Who am I?

Those who stumble across this blog as they meander around the Well Worn Walkways may, struck by a spirit of curiosity or procrastination, wish to find out more about me, its nominally humble resident. So I'll kick off with the old philosophical chestnut 'Who am I?'.

Any non-vegetative readers will already have guessed some of the most important things about me: That I am human, that the time in which I am alive is the early 21st century and that I live in such relative luxury that I have easy access to a computer. Those whose eyes have glanced at my profile will have noticed that I unflinchingly mention mathematics in public. I have loved mathematics for as long as I can remember. Indeed, one of my earliest childhood memories is of computing 16^2 on the way to the toilet on a camping trip. Mathematics continues to be the love of my life; as I write this I am in the first year of a mathematics PhD.

Your accurate deduction from this that I am in my early twenties gives me an excuse to mention some of the other more mundane facts about myself. I'm male, white and British. I was born in Knutsford and brought up there by my wonderful parents. This already marks me out as extremely fortunate. This good fortune has continued throughout my life so far: My brother, though only three years older than me, threw himself into helping to bring me up and delighted in trying to teach me everything as he learned it. I was taught at the local high school by almost universally excellent teachers. The head of mathematics in particular was an inspirational teacher who got me involved with some national mathematics organisations. As a result, I was able to compete for the United Kingdom in the International Mathematical Olympiad, which took me all over the world. I've been a maths student (or 'mathmo') at Cambridge University for the last few years, and have somehow fooled them into letting me stay on to do a PhD.

What am I like as a person? I'm bright, and good at understanding ideas: I'm not so good at understanding people. I have enough social skills to get by, and enjoy the company of others, but don't usually form deep relationships. This is partly because I'm not very emotional. If I do get worked up, it's normally over abstract ideas. Such things as I do believe, I tend to believe strongly and in sharp contrast. I am burdened by the annoying trait that often goes along with this: Great difficulty making important decisions. I have always been satisfied with my lot, though this has never been tested by serious hardship.

I was brought up as a Christian, and was a nominal believer until my late teens, when I began to question whether the religion that I had been brought up in was true: I came to the conclusion that it was. A few months later I swallowed my pride and asked God to save me; I became a Christian for real. Over the next few years my relationship with Jesus deepened, and my faith was a very important part of my life. This was supported by my family, who are strong Christians, and by the churches I attended at home and at university, and the CICCU.

At the end of my fourth year at university, during a church service, I realised that I no longer believed in God. It was very sudden, and utterly reasonless. For a couple of months I tried to convince myself that it was test of some kind, and that I was still a Christian, but I became gradually and unwillingly convinced that this wouldn't wash. It wasn't until two months after that that I finally told my parents, whose reaction has been a model of loving acceptance. Other people's reactions have been more mixed, though they have often given me useful and interesting things to think about.

I still don't believe in much. I don't believe in God's existence or nonexistence; I don't know whether He exists or not. I don't know the answer to any Question worthy of the capital Q. This includes the Question 'Is it possible to be sure of the answers to any of the Questions?', so I'm not even an agnostic. I'm just confused.

I do believe some things, though. I believe lots of ordinary things, such as that Paris is the capital of France. I believe that the world works in a very regular way, to the extent that my habit of describing it with words (like 'Paris is the capital of France') isn't totally misguided. I believe that the world works even more regularly on very small scales, to the extent that our habit of describing it with mathematics is unreasonably successful. I believe that some particular mathematical systems (described better than I ever could elsewhere) are accurate descriptions of how the world works on a small scale. I have some particular moral beliefs: That some things are right and good and that others are bad, or even evil. I'll discuss these a bit more in my next post. Similarly, I have some aesthetic beliefs: That some things (especially mathematical arguments) are beautiful and others are ugly. That's about it.

Being human, I will have been a little inaccurate in my description of myself. You can come to your own, more accurate conclusions, by looking at what I write.