Unsupervised Thinking

As computational neuroscientists, the members of this podcast take for granted the fact that math can be used to describe the brain. But is this ability of math trivial or deeply surprising? On this episode we tackle the large philosophical issues behind computational sciences, with the help of a set of articles entitled "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences" (1960) and "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics" (1980). These articles, written by mathematicians, claim that the ability of mathematics to explain the world is unexpectedly impressive. This leads us to a set of questions: What is math? What is the world? And how do we know what to expect from either? Is this ability of math truly unreasonable or did it just appear so at a certain time? As we explore these ideas we discuss thought experiments involving artificial intelligence and real experiments involving the Cold War. We also hypothesize on the role of elegance in mathematics and what "understanding" really m