Lunch Logic

We examine the underlying causes of accidents and the extent to which they can be anticipated or prevented. We then turn to the subjective experience of being in such accidents, as well as the broader social responses, often marked by indifference or a lack of empathy toward victims. Further, we consider the question of responsibility: whether individuals can reasonably be held accountable for every accident, or whether responsibility should be evaluated in light of their knowledge and circumstances. We conclude by reflecting on the inevitability of accidents, asking whether this renders an unattainable Utopia, and what, if anything, might be done to transform the reality we inhabit.

For the third time on Lunch Logic, we introduce new insights on helping the public engage with mathematics and other STEM subjects. We start by introducing the idea that emphasizes the importance of processing and understanding the information rather than merely “learning” it. We give examples of some of the coolest discoveries we’ve learned from our past math and science classes and reflect on how captivating they can be if taken properly. By trying to resolve this problem, we introduce the idea of bringing seminars into not just humanities courses but in STEM subjects as well since having to think and reflect on the meaning behind these discoveries is not only beneficial to appreciate our reality better but also enhances learning. We also talk about how important it is to come into the world as if you are awakened into the world and not accepting reality as it is and how this world can be viewed as a giant playground. To help the public engage with math and science, we introduce how we can combine those disciplines with their history and the impact they had on human civilization to help students understand better. We also talk about what causes the public to shy away from including math and science theories into the box of “common sense” and discuss how ironic it is that disciplines that indefinitely dictate our fundamental reality aren’t considered to be as important. We briefly mention the fear from the students behind new mathematical symbols and how they are caused simply due to the lack of knowledge within the subject and that one should lean more towards a state of excitement rather than a state of fear. We end our conversation with the limitations of the educational system and what we can do to help people with different abilities and interests as much as possible by connecting our topic to the overall educational system.

We dive deeper into the nature of superstition and question the why and how behind its existence. These questions include whether it works, why it exists, whether it will go away, and whether it should go away. We also try to understand the motivation behind them by understanding humanity’s nature to confront fear and impose control as well as how our lack of knowledge enhances the belief.

We start our episode by acknowledging how the term “laws” subconsciously affects us into thinking they are constructible and engineered entities such as governmental laws which shows how much role language and framing play in our thought processes. Then, we introduce a few thought experiments to demonstrate that the laws might arise from preventing these paradoxes from occurring rather than them being engineered. We dive even deeper into questioning why the Universe follows logic at all and what the world would look like if there were no laws governing the Universe. We go back to the question of how many laws are governing the Universe and whether they are even quantifiable. We also question if we can continue to ask “why” to every natural phenomenon and whether they would imply that there are an infinite number of laws. In addition, we question if the laws of the Universe are finite, research will ever stop and what life after Truth would be like. To understand the essence of the laws of nature better, we investigate how we come to understand mathematical and physical laws as well as the constants. We introduce a “blind mathematician” thought experiment and try to analyze whether it’s possible to intuitively understand mathematical or even physical concepts while having no observation or empirical data of the world. Furthermore, we question if the laws of physics, such as Maxwell’s equations, could be derived without experimentation and purely from mathematical concepts. We also question if there were to be two different sets of laws that are derivable/underivable with imagination and logic only, this would give distinction to the laws of mathematics and physics. Finally, we scrutinize the essence of mathematical and physical constants and whether it is possible to make physical constants dimensionless and more “fundamental” like mathematical constants. (ex. setting the permittivity of free space equal to 1 to make the mathematical value of electric flux equal to only the charge enclosed) We conclude that because the units are constructed, the “realness” in physics is focused on the proportion rather than the numbers and the exact values. We also explore how these mathematical and physical constants are related to each other and whether we can count the number of them. We end off by introducing a hypothesis such as a variable speed of light and what the social impact the change of fundamental constants would have and how we should address them if they ever occur.Edit: Only after tracing this path did we realize later that we have been discussing the frameworks of rationalism and empiricism without naming them and the motivation behind natural units in physics.

