TP or NP? Trial ballon goes up

[Ian Livingston]

Yeeeeessss. Surely. Relevance?

On Tue, Jul 31, 2012 at 8:41 AM, Monte Davis <montedavis at verizon.net> wrote:

> I’m sure it was a great comfort to 800,000 Tutsi that they were being
> killed with machetes and clubs rather than evil high-tech weaponry. ****
>
> * *
>
> *From:* owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org] *On
> Behalf Of *Ian Livingston
> *Sent:* Tuesday, July 31, 2012 10:47 AM
>
> *To:* Monte Davis
> *Cc:* pynchon -l
> *Subject:* Re: TP or NP? Trial ballon goes up****
>
> ** **
>
> 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****
>



-- 
"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
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