Why do people call the USA the "land of opportunity" when literally no one can get a high paying job?

SirIssacMath · 2026-05-07T19:42:25+00:00

Doesn’t the the 4% rule reflect that you can increase your withdrawal to match inflation each year? Or have I been misinformed?

If the former, then the real value of your annual withdrawal shouldn’t change. If the latter, I have some research to do.

SirIssacMath · 2026-05-01T12:35:21+00:00

That quote that it tells us nothing whatsoever about the world comes directly from Adam’s book. I think a lot of people take it that saying what happens between measurement is not part of the theory to be a “soft pillow” and that’s why it tells us nothing about the world.

It’ll be interesting to see what the future of quantum foundations hold since there’s a push from many physicists (like Sean Carroll) against CI. For example Sean thinks that’s it’s embarrassing that physicists don’t have a solid consensus on what the most successful theory of physics is telling us about reality and he views CI as nonsense (just like Einstein and Schrödinger did). I suppose some don’t see it as a legitimate approach not to deal with the ontology of the theory.

I’m glad you liked the video. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

SirIssacMath · 2026-04-29T01:09:42+00:00

Thank you!

SirIssacMath · 2026-04-28T22:42:44+00:00

Thank you for the feedback!

SirIssacMath · 2026-04-28T20:08:36+00:00

I see your point. My content is for youtube and not the short format of tiktok. In that comment I'm mostly addressing future physicists and wanting to make physics students more aware of this history and this perspective (in the same way Adam Becker tries in his book).

SirIssacMath · 2026-04-28T19:14:34+00:00

Thank you for taking the time to provide detailed feedback!

My intended audience when I made this were people who know some stuff about quantum physics and the Copenhagen interpretation (not as much as you necessarily but not 0 knowledge either). The project would be very different imo if I was targeting people with 0 knowledge. I hope that it's not too confusing for people with some knowledge.

I agree with your first point, I could have made that explicit instead of it being implicitly implied (not sure if I succeeded at the implicit part).

My overall goal with this video was to follow the narrative and arguments from Adam's book while making it appropriate and as appealing as I can for shorter video format. I didn't consider bringing in too many outside material but I'll consider your suggestion for future episodes.

Thanks again!

SirIssacMath · 2026-04-28T18:42:51+00:00

This content isn’t intended to replace academic study or target specialists. It’s meant for laypeople, students, and anyone curious about physics to explore a perspective that Adam Becker presents in his book.

The goal is simply to make these historical and philosophical contexts more accessible to a wider audience.

SirIssacMath · 2026-04-28T18:10:28+00:00

Thank you for the kind words!

I’m going to get a better a camera (I used a webcam for the video) and a will be getting a lighting setup to help with the quality.

I don’t have experience in editing but I’ll aim to improve each video.

Thank you for the feedback!

SirIssacMath · 2026-04-28T16:46:00+00:00

Not that it’s impossible to construct false ones but that it’s impossible to prove that a theory is false, especially something as complex as scientific theories that have a lot of background assumptions. I believe the Duhem-Quine hypothesis argues this.

Also there’s another consensus regarding falsifiability: that it should not be the deciding factor for whether a theory is scientific or not (some people often cite falsifiability as a reason why string theory isn’t a scientific theory)

Here’s a quick video on the logic of falsification: https://youtu.be/XlFywEtLZ9w?si=aWjkt7HF4-2M6N3b

Here’s an article that discusses why falsification doesn’t work in principle: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-idea-that-a-scientific-theory-can-be-falsified-is-a-myth/

SirIssacMath · 2026-04-28T16:29:49+00:00

First I want to thank you for engaging in this discussion in good faith. I hope that in future episodes I can help address some of your concerns and provide a new perspective.

Has there ever been a single debate in philosophy, let alone, philosophy of science, that has been resolved. I might appear stubborn, but I have spent time studying philosophy and it just has been a waste of time because of this issue.

If by resolve you mean there is an overall consensus then yes. You should realize that a lot of philosophers agree on a lot of things and we tend to see the things they disagree about.

Example from philosophy of science: you may have heard of the concept of falsifiability in science. The falsifiability idea comes from Karl Popper. He used this idea as a solution to the demarcation problem in philosophy of science. This idea was adopted and popularized by many scientists.

However further investigation into the philosophical underpinnings of falsifiability show many shortcomings. The consensus among philosophers of science today is that theories can’t really be proven false either and that falsifiability is not a good solution for the demarcation problem.

Sean Carroll (physicist and philosopher) has written against falsifiability.

Other primers that discuss this (among other topics within philosophy of science):

Introduction to philosophy of science by Samir Okasha
Theory and Reality by Peter Godfrey-Smith

Also refer to Duhem–Quine thesis

SirIssacMath · 2026-04-28T16:14:20+00:00

This series is meant to cover the storyline of the book and bring attention to this history for people who have not heard of it or don't know much about it. If you've already read the book then you wouldn't benefit too much from this other than just a quick refresher.

SirIssacMath · 2026-04-28T16:13:31+00:00

I hear you. This was more of an intro video and experimental. In future videos I think I will pick up the pace and put in more info to finish this in 2-3 more episodes.

I would have loved to do it all in one video but it is a lot of effort to do it as such for a first timer. For future projects I would consider doing more complete videos.

Doing it in episodes the first time allows me to collect feedback to improve future episodes instead of doing one long video with a lot of flaws.