In our one year anniversary episode, we once again talk about one of our most mentioned and favorites topics: Math. We explore the properties of mathematics and why they make the subject so loveable. These properties include Truth, wisdom, beauty, perfection, logic, satisfaction, and objectivity. We also explore whether because of those same properties, they might cause hatred towards the subject and what we can do to spread the wonders and beauty of the world.

We discuss where social constructs come from and how we come to accept them. We analyze how certain illogical social constructs become barriers that restrict our freedom in our society and end up becoming detrimental to us. We also mention to what extent we should accept these norms that aren't necessary logical or serve any practical purpose but is purely for the sake of presenting ourselves to others. We end off our conversation by discussing how we can make the world look like a musical such as dancing in public and what truly is stopping us from increasing the society's happiness.

We discuss how to be a good and friendly alien by trying to analyze an alien civilization's rules of ethics and incorporating them in our policy. We bring up how regardless of their level of civilization, we must first change our way of treating animals on this planet before expanding our principles into the intergalactic space. We emphasize the importance of making partners in the Universe considering humanity's fate that has been lonely since its beginning and how important it is to understand and respect their rights to make ourselves companionable. We also discuss how we can present ourselves as non-threatening and friendly and whether we must even present ourselves that way in the first place.

How do we start losing childhood innocence? Is it purely natural and if so is there anything we can learn from it? We talk about the nature of being a child and how similar we all were in the past. We also talk about the reality we live in where we have to live up to society's expectations and divisions/conflicts that occur while forgetting that we were all the same at one point.

We talk about what problems the existence of an afterlife can solve as well as the burden that comes with the eternalness of afterlife. We also talk about what it means to say goodbye to our Earthmates forever and acknowledging our finite fate in the Universe. We briefly mention the similarities between graduation and death and humanity’s tendency to deny the existence of death. By looking at different options the world could’ve turned out regarding its existence and the existence of life, we mention how God might not have had a choice to build the “perfect world”. Finally, we emphasize the consequences of highlighting the finiteness of life and what that could bring to humanity.

ft. Jack Williams / We talk about the roles sports play in society and how they influence the public. We talk about whether sports can be seen as a distraction or if it’s an appropriate form of entertainment and is equivalent to other types of entertainment. We also bring up the issue of idolizing professional athletes especially when it comes to young children and the consequences/boundaries of idolizing an individual in general. We end off our discussion by sharing our experiences as high school athletes and why the educational system over-emphasizes sports and the positive & negative effects of dedicating our time into playing sports.

We discuss the tools humans have invented that allow us to understand the Universe better and how they require previous knowledge of the Universe. We also relate the process to that of a video game. We talk about why the solutions of our questions in trying to understand reality is a lot like a puzzle that has elegant methods or solutions and whether they could perhaps be an evidence for the Universe trying to understand itself through conscious creatures. We share how our curiosity in trying to understand the Universe and the development of academic disciplines such as pure mathematics happen to be effective in describing different parts of nature and can become incredibly applicable.

We talk about the traits that Light, Mathematics, and God all have in common such as the philosophical question of their existence, similarities between “perfect” world of heaven and the platonic world, the incredible effectiveness mathematics and religion have in the physical world, the shared trait of omnipresence in Light and God, different manifestations of Light(wave and a particle) and God(the Holy Trinity in Christianity), and etc. We also debate whether these “God-like traits” must emerge simply due to how we subconsciously understand Mathematics/Truth and Light or whether there is a theological connection between them.

How does the physical stuff in our brain allow the emergence of the mind? Is consciousness predictable or is there a non-physical phenomena that doesn’t allow the predictability of consciousness? What causes our intuition in believing that something is scientific/unscientific? What does it mean for a theory to be scientific? Why does consciousness exist? Is it a mere inevitability due to the infinite time of our universe? Is the universe made for life? What is the relationship between language and consciousness? How do we perceive a better, more efficient language, and how can we develop it? Is the brain analogous to a computer? Are the parts of a digital computer such as a transistor fundamentally the same as a neuron of a brain?

