Math Counts

This month the bookclub will be looking at the Sci-Fi classic, I, Robot, through a lens of mathematical philosophy.

I, Robot by Isaac Asimov continues to be a literary and sci-fi pillar as it was an early story dealing with the concept of A.I. in robots. First published in 1950, it predates these concepts by decades and has been referred to many times by pioneers in the field. The book is framed as an interview with Dr. Susan Calvin, a legend from her 50 years with robotics, and the stories she tells about people's interaction with robots during that time. The three laws of robotics introduced in the book becomes a setup for various paradoxes that arise due to the situation the robots are in. How humans interact with the robots is a major point of most of the stories which allows Asimov to explore aspects of humanity such as ethics and morality.

I, Robot the 2004 film directed by Alex Proyas and starring Will Smith inserts itself into this world as a big budget 2000's action film starring Will Smith. It grapples more with the question "How to adapt a book featuring a handful of introspective short stories into a sci-fi thriller" rather than the questions of "how humanity deals with technology that ever increasingly looks human" that the book deals with, so a look into the mathematical concepts here is less. It does bring it's own look at humanity to it's story, or at least as much as it can in a 90 minute film packed with action sequences. The discussion will be mostly focused on the book and mathematics, but there is a place for discussion on the film adaptation.

This meetup is inspired by the Buddhist debate tradition. It is an analytic form of debate with formalized rules and presentation of proofs through rhetoric. The Color Debates are just what the name implies, a debate about the existence of color. It's meant as a warm-up for students learning the actual technique of Buddhist Debate, but the style lends itself well to debating classic concepts in mathematics. Classic concepts such as "Is 0.999999. . . equal to 1?" "Is Zero a number?" "Is infinity real? Is infinity and infinitesimals the same thing?" Come join the fun on November 25th, the 4th Saturday of the Month, and bring your own conversational math hot takes as well as 3 or 5 points of proof to defend yourself.

This month will be a return to the mammoth "Godel, Esher, Bach". Previous discussions on this book has dived into the presentation of Isomorphisms, paradoxes, and building mathematical models as presented by the book. The book itself is a solid work of literature as well in how it presents these concepts through the text; not only does Hoffsteader talk about Isomorphisms, but he constantly draws parallels between the so called different fields of math, art, and music as a way to illustrate and prove his points on abstract concepts and model building. We'll be looking at pages 80 to 160 this month.

This meetup is a repeat of the August meetup, due to an emergency that got in the way of the planned 4th Saturday meetup of August.

This meetup is a return to the Buddhist inspired debate, a meetup where the group can get together and get to debating important questions. Questions like can we agree on the definition of colors, was Leibniz, Newton, Descartes or Fermat who invented calculus, or how long can we just argue and debate about AI?

The debate form has a stonrg structure and comes off as analytical and sometimes computational.

This meetup is inspired by the Buddhist debate tradition. It is an analytic form of debate with formalized rules and presentation of proofs through rhetoric. The Color Debates are just what the name implies, a debate about the existence of color. It's meant as a warm-up for students learning the actual technique of Buddhist Debate, but the style lends itself well to debating classic concepts in mathematics. Classic concepts such as "Is 0.999999. . . equal to 1?" "Is Zero a number?" "Is infinity real? Is infinity and infinitesimals the same thing?" Come join the fun on November 25th, the 4th Saturday of the Month, and bring your own conversational math hot takes as well as 3 or 5 points of proof to defend yourself.

This meetup is inspired by the Buddhist debate tradition. It is an analytic form of debate with formalized rules and presentation of proofs through rhetoric. The Color Debates are just what the name implies, a debate about the existence of color. It's meant as a warm-up for students learning the actual technique of Buddhist Debate, but the style lends itself well to debating classic concepts in mathematics. Classic concepts such as "Is 0.999999. . . equal to 1?" "Is Zero a number?" "Is infinity real? Is infinity and infinitesimals the same thing?" Come join the fun on November 25th, the 4th Saturday of the Month, and bring your own conversational math hot takes as well as 3 or 5 points of proof to defend yourself.

This meetup is inspired by the Buddhist debate tradition. It is an analytic form of debate with formalized rules and presentation of proofs through rhetoric. The Color Debates are just what the name implies, a debate about the existence of color. It's meant as a warm-up for students learning the actual technique of Buddhist Debate, but the style lends itself well to debating classic concepts in mathematics. Classic concepts such as "Is 0.999999. . . equal to 1?" "Is Zero a number?" "Is infinity real? Is infinity and infinitesimals the same thing?" Come join the fun on November 25th, the 4th Saturday of the Month, and bring your own conversational math hot takes as well as 3 or 5 points of proof to defend yourself.

This meetup is inspired by the Buddhist debate tradition. It is an analytic form of debate with formalized rules and presentation of proofs through rhetoric. The Color Debates are just what the name implies, a debate about the existence of color. It's meant as a warm-up for students learning the actual technique of Buddhist Debate, but the style lends itself well to debating classic concepts in mathematics. Classic concepts such as "Is 0.999999. . . equal to 1?" "Is Zero a number?" "Is infinity real? Is infinity and infinitesimals the same thing?" Come join the fun on November 25th, the 4th Saturday of the Month, and bring your own conversational math hot takes as well as 3 or 5 points of proof to defend yourself.