Owen Densmore wrote: > Arguing about it is for those of us who cannot understand it.
Hmmm. So no mathematician can also be a philosopher and no philosopher can also be a mathematician. That's an odd position to take in a community of inter-disciplinary people. [grin] I tend to think of all subjects as intertwined to some degree. Sure, there is a kind of "trade school" mathematics (or any subject, really) where people just want to do their job, get their pay, and go home. But there is also a kind of integrative mathematics where one can be both (relatively ;-) facile with the mechanics of math _and_ explore the limits of math. So, I totally reject the claim that arguing about math is for people who can't understand math. Rather, I think "arguing" is a method for learning and comparing one's baroque conceptions to others'. Those of us who don't want to participate should, well ..., not participate. It's also useful to think about the following _old_ bit of wisdom: "Some one will say: Yes, Socrates, but cannot you hold your tongue, and then you may go into a foreign city, and no one will interfere with you? Now I have great difficulty in making you understand my answer to this. For if I tell you that to do as you say would be a disobedience to the God, and therefore that I cannot hold my tongue, you will not believe that I am serious; and if I say again that daily to discourse about virtue, and of those other things about which you hear me examining myself and others, is the greatest good of man, and that the unexamined life is not worth living, you are still less likely to believe me. Yet I say what is true, although a thing of which it is hard for me to persuade you." -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-219-3846, http://tempusdictum.com ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
