"He had a great impact on my mathematical life and thought."
Who? Lawvere? --- Frank C. Wimberly 140 Calle Ojo Feliz, Santa Fe, NM 87505 505 670-9918 Santa Fe, NM On Thu, Sep 11, 2025, 9:41 AM Jon Zingale <[email protected]> wrote: > """ > > Well, IDK Lawvere (other than from that category book). But it would be > interesting to, while young, formulate the predicates you'd like to satisfy > when you're old. Renee' and I regularly marvel that we're still alive. When > we were young, we couldn't even imagine we'd live this long, much less > imagine what properties we might have. I suppose it's that ugly > diachronic/narrativity thing again. Like ChatGPT, we can tell ourselves > stories about anything. And we'll even believe them. When I was a kid, > "story" was synonymous with "lying". "You're not telling us stories, are > you?" - a regular question coming from my parents. My response was literally > irrelevant. They already had their narrative of whatever I might or might not > have done. Whose telling the stories, here?!?! >8^D > > """ > > > He had a great impact on my mathematical life and thought. I considered him a > spiritual father and I regret not writing to him before he passed. He was > wonderfully generous with his time and his stories were poignant, keeping a > target in mind. I suppose I am sharing because it is one of my happiest > memories and because I believe the list could use a little less cynicism. > There is so much cynicism everywhere. > > > As to who I wish to be? I am already so completely different from my earliest > imaginings; I wouldn't know where to start. Even as of late, my perspectives > and thoughts are radically different from what they were months ago. In some > ways, this seems catalyzed by a shift away from pure mathematics and toward > developing tools for doing science—catalyzed by the overwhelm I feel when > confronted by anything I attempt to build that might stand. The specificity > and idiosyncratic nature of the phenomena I am studying does a lot to eat > through my theorist leanings. I am not an academic; what I am hoping to build > must work. The whole exercise is altering my stance. The past appears as a > prelude to much less than I imagined. The toy models I and others seem to > carry remind me of the useless idols and charms that died in the hands, or > around the necks, of the early Christian settlers to this new world. A > child's baseball glove in a box of belongings, carried by a woman on her > first day of college. > > .- .-.. .-.. / ..-. --- --- - . .-. ... / .- .-. . / .-- .-. --- -. --. / > ... --- -- . / .- .-. . / ..- ... . ..-. ..- .-.. > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom > https://bit.ly/virtualfriam > to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ > archives: 5/2017 thru present > https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ > 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/ >
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