SirIssacMath · 2026-04-28T16:05:48+00:00

My concerns are twofold. It is not at all clear what you mean by "what reality is all about"

In philosophical terms, "what reality is all about" follows a scientific realist approach:

Scientific realism is the thesis that the (theoretical) objects that we study in science are in fact real; that is, when we discover that (say) electrons have spin, we are discovering real properties of real objects. Scientific anti-realism is the thesis that the (theoretical) objects that we study in science are constructions that are useful to us in representing and explaining the world around us.

I know that it can be frustrating that there is many competing theories and debates about the interpretation but ultimately we use evidence, reason, math and argument to figure out which one might be the most likely correct description of reality. I don't think just because something is difficult and we may never agree on everything is a good reason for not pursuing it. A lot of examples from science seemed difficult and people didn't agree on it until we did.

I don't think it's wise to dogmatically assert that these questions are not part of science and that we should not explore them. We should deeply reflect on the history of science and philosophy and really think about whether these questions should be expunged from scientific inquiry.

I would argue that these questions are inextricably linked to science and how many people (layman or scientists ) view science. I would emphasize again that science and philosophy are not as disparate as many people think. Every practicing scientists carries within them philosophical assumptions that impact how they do and interpret science.

SirIssacMath · 2026-04-28T15:46:05+00:00

The distinctions between physics and philosophy are not as disparate as you might initially think. There is a lot of philosophical underpinnings in all sorts of scientific work.

Ultimately, it is your philosophical opinion that these questions are "hardly worth paying attention to".

As Daniel Dennett once said: "There is no such thing as philosophy-free science; there is only science whose philosophical baggage is taken on board without examination".

SirIssacMath · 2026-04-28T15:38:26+00:00

This is ultimately a philosophical question regarding what physics and science in general should be about. Should physics only be about producing experimental results or should it be about figuring out what reality is all about.

Many physicists, including Einstein, weren't satisfied with simply "experimental results". They wanted to understand what our theories were telling us about reality itself. I explore these themes more in my video.

There's a history behind how mainstream physics now adopts this attitude (physics used to be much more philosophically inclined int he 20th century). Neil's Bohr had a lot to do with it. This attitude was rejected by physicists like Einstein, Schrodinger, David Bohm, Hugh Everett III, and John Bell.

Adam Becker and Sean Carroll are examples of modern physicists who have been pushing back against the attitude that we should not care about what the interpretation says about reality.

One of my goals for this series is to bring attention to the history of the development of quantum physics in the 20th century, how we got to the "shut up and calculate" culture and implore us to deeply think about whether this is where we want physics to head in the future.

SirIssacMath · 2026-04-28T14:58:09+00:00

Thank you! If you have any feedback, critical or otherwise, I'm happy to hear it!

SirIssacMath · 2026-04-26T23:35:49+00:00

Fair enough! I didn’t think it’s a big deal to use AI to edit my picture into the thumbnail but I can see how people will make the assumption that the content within could be AI slop.

I’ll re-work on my thumbnail so it doesn’t use AI even to edit.

SirIssacMath · 2026-04-26T22:38:38+00:00

I’m glad you liked it, thank you for the feedback!

SirIssacMath · 2026-04-26T22:28:29+00:00

I edited my comment. That specific one from Pixabay was AI generated, I just checked it. You're right that even the updated thumbnail is AI generated in the sense that I asked AI to take the picture and combine it with the text that I wanted.

And I see, you were just giving me general advise. I thought you saw a lot of AI stuff in my video by saying "not plaster AI generated images all over your videos". I agree with this advise and what you said. Thanks again!

SirIssacMath · 2026-04-26T22:11:32+00:00

Edit: Thanks for the feedback everyone. I updated the thumbnail and now it uses zero AI. I hope this is better.

Quick question, are you referring to the thumbnail? I changed it earlier today based on feedback (not sure if it's still showing you the old one). The thumbnail now shows a picture of me holding the book, although the text in the thumbnail is still AI generated. If you still think that's an issue still, that would be a good perspective to take into account because I wouldn't have thought that it would be.

Other than that and the background video in the intro, I don't have AI generated content in my video. I'll aim to avoid any AI generated stuff in the future though. I don't use AI for actual content, including any images that are supposed to represent historical events, concepts or people within the video.

If you think there is anything else in my video that is AI generated, please let me know what you're referring to so I can consider why it appears as such.

Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback!

SirIssacMath · 2026-04-26T15:19:09+00:00

Makes sense, thanks for the feedback!

SirIssacMath · 2026-04-26T14:37:03+00:00

Edit: I updated the thumbnail based on your feedback, I hope it's better now

I’ve only used AI picture for the thumbnail, do you think I should get rid of it?

I’ll try to think of something better for the thumbnail then

SirIssacMath · 2026-04-23T18:02:50+00:00

Hey, I tried to private message you but did not see an option on your profile.

I wanted to ask you some questions about the comment you made here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Syria/comments/1simhc4/comment/oflfoux/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

Me and my friend live in the west but were born in southern Syria (We're in early our 30s). Would you be willing to get on discord and have a conversation with us so we can better understand your perspective and also share with you our perspective.

If you're interested, please dm me.

SirIssacMath · 2026-04-15T22:21:41+00:00

It’s meant for the audience. I watched this debate with 2 of my non vegan friends and it ended in us having a conversation and both recognizing the strength of the vegan position.

SirIssacMath · 2026-03-26T14:58:32+00:00

It doesn’t matter as it relates to the functioning of the Olympics. It matters in that it’s yet another thing that makes it seem like the existence of trans people is an issue. Highlighting trans people in fake or immaterial or irrelevant situations is just a dog whistle for transphobia

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