a great deed of elitery

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The following quotation, including the footnote, is taken from Appendix 1 to The Laws of Form.

Discoveries of any great moment in mathematics and other disciplines, once they are discovered, are seen to be extremely simple and obvious, and make everybody, including their discoverer, appear foolish for not having discovered them before. It is all too often forgotten that the ancient symbol for the prenascence of the world* is a fool, and that foolishness, being a divine state, is not a condition to be either proud or ashamed of.

Unfortunately, we find systems of education today which have departed so far from the plain truth, that they now teach us to be proud of what we know and ashamed of ignorance. This is doubly corrupt. It is corrupt not only because pride is in itself a mortal sin, but also because to teach pride in knowledge is to put up an effective barrier against any advance upon what is already known, since it makes one ashamed to look beyond the bonds imposed by one's ignorance.

To any person prepared to enter with respect into the realm of his great and universal ignorance, the secrets of being will eventually unfold, and they will do so in measure according to his freedom from natural and indoctrinated shame in his respect of their revelation.

In the face of the strong, and indeed violent, social pressures against it, few people have been prepared to take this simple and satisfying course towards sanity. And in a society where a prominent psychiatrist can advertise that given the chance, he would have treated Newton to electric shock therapy, who can blame any person for being afraid to do so?

To arrive at the simplest truth, as Newton knew and practiced, requires years of contemplation. Not activity. Not reasoning. Not calculating. Not busy behaviour of any kind. Not reading. Not talking. Not making an effort. Not thinking. Simply bearing in mind what it is one needs to know. And yet those with the courage to tread this path to real discovery are not only offered practically no guidance on how to do so, they are actively discouraged and have to set about it in secret, pretending meanwhile to be diligently engaged in the frantic diversions and to conform with the deadening personal opinions which are being continually thrust upon them.

In these circumstances, the discoveries that any person is able to undertake represent the places where, in the face of induced psychosis, he has by his own faltering and unaided efforts, returned to sanity. Painfully, and even dangerously, maybe. But nonetheless returned, however furtively."

Yesterday, in vector calculus, we covered the material necessary to understand osculating circles, but unfortunately it hasn't quite sunken in yet. Nevertheless, I have to say I've come quite a way from almost failing physics in high school up to now (wrapping up an easy physics worksheet now).



Clown school?

And what does any of this have to do with calc, lin alg, physics or proof-writing, all of which are at least tangentially relevant to the OP?

Even the Lisp code I wrote to assist writing my homework is more relevant.

IIRC, The Law of Forms had proofs of long-standing conjectures that turned out to be full of shit.

Last edited by chever on 17 Sep 2008, 4:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Does truth stand apart from me and you, yes or no? Is all truth derived from pre-existing reality? yes or no? Until you answer those questions and stop with the insults, and pride in what you were taught, there can be no discussion because you have already pre-decided what you think you know. The question is, do we all (including myself) operate under a tremendous amount of ignorance? Do you have all knowledge? If not, then why take pride in what you already know, and most importantly is what you know complete or do we only have partial understanding?

quote:
Poincaré referred to (george) Cantor’s ideas as a “grave disease” infecting the discipline of mathematics,[6] and Kronecker’s public opposition and personal attacks included describing Cantor as a “scientific charlatan”, a “renegade” and a “corrupter of youth.”[7] Writing decades after Cantor’s death, Wittgenstein lamented that mathematics is “ridden through and through with the pernicious idioms of set theory,” which he dismissed as “utter nonsense” that is “laughable” and “wrong”.[8] Cantor’s recurring bouts of depression from 1884 to the end of his life were once blamed on the hostile attitude of many of his contemporaries,[9] but these episodes can now be seen as probable manifestations of a bipolar disorder.

Yes.



Yes.



Yes. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you see it.



Of course not; I don't have enough neurons to store it all.



Because I like being people's heroes. That's why I entered CS / applied math: so I can be someone's hero. I want to go to a country that has a shortage of engineers and do everything I can to push it in the other direction. That is something to be proud of.



Partial, obviously; otherwise I wouldn't have three, four, five library books checked out at any given time.



