UGFN1000

In Dialogue with Nature

與自然對話

Henri Poincaré
Science and Method

Recording…
1
 Common pitfall
• Science cannot disprove • Science cannot disprove
the existence of souls. the existence of an
Therefore, souls exist?! unobservable flying pink
elephant in front of you.
Therefore, the flying
pink elephant exists?!
• What is the evidence
supporting the existence
of souls and the flying
pink elephant?

2
 Inference to the best explanation
What is the best explanation? Brain or soul?
Correspondence, coherence and simplicity

3
 Who am I?
“‘You’, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and
you ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free
will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast
assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules.”
(Crick 3)
“You’re nothing but a pack of neurons.” (Crick 3)

• Crick, Francis. The Astonishing

Hypothesis: The Scientific Search For
The Soul. New York: Scribner, 1994.

4
 David
• A masterpiece of
Renaissance sculpture
created between 1501
and 1504
• By the Italian artist
Michelangelo
• 5.17-metre marble
statue of a standing
male nude.

A pack of atoms?
5
 Your brain is
unique!

• The brain has around 100 billion neurons! (1000 億 !)

• One neuron may receive signals from thousands of other neurons.
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 Do animals have consciousness?
• Consciousness 意識 (Ch. 28 para. 2)
– A state of perceptual awareness, selective attention.
– An awareness of self, an awareness of being aware.
– Subjective experience (e.g. pleasure and pain), reflection
upon those experiences.
• Do animals have consciousness?
Mirror test (mark test)

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 Do animals have consciousness?
• Mirror test (mark test)
• “By the age of two, half of all children can recognize
themselves. Soon they all do.”
• Animals that have been observed to pass the mirror test
include:
– All great apes:
• Humans – Humans tend to fail the mirror test until they are about 18
months old.
• Bonobos 倭黑猩猩 , Chimpanzees 黑猩猩 , Orangutans 紅毛猩猩 , Gorillas 大猩猩
– Bottlenose dolphins 寬吻海豚屬 , Orcas (Killer whale 殺人鯨 )
– Elephants, European Magpies 喜鵲
• The biological evolution of consciousness
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 Course design of UGFN1000
• Part I. The pursuit of truth
• Part II. What are we?
– Text 4: Darwin, On the Origin of Species
– Text 6: Carson, Silent Spring
– Text 5: Watson, DNA: The Secret of Life
– Text 8: Kandel, In Search of Memory
– Wrap-up: Text 7: Poincaré, Science and Method
• Part III. Chinese vs. Western worldview
 Core Question

What makes nature beautiful?

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 French mathematician, theoretical physicist,
engineer, and a philosopher of science.
Foundation work on: Relativity, Celestial Mechanics,
Chaos, 3-body problem, Topology, theory of analytic
functions of several complex variables, …
Poincaré conjecture: 1/7 Millennium Prize Problems
(US$1,000,000)
亨利 · 龐加萊（彭加勒） The only member elected to every one of the five
Henri Poincaré sections of the French Academy of Sciences: the
(1854-1912)
geometry, mechanics, physics, geography and
navigation sections.

Moon

Crater
Poincaré
12
 “…it should be noted that Poincaré habitually
wrote in a self-effacing ( 不出風頭的 ) manner. He
named many of his discoveries after other
people, and expounded many important and
original ideas in writings that were ostensibly
( 表面上 ) just reviewing the works of others, with
‘minor amplifications and corrections’.”
- Kevin Brown, ‘Reflections on Relativity’
亨利 · 龐加萊（彭加勒）
Henri Poincaré “my memory is not bad” (III, Par. 10)
(1854-1912)

13
 Famous quotes
Science and Method

The scientist does not study nature because it is useful to do so. He

studies it because he takes pleasure in it, and
he takes pleasure in it because it is beautiful. (I, Par. 15)

The principal aim of mathematical education is to develop certain

faculties of the mind, and among these intuition is not the least
precious.

It is by logic that we prove, but by intuition that we discover.

To know how to criticize is good, to know how to create is better.

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 The text
• Henri Poincaré: Science et Méthode (1908)
• Science and Method. Tr. Francis Maitland
(1914)
• Chapter 1. The selection of facts [tutorial
discussion]
• Chapter 3. Mathematical discovery
 Science for science’s sake
Tolstoi explains somewhere in his writings why, in his opinion, “Science for
Science’s sake” is an absurd conception. (I, Par. 1)

• Tolstoi (Leo Tolstoy) 托爾斯泰 :

“Science for science’s sake” 為科學而科學 = to study everything

Counting?!