ft. Sam Wasson / We share our experiences on religion and faith while elaborating on the positive and negative consequences of religion in society. We talk about what defines religion and whether cults or spirituality is fundamentally the same. We also talk about the danger of believing you are right and others are wrong while justifying your actions based on a divine being. We briefly mention Pacal’s wager and whether grasping on to religion before death without critical thinking makes us lose our integrity based on Truth. We end off with a discussion that encompasses mathematics and religion, such as the idea of faith, the platonic world/heaven that is governing the physical world, and whether our faith in logic and mathematics is any more reliable or “noble” than one in religion.

ft. Malena Price / We discuss the development and consequences of major breakthroughs in technology such as the invention of the internet and smartphone as well as the ethical problems that emerge. We dive deeper into the nature of helping for the sake of attention and whether it can be morally ignored as long as it brings the same positive consequences to society or whether the innate motivation of an individual matters. We also slightly touch the nature of click-baiting and attention seeking problems that occur as more accessible methods of communication spread throughout the internet. We end off our discussion with how to manage the “unofficial rules” people follow as technology develops and to what extent the people or the government should restrict the radical technological progress as well as how to “rebel” against these norms.

ft. Jason Resch, the creator of AlwaysAsking.com / Why is there something rather than nothing? Why not nothing? Today, we discuss the most obvious and perhaps the most mysterious question that humanity can pose. We first start off by defining what “nothing” is and whether it’s achievable by any means. By hypothesizing the possibility of something emerging out of nothing and the existence of self-existing things, we attempt to analyze the essence of candidates for self-existence such as logic, truth, numbers, possibility, the universe, a higher plane, and consciousness. We briefly talk about the idea of faith and the connection between religion and science. We also explore the three modes of existence(Math, Matter, Mind), their relations, and which one of them is the most fundamental. We, then, discuss whether reality could be replicated using information and computation and what role they play in shaping the structures of a universe. Finally, we end our conversation by discussing the social consequences of finding out the answer to the question and how we can popularize the trait of always asking across the public.

ft. Mr. Brian Stukey / We discuss the characteristics of successful physics students at different difficulty levels. We also discuss the current philosophy of education in physics and how we can improve it in the future. By analyzing the most fundamental ideas, we question the extent of the "realness" in physics. Such questions include whether ideas that were derived from the more "fundamental ideas" are equally valid expressions of reality and whether abstract ideas like "instantaneous velocity" are real.

ft. Ben Rosenfield / Does infinity exist in the physical world? If not, why does it exist mathematically? Are there different levels to infinity? What are the similarities and differences between zero, one, infinity, and negative infinity? We run through a number of thought experiments to explore the nature of infinity in both the physical world and the mathematical world.

3rd part of “Is Math Invented or Discovered?”; We discuss how we can approach the questions of why the laws of nature have to be the way they are by analyzing the essence of empirical and logical truths. We also discuss whether the constants and patterns that appear random to us must emerge simply due to their necessity. By trying to analyze the essence of “brute facts”, we approach whether the obvious truths that must be true in our world are, in fact, empirical truths such as the Taylor series for trigonometric functions that dictate the fundamental structure of physical reality. We question if our epistemological view, in believing that those "brute facts" being trivial and undeniable, is wrong by introducing a possibility that our thoughts were programmed to think of thoughts that are only logically possible in our specific Universe(ex: how we can’t imagine a circle where its value of pi is not approximately 3.14). We also question whether logic, in its fundamental essence, contains the traits of order and elegance or if the Creator designed the Universe that allowed the emergence of ordered and elegant patterns that must follow due to his logical system. We also consider the possibility of the emergence of order that was deduced from logic being an illusion and whether there is a confusion in our language. Finally, we discuss whether the “laws” of the Universe must exist if there’s only one way for any metaphysical Universe can turn out or if those laws could’ve been different(and if so, whether they would’ve still contained the traits of order and elegance).P.S. take a shot every time Luke says "logic"

ft. Anderson Corum / Is Time a man-made concept or does it exist independently? Can an object move with an imaginary velocity or experience time greater than what the Universe allows? Is "here" analogous to "now"? Does time stop one from keeping their personal identity?