Yes but Cantor obviously wasn't full of crap, as we see now.

Last edited by chever on 17 Sep 2008, 4:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Everyone thought cantor was full of crap look at how his contemporaries reacted. The best and brightest thought he was lying and even afterwords they still were in denial for the duration of their careers. That was my whole point, everyone thinks they know how to seperate truth from falsehood, my point was, even the best and brightest show that the truth is hard, it's very difficult. One man caused such a ruckus in the mathematics community because they thought they knew everything, this is my whole point. You've never asked me how I came to those conclusions, nor asked me for a further explanation, this is not what someone interested in truth does, if truth exists apart from us, and we are merely interpreters of what is, and since you agree you only have partial understanding and we all operate under tremendous amounts of ignorance, how are you certain I am wrong? A claim to know I am wrong is a claim to show which words and which statements, contain errors.

Unless you have the correct concepts properly conceived, you can't understand what is said by someone else, yes or no?

There is a quotation I always like to haul out on these occasions:

"They laughed at the Wright Brothers. They laughed at Einstein. But they also laughed at Bozo the clown."

You're 28? I'm surprised. I stopped doing stuff like this when I was like 17 and am still slightly embarrassed that I did at all.



Because none of what you wrote made any sense.



Alright, explain that semantic train wreck you posted earlier. I'm listening.

Questions:

Is existence truth?
Does existence have structure?
Does structure have logic?
Is structure geometric?

We'll use the socratic method, the questions are necessary to expose what I or anyone thinks they know, i.e. if you don't agree, or don't know what you think you know, then you weren't thinking properly to begin with, since the truth stands apart from us remember. What is, always was.

Ah. The rather old, and fairly discredited pseudo-mathematical stuff. Have you read it? Did you understand it?

I have a similar set:

Is running water?
Does running have anchorage?
Does anchorage have teeth?
Is anchorage yellow?

What is, may be.

PS. I believe that Socrates may be dead. I've never cared much for the Socratic method, but merely juxtaposing unrelated concepts isn't it.

===========

Now, this sort of metaphysical discussion of "truth" belongs in the PPR forum. Mathematics has a much cleaner approach to truth/falsehood/unprovability.

You're a liar and not a very good one.

"In this book, G. Spencer Brown has succeeded in doing what, in mathematics, is very rare indeed, he has revealed a new calculus, of great power and simplicity ..." -Bertrand Russell, author, with Alfred North Whitehead, of Principia Mathematica

The only genius is truth, just because prodigous men are able to see it more clearly means little, all truth already is, it is merely being derived from what already was.

A true genius knows that the truth itself is what is genius, not himself and submits himself to it humbly, he knows that character is worth more then ability. That is true genius. I can see just from your profile you take pride in what is already known, that is unwise to do so.

Name calling is not allowed.

This is bizarre. You say they don't have the right piece of paper to understand, yet you accuse them of not being able to separate their own capabilities from their knowledge…or something. Which is it?

You're confused, I said they do not have the proper concepts by which to understand. When you learn of something, you need the concepts first before you can understand. Concepts are the lenses by which we see and understand, do you agree or disagree with this statement?

Next most people here are operating under the enlightenment fallacy.

See: The enlightenment fallacy
http://i477.photobucket.com/albums/rr13 ... allacy.jpg

If you need more information see here, and once it loads a bit, skip to 15 minutes in and watch till abou 25 ish, 10mins roughly. Most people think they have the universal power to immediately understand what is said, and that reasoning is universal... unfortunately it's been known in science for a while now that this is not the case.

http://tinyurl.com/564g3c

Last edited by ZakFiend on 17 Sep 2008, 7:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.

You called the laws of form pseudo-math when: The Spencer has Bertrand Russell, Stafford Beer, and Heinz von Foerster raving about his book. It can't get better than that. Hence I just stated the truth.

Bertrand Russell, d. 2 February, 1970
Anthony Stafford Beer, d. August 23, 2002
Heinz von Foerster, d. October 2, 2002

You sir, called me a liar. Where would you point out any lie of mine?

There is the lie.