We cannot know all the facts, since they are practically infinite in number. (I, Par. 1)
16
Studying everything is impossible!
 Selection is necessary
We must make a selection; and that being so, can this selection be governed by
the mere caprice of our curiosity 善變的好奇心 ? Is it not better to be guided by
utility, by our practical, and more especially our moral, necessities? (I, Par. 1)

• Scientists must select what fact to study

• What guides the selection?
– Mere caprice of our curiosity
– Utility/necessity
• Applications of science
• Making men better (moral sense for Tolstoi)
[Poincaré] could not be satisfied with either of these ideals. (I, Par. 3)

17
 What guides the selection?
Why not caprice or necessity?
• Why did Poincaré think so?
But scientists believe that there is a hierarchy of facts, and that a judicious ( 明智
的 ) selection can be made. (I, Par. 5)
• Facts selected by caprice or necessity
– Can knowing if a human is able to roll his tongue help you know about
other characters of him?
NO!!!

If they had worked solely in view of an immediate application, they would have
left nothing behind them, and in face of a new requirement, all would have had
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to be done again. (I, Par. 6)
 Scientists study facts…
• Scientists select the facts to study
– What helps you know the characters of humans? DNA sequences
• Why do scientists need to study them?
Now the majority of men do not like thinking, and this is perhaps a good thing,
since instinct guides them, … But instinct is routine, and if it were not fertilized by
thought, it would advance no further with man than with the bee or the ant. It is
necessary, therefore, to think for those who do not like thinking, and as they are
many, each one of our thoughts must be useful in as many circumstances as
possible. For this reason, the more general a law is, the greater is its value.

(I, Par. 6)

“The more general a law is, the greater is its value.”

• Finding facts to establish rules or laws

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 What are the characteristics of the
selected facts?
This shows us how our selection should be made. The most interesting facts are those
which can be used several times, those which have a chance of recurring. (I, Par. 7)

• Recurring facts! (Everywhere!)  Laws

Law of universal
 gravitation

• What if there are no

recurring facts?
– 80 millions elements?
– No species, just individuals?
Before each new object we should be like a new-born child; ….
In such a world there would be no science… (I, Par. 7) 20
 What are the recurring facts?
• Simple facts
Then only two alternatives are possible; either this simplicity is real, or else the
elements are so intimately mingled that they do not admit of being
distinguished. (I, Par. 8)
– Real simplicity: e.g. liquid – Intimately mingled: e.g. air
nitrogen

Cannot be distingushied (homogeneous)

21
 Where do we find simple facts?
But where is the simple fact? Scientists have tried to find it in the two extremes,
in the infinitely great 極大 and in the infinitely small 極小 *. (I, Par. 10)

• Infinitely great:
The astronomer has found it because the distances of the stars are immense, so
great that each of them appears only as a point and qualitative differences
disappear, and because a point is simpler than a body which has shape and
qualities. (I, Par. 10)

How great? The known universe

[Link]

22
 Where do we find simple facts?
But where is the simple fact? Scientists have tried to find it in the two extremes,
in the infinitely great and in the infinitely small*. (I, Par. 10)

• Infinitely small:
The physicist, on the other hand, has sought the elementary phenomenon in an
imaginary division of bodies into infinitely small atoms... (I, Par. 10)

Similarly the biologist has been led instinctively to regard the cell as more
interesting than the whole animal... (I, Par. 10)

Searching for
basic units or Reductionism!
building blocks (Our interpretation,
 simple facts not in the text)

The way into steel: [Link]

[Link] 23
24
Simple fact - homogeneous

25
 From regular simple facts to a rule
Practical men vs. scientists
Does a hammer and a feather fall down the same time in
vacuum? (Our example, not in the text)

• Practical men: • Approach:

Time – Observe the points he desires
for special objects (e.g. the
feather and the hammer)
– Points are
• badly distributed,
• crowded in certain parts,
• scare in others
Weight • Impossible to connect by
a continuous line
– No rule  Useless for other
applications
26
 From regular simple facts to a rule
Practical men vs. scientists
Does a hammer and a feather fall down the same time?
• Scientists:
Time
• Approach:
• Start from one extreme
• Then to another extreme
• Central point is most
instructive (Straight line?
Weight Curve?)
• Conclude a rule: everything falls • Other points
with an acceleration of 9.8 ms .
-2

The scientist would proceed in a different manner. Since he wishes to study the
curve for itself, he will distribute the points to be observed regularly, and as
soon as he knows some of them, he will join them by a regular line, and he will
then have the complete curve. (I, Par. 10) 27
 Know the present better by looking
further away
We shall know this corner better for the journey we have taken into distant
lands where we had no concern. (I, Par. 12)

28
 Know the present better by looking
further away
We shall know this corner better for the journey we have taken into distant
lands where we had no concern. (I, Par. 12)

Vincent van Gogh

“The Starry Night”
29
 Scientists look for exceptions of a rule
Thus when a rule has been established, we have first to look for the cases in
which the rule stands the best chance of being found in fault. (I, Par. 12)
Then it is the exception which becomes important. (I, Par. 11)

