A Way to Discover Yourself: Science, Mathematics and Philosophy

Ever since ancient times, Science, Mathematics and Philosophy have remained inter-twined with each other. The ancient Greek philosophers such as Aristotle, Ptolemy, Euclid, Pythagoras, Archimedes and many others were great mathematicians as well. So, what is philosophy? It is the study of reality, existence, language, morality, reason, the mind and many other things. How can this be related to Science and Mathematics? Well, Science is basically a framework that describes reality, or how we perceive it (Quantum Physics has shown us that reality doesn’t exist until we test for it.. Spooky!). Mathematics is basically based on reason and logic, without which it is useless to boast of your being a mathematician.

Mathematics: A Human Wonder

What Philosophy, Mathematics and Science bring to us is a way to perceive the Universe, which has always been one of humankind’s fundamental traits: our curiosity. However, what we must understand is, none of them can exist unilaterally. Why? Just think of this. Using mathematics, you have figured out how to calculate the intensity of Sunlight received on a specific part of the Earth’s surface. That is the mathematical part of the problem. Now, why did you do it? For what purpose? This cannot be answered by mathematics alone. It requires the knowledge of “What is the point of doing this?” which can be given to us by philosophy.

Science employs Mathematics as its grammatical system and philosophy as one of its dialects. The true nature of Scientific theories and of Scientific discoveries can only be uncovered if we study the Philosophy behind the discovery. Furthermore, Science does the discovering, but how we use these discoveries is governed by our “Philosophy”. For example, Einstein introduced the famous Mass-energy equivalence along with his special theory of relativity. What was one of its direct implications? Yes, the destruction of Nagasaki and Hiroshima and a world of nuclear powers.

Philosophy is also meaningless without Science and Mathematics, because, searching for the truth has always been a part of philosophy. Without using mathematical and scientific principles, it is impossible to find out stuff related to our lives, to nature and to the greater cosmos as a whole.

In modern times, it is increasingly important for budding scientists, mathematicians and philosophers alike to look at all these three fields in considerable detail. One cannot exist without the other as I have shown. It is important for Scientists to have some level of responsibility when pursuing some discovery, or invention, as without the knowledge of what your discovery might do to others in the future, it can prove lethal. Similarly, Mathematics is rendered useless if you have no “point” in doing calculations.

In the end, their combination provides us with a remarkable and vivid way of understanding ourselves and nature. We have been able to surmount vast collections of information from the data that is strewn all across the universe. We have been able to understand more about our human body as well- mentally, physically and biologically (even Spiritually!). How was this possible? Due to a logical framework (Mathematics) working hand in hand with a way to describe reality (Science) along with why we are doing it and what are some of its probable implications (Philosophy). The trio of enlightenment.