TP or NP? Trial ballon goes up

[Ian Livingston]

Wm James says:

"But when you give the things mathematical and mechanical names and call
them so many solids in just such positions, describing just such paths with
just such velocities, all is changed... Your 'things' realize the****

consequences of the names by which you classed them."

Which, of course, I answered in advance (to complete my sentence that you
cite above): The results of "progress" based on changing reality into
something else have been, well, catastrophic, to euphemize the result.

My point being that much of what we boast as direct results of al Zebra's
revolutionary contributions in mathematics has brought ruin to the planet
on a level only conceivable as divine wrath in that man's time. There have
been real advances in understanding the physical nature of things and how
they can be synthesized into dynamic agents of fortune, but every insight
seems to be coupled with a score of disasters by which to identify its full
efficacy. At the ideal level, I stand with the Luddites; at the pragmatic
level, I live in the world of my era. That tension is enough to provide
plenty of conflict, and plenty of insight into the dynamism of the mind (or
whatever scientists are calling the subjective perspective these days.)

On Mon, Jul 30, 2012 at 2:36 PM, Monte Davis <montedavis at verizon.net> wrote:

> On “efforts to crystallize experience” [which in the case of algebra I’d
> call abstracting or generalizing]… I’ve probably posted this Dewey/James
> parlay from Experience and Nature before:****
>
> ---****
>
> Genuine science is impossible as long as the object esteemed for its own
> intrinsic qualities is taken as the object of knowledge. Its completeness,
> its immanent meaning, defeats its use as indicating and implying.****
>
>    Said William James [Principles of Psychology, II, 605-606] , "Many were
> the ideal prototypes of rational order:****
>
> teleological and esthetic ties between things... as well as logical and
> mathematical relations. The most promising of these things at first were of
> course the richer ones, the more sentimental ones. The baldest and least**
> **
>
> promising were mathematical ones; but the history of the latter's
> application is a history of steadily advancing successes, while that of the
> sentimentally richer ones is of relative sterility and failure. Take those
> ****
>
> aspects of phenomena which interest you as a human being most... and
> barren are all your results. Call the things of nature as much as you like
> by sentimental moral and esthetic names, no natural consequences follow from
> ****
>
> the naming... But when you give the things mathematical and mechanical
> names and call them so many solids in just such positions, describing just
> such paths with just such velocities, all is changed... Your 'things'
> realize the****
>
> consequences of the names by which you classed them." ****
>
> ** **
>
> Of course it demands both common sense and tact to recognize what you’re
> giving up in the abstraction process; the development of a science
> typically involves so much analysis – breaking complex phenomena down to
> manageable pieces – that you can forget the goal is to reassemble them into
> a richer understanding of what interested you as a human being in the first
> place.****
>
> ** **
>
> The old-timers here will recall that I’ve ranted on this before: Pynchon’s
> take on technology, science, and occasionally math is so much more
> knowledgeable and interesting than a cheapjack-Romantic “unweaving the
> rainbow,” “we murder to dissect” blah blah blah…. ****
>
> ** **
>
> *From:* Ian Livingston [mailto:igrlivingston at gmail.com]
> *Sent:* Monday, July 30, 2012 4:49 PM
> *To:* Monte Davis
> *Cc:* pynchon -l
>
> *Subject:* Re: TP or NP? Trial ballon goes up****
>
> ** **
>
> True, I admit it. And there are some mathematicians who write very well.
> So, by way of atonement, I offer this old favorite:****
>
> ** **
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Re3-xo9bRc8****
>
> On Mon, Jul 30, 2012 at 12:12 PM, Monte Davis <montedavis at verizon.net>
> wrote:****
>
> Ian Livingston sez:****
>
> Algebra just makes no sense. I stand with Laurie Anderson on the principle
> that x=x, not y base 8 times z to the minus fourth power. Efforts to
> crystallize experience, which is fluid and non-repeating, are purely
> mystical and have little real meaning. The results of "progress" based on
> changing reality into something else have been, well, catastrophic, to
> euphemize the result…****
>
>  ****
>
> This sounds like engineers I’ve heard fuming about their frustrations in
> English class:  “What was all that ‘symbolism’ crap about? Why can’t
> writers just say what they MEAN instead of going on about albatrosses and
>  white elephants?”****
>
>
>
> ****
>
> ** **
>
> --
> "Less than any man have I  excuse for prejudice; and I feel for all creeds
> the warm sympathy of one who has come to learn that even the trust in
> reason is a precarious faith, and that we are all fragments of darkness
> groping for the sun. I know no more about the ultimates than the simplest
> urchin in the streets." -- Will Durant****
>



-- 
"Less than any man have I  excuse for prejudice; and I feel for all creeds
the warm sympathy of one who has come to learn that even the trust in
reason is a precarious faith, and that we are all fragments of darkness
groping for the sun. I know no more about the ultimates than the simplest
urchin in the streets." -- Will Durant
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/attachments/20120731/51adb2dd/attachment.html>