Truth

"As mathematicians, we play and dream but we don't cheat. You can't cheat in mathematics. Truth is so important. To solve a problem with a proof is exciting and rewarding because it is true forever." ~Marie-France Vigneras

I miss that about my days studying math... Nothing to spin.

Via Seed Magazine.
Their whole slide show on photographs of mathematicians is worth checking out.

Of money and morality

A little while ago I posted about site called YourMorals.org, which uses responses to various quizzes as data for research on moral psychology, and since then I've been taking a bunch of their tests.

This has afforded me such encouraging insights as: I am significantly less satisfied with my life than the average test-taker, I am more likely than average to react to things with disgust, my morality is essentially about avoiding harm and preserving freedom, and I take serious issue against authority and purity. Go figure.

But there's one test in particular that caused me to pause: the "Sacredness Survey".

It works like this:
You are presented with various hypothetical acts (burning your country's flag, pricking a child's hand...) that might violate notions you hold "sacred" and you are asked what it would take for you to engage in these acts. Your response options are the following:

• $0 (I'd do it for free)
• $10
• $100
• $1,000
• $10,000
• $100,000
• A million dollars
• Never for any amount of money

So, at risk of revealing myself as the freak that I am, here were my results -- and it should be noted that this applies only to the acts that I said I would do: it excludes things I wouldn't do for any sum of money.

• It would take an average of $0 to get you to violate the HARM foundation.
• It would take an average of $5000 to get you to violate the FAIRNESS foundation.
• It would take an average of $33333.333333333 to get you to violate the INGROUP foundation.
• It would take an average of $0 to get you to violate the AUTHORITY foundation.
• It would take an average of $0 to get you to violate the PURITY foundation.

Creepy right? I sound like a cheap psychopath.

But this is where I think the study is flawed, or at least very ill-suited to my personal brand of morality...

When it comes to morality and "sacredness", if there's something that doesn't bother me, then I need no financial compensation to do it. In fact, I will gladly break a taboo just for laughs.

One that tickled me from the survey: Sign a piece of paper that says "I hereby sell my soul, after my death, to whoever has this piece of paper." Sure, I'll do that for free for the sheer irony of it.

However, when it comes to things I won't do, like pricking a child's hand (back to my harm-based personal morality), then typically no amount of money will convince me to do it, not because I'm so honest I can't be bought, but because getting paid for doing something bad makes it worse, not better. I may regret harming a child, but getting paid to harm a child is something I might never be able to live down. And the greater the fee the more immoral the act.

Who knows... I guess it's my relationship with money that's coming into play. I have no problem getting paid for work done or services rendered (heck, I have a job after all!), but getting paid to do something bad is a whole other story. So basically, I think my personal financial hang-ups are creating "noise" in my responses to that survey, confusing the results.

I my mind, the major flaw with this survey is that is assumes a commensurability between money and morality, as if the costs of one could be compensated by the benefits of the other. However, money itself has huge moral connotations for most people and it's wrong to think one could introduce that into the equation without fundamentally changing the game.

Quizzes for a cause

Ever been curious about the fundamental underpinnings of your personal moral code? Or how you stack up against others in the moral spectrum? Or how morality affects your daily behaviors?

Take the quizzes offered on YourMorals.org and your answers will be added to the body of knowledge informing current research on moral psychology.

Plus, the tests are wonderfully addictive.

The 1.4 million dollar question...

French physicist and philosopher of science Bernard d'Espagnat has been awarded the John Templeton Foundation's prestigious and highly generous Templeton Prize, amounting to 1 million British pounds. It's the world's largest annual prize.

As for what Monsieur d'Espagnat has done to deserve such a prize, I'll begin by noting that his scientific pedigree is off the charts. Known for his work in quantum mechanics, d'Espagnat enjoyed the tutorship of Louis de Broglie who was his thesis advisor, he was Enrico Fermi's research assistant, and he worked under Niels Bohr at CERN.

Yet he was awarded the Templeton Prize less for his advancements of the field of quantum mechanics, than for his exploration of its philosophical implications. The Foundation's press release offers this telling quote by d'Espagnat:

"[Quantum mechanics allows for] the possibility that the things we observe may be tentatively interpreted as signs providing us with some perhaps not entirely misleading glimpses of a higher reality and, therefore, that higher forms of spirituality are fully compatible with what seems to emerge from contemporary physics.”

It seems that the 1.4 million dollar question has ventured way off the path of science and into the territory of religion and spirituality. And I'm not sure how I feel about this.

On the one hand, at a time when our economic hardships are driving us to reduce everything to a cost benefit analysis, and the humanities are falling further and further out of favor, it's nice to see a purely theoretical endeavor rewarded. I also think we would benefit from mending the current massively unproductive rift between science and religion.

But on the other hand, is this really the 1.4 million dollar question? Or is there some truth to Richard Dawkin's critique that the Templeton Prize is just "a very large sum of money given...usually to a scientist who is prepared to say something nice about religion?"

I may be leaning toward the latter...