X is false. And you chose to believe in God in life. So they say, you know, you let you led a devoted life. You went to church on Sundays. Uh but there's no afterlife. There's no eternal uh no eternal reward. So, you know, this is a medium level reward. Then we have scenario three. X does not exist and you chose not to believe in life. There's some way to spin it. You know, you had your Sundays free. Uh Saturday nights, right? You had those off, too. So, uh some would say that this is a little bit more fun. Uh and there's no afterlife. So, so you you know, short-term gain, you know, it's not bad. But there's the fourth and very critical scenario uh of X is true. God God is out there and you chose you chose not to believe in God in life. Uh so you might you might have fun in the short run but uh according to the game you'll be facing you'll be burning in hell for eternity which by all metrics is the worst case scenario. So once we have the game mapped out and all of its potential outcomes now they say now we can make our decision you know since we know nothing of X only after we pass. So they argue the only reasonable way to approach this is to avoid at all cost the potential infinite penalty of the four scenario of burning in hell regardless of any of the short-term outcomes and maximize your probability of hitting the jackpot right of eternity in heaven. So, we base our personal decision. We accept the great unknown and we base our personal decision. We hedge our bets off of the potential outcomes of the game. Why I love this is because this is applying mathematical thinking to a deeply personal and subjective question. This reward function can look very different for different people, different religions, different time periods, right? It would look different maybe right now, but it's providing a structural clarity to the problem that can help us make personal decisions in our personal lives. I'm going to end with oops, sorry, this was a I'm going to end with a poem uh by Roomie who was a great Persian mystic which I think gets at the heart of the message that I'm trying to impart today. The world is dust and within the dust the sweeper and the broom are hidden. When faced with the unknowability of the world, this great ambiguity, we can find ways to identify the underlying structures and mechanisms to provide that clarity and help us help guide us in our own decisions through life. And I argue that math can help us with this. Thank you very much. [Music]