By making long excursions in space or in time, we may find our ordinary rules
completely upset, and these great upsettings will give us a clearer view and
better comprehension of such small changes as may occur nearer us…
(I, Par. 12)
• Do the experiment on the moon…
Time • Clearer View:
• Not everything falls by the
Moon acceleration of 9.8 ms-2,
but it depends on the
location
Earth
• (Moon: 1.62 ms-2)
• “The more general a law is, the
greater is its value. (I, Par. 6)
Weight 30
 Scientists aim to discover similarities
hidden under apparent discrepancies
But what we must aim at is not so much to ascertain 弄清 resemblances and
differences, as to discover similarities hidden under apparent discrepancies.
(I, Par. 13)

• Back to the experiment...

Time
– Falling on Earth and Moon:
• Not about similar measurement Moon
errors
• Not about different falling time
• Similarities hidden under Earth
discrepancies: Straight line
(both by gravitation)
• Newton’s law of universal Weight
gravitation
The individual rules appear at first discordant, but on looking closer we can
generally detect a resemblance. (I, Par. 13) 31
 Scientists aim to discover similarities
hidden under apparent discrepancies
[A scientist] tries to condense a great deal of experience and a great deal of
thought into a small volume . (I, Par. 14)

Searching for unity

• Some simple universal laws to explain diverse phenomena

• Bacteria and Human: Although different,

both use DNA as genetic material
• All species: so different, all resulting from
natural selection • Newton’s laws
32
 Why do scientists study nature and select
simple facts?
The scientist does not study nature because it is useful to do so. He studies it
because he takes pleasure in it, and he takes pleasure in it because it is beautiful.
(I, Par. 15)

• Beauty  pleasure
• Because nature is beautiful!
– Not the beauty that strikes the senses (sensible beauty)
– Intellectual beauty
What I mean is that more intimate beauty which comes from the harmonious
order of its parts 各部分的和諧秩序 , and which a pure intelligence can grasp.
(I, Par. 15)
• Cf. Plato’s world of forms / intelligible realm (Text 1)
• Cf. “The world we inhabit is an orderly one, in which things generally
behave in predictable ways, Aristotle argued” (Text 2, III, par. 17)
33
 Intellectual beauty
What I mean is that more intimate beauty which comes from the harmonious
order of its parts, and which a pure intelligence can grasp. (I, Par. 15)

• What does harmony mean?

The individual rules appear at first discordant [i.e. lack of harmony], but on
looking closer we can generally detect a resemblance; though differing in matter,
they approximate in form and in the order of their parts. (I, Par. 13)

Similarities hidden under apparent discrepancies

 (by looking at their parts)

(parts = simple facts = basic units  reductionism)
A reductionistic interpretation of intellectual beauty

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 Intellectual beauty

A common ancestor?!

• Similarities hidden under apparent

discrepancies
(by looking at their parts or basic
units)
• Simple facts as basic units
• Recurring!
35
 Intellectual beauty
What I mean is that more intimate beauty which comes from the harmonious
order of its parts, and which a pure intelligence can grasp. (I, Par. 15)

• What does harmony mean?

The individual rules appear at first discordant [i.e. lack of harmony], but on
looking closer we can generally detect a resemblance; though differing in matter,
they approximate in form and in the order of their parts. (I, Par. 13)

Similarities hidden under apparent discrepancies

(by looking at their parts)
(parts = simple facts = basic units  reductionism)
 A reductionistic interpretation of intellectual beauty
Harmonious order of its parts
(parts = simple facts = basic units  reductionism)

36
Intellectual beauty
• Harmonious order of its parts
– Having different parts that work
well together

37
 Intellectual beauty
What I mean is that more intimate beauty which comes from the harmonious
order of its parts, and which a pure intelligence can grasp. (I, Par. 15)

• What does harmony mean?

The individual rules appear at first discordant [i.e. lack of harmony], but on
looking closer we can generally detect a resemblance; though differing in matter,
they approximate in form and in the order of their parts. (I, Par. 13)

Similarities hidden under apparent discrepancies

(by looking at their parts)
(parts = simple facts = basic units  reductionism)
 Harmonious order of its parts
(parts = simple facts = basic units  reductionism)
Intellectual beauty 智性美 , on the contrary, is self-sufficing, and it is for it, more
perhaps than for the future good of humanity, that the scientist condemns
himself to long and painful labours. (I, Par. 15) 38
 The search for intellectual beauty
It is, then, the search for this special beauty, the sense of the harmony of the
world, that makes us select the facts best suited to contribute to this harmony.
(I, Par. 16)

There is no fear that this instinctive 本能的 and unacknowledged preoccupation 偏

見 will divert the scientist from the search for truth. (I, Par. 16)

Beauty = Truth

• Why is there no fear?

