Leibniz’ Creatio ex Nihilo and the Metaphysics of Data
a psuedophilosophical take on optimistic data science
I have always believed firmly in three things:
that the greatest in life is finding answers to your questions;
that magic exists, but not quite in the way we’d like;
and that math is like the ocean.
Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz (1646–1716) was a prominent German polymath who made great and strange advancements in many fields — primarily mathematics, logic, physics, ethics and theology. Among other things, he is credited with discovering calculus (simultaneously and independently of Newton), and codifying systems exploring determinants and infinitesimals. From his attempts to build a mechanical universal calculator and studies into theories of information storage, he also may have been the very first computer scientist.
The road Leibniz traveled, however, was winding; his writings and inventions are manifold and seemingly disparate. He would carefully denote three pages of a treatise on calculating the area under a function, and then switch to a logical proof of the existence of God. Faced with diverse fields and seemingly conflicting ideas, the man constantly sought synthesis as a solution to the great questions of his time. This…