It is because simplicity and vastness are both beautiful that we seek by
preference simple facts and vast facts. (I, Par. 17)

39
Vastness is beautiful

40
Simplicity is beautiful

41
 The search for intellectual beauty
It is, then, the search for this special beauty, the sense of the harmony of the
world, that makes us select the facts best suited to contribute to this harmony.
(I, Par. 16)

There is no fear that this instinctive 本能的 and unacknowledged preoccupation 偏

見 will divert the scientist from the search for truth. (I, Par. 16)

• Why is there no fear?

It is because simplicity and vastness are both beautiful that we seek by
preference simple facts and vast facts. (I, Par. 17)

Beautiful = Useful (general) Why?

Care for the beautiful leads us to the same selection as care for the useful. (I, Par. 18)

“It was quite a moment. We felt sure that this was it.
Anything that simple, that elegant just had to be right.”
(Watson, DNA: The Secret of Life, II, Par. 49)
42
Overview on Chapter I
Chapter I

Scientific discovery

Selection of facts:
Similarities hidden under apparent discrepancies
(Recurring, useful/general)

Sense of
beauty

Fact 1 Fact 2
Fact 4
Fact 3
Fact 5 Fact 6
Fact 8
Fact 7
 A parallel between the two chapters
Chapter I Chapter III
Scientific discovery Mathematical discovery

Selection of facts Selection of ideas and

combinations

Sense of Sense of
beauty
But how? beauty

Fact 1 Fact 2 Idea 1 Idea 5 Idea 2

Fact 4
Fact 3 Idea 3 Idea 4
Fact 5 Fact 6 Idea 6
Fact 8 Idea 8 Idea 7
Fact 7
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 Psychology of mathematical discovery

• Besides the conscious ego, we also have a

subliminal ego.
• Poincaré’s hypothesis: three steps in
mathematical discovery
1. Conscious work (“fruitless”)
2. Unconscious work (with a sense of beauty)
3. Conscious work (verification)

45
 Discoveries in science
Often important insights come not during work!
But they do not come without intense thinking beforehand!

Poincaré (III, Par. 19): “… One night I took some black coffee,
contrary to my custom, and was unable to sleep. …A host of ideas
kept surging in my head ….” (III, Par. 21): “ … we got into a break to
go for a drive, and, just as I put my foot on the step, the idea came
to me, …”

Linus Pauling who discovered the alpha-helix structure of proteins:

“The pivotal moment came in the early spring of 1948, when Pauling
caught a cold and went to bed…”

Albert Einstein’s idea on relativity of time: he was hiking with a

friend (Besso) on the Alps. He was talking and suddenly realized
he solved the problem.
46
 Discoveries in science

• German chemist August Kekulé had discovered

the ring shape of the benzene molecule after
having a day-dream of a snake seizing its own tail.

47
 Questions to ponder…
Chapter 1. The selection of facts
• What criteria for selections of facts?
– Simple facts? The sense of beauty?
• Then what is beauty?
• Any limitations of scientific and mathematical discoveries?
(Simple facts, sense of beauty)
• “Is beauty truth and truth beauty”?
Chapter 3. Mathematical discovery
• Do you have similar experience of subliminal ego?
• Do you believe Poincaré’s hypothesis of discovery?
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 PASS session today
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Peer Assisted Study Session

PASS sessions (for UGFN1000Z)

(Cantonese)
L e t ’s NZ1: 12 Mar (Fri) 15:30-16:30
!
PASS
NZ2: 12 Mar (Fri) 17:30-18:30

Zoom: [Link] (Code:

348469)
PASS Leader: Kelly Lam ( 林嘉妍 )
Main discussion questions in PASS
1. Why is the selection of facts necessary for
scientific discovery? How do scientists select
facts?
2. How did the scientists in the previous texts
 Discussion forum and other options
Discussion forum
Round Zoom discussion
Due date
5:Watson 2 4 Mar
6:Carson 2 11 Mar
8:Kandel 2 18 Mar 10 Mar, 11 Mar

8:Kandel; 7:Poincare 3 25 Mar

Round 3:
17 Mar, 18 Mar
9:Needham 3 8 Apr TBA
10:Sivin/Shen 3 22 Apr
• Round 2: Discussion forum: Due date: 18 Mar (Thu)
• Round 3: Zoom discussion for Texts 7 and 8:
Intelligence, AI
– Session 1: 17 Mar (Wed) 4:30 pm - 5:30 pm
– Session 2: 18 Mar (Thu) 7:00 pm - 8:00 pm
– Registration links will be announced soon
 How to read?
• Ch. 1 para. 1-2 are not essential
• Skip Ch. 1 para. 3
• Ch. 1 para. 14 “past experiments”  “past
experiences”
• Ch. 3: Understanding of the mathematical
functions is not necessary

• The question bank will be available soon

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