TP or NP? Trial ballon goes up

[Alex Colter]

I'll just leave this here... <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-jkWvp0nLQ>

On Tue, Jul 31, 2012 at 3:06 PM, Ian Livingston <igrlivingston at gmail.com>wrote:

> Ah, I begin to see your meaning here. You mean to dismiss me by misquoting
> me, quoting me out of context, and aligning me with a system (or
> non-system) of thought you regard as inferior and about which I know
> little, and which I have not cited in any way. That's okay by me. Carry on.
>
> On Tue, Jul 31, 2012 at 12:31 PM, Monte Davis <montedavis at verizon.net>wrote:
>
>> Relevance? That your linkage (below) of “progress” (love the scare
>> quotes) with catastrophes and disasters might need some recalibration, as
>> the Rwandans managed to pull off a holocaust without much technology at
>> all. I’m sure the talking drums could have filled in for Radio des Mille
>> Collines. ****
>>
>> ** **
>>
>> I’m not quite sure what ” every insight seems to be coupled with a score
>> of disasters by which to identify its full efficacy” actually means, but
>> let me put it this way:  we’re living organisms, and we increase our
>> numbers and capabilities as much as we can get away with. Like algae,
>> metazoans, ants, and grasses before us, we do so on a scale that is
>> changing the planet, All of that would have happened, albeit more slowly,
>> had we never come up with technology, science, or math (there’s a
>> respectable theory that those Gaia-loving Native Americans hunted most of
>> the New World megafauna to extinction long before mean old Columbus showed
>> up.) We may or may not show enough foresight to modify that behavior before
>> we overshoot and crash. ****
>>
>> ** **
>>
>> As you noted before, there’s some, uhh, “tension” or “conflict” between
>> your stated views and your conduct of this discussion via computer and
>> Internet… not to mention the likelihood that your very existence and
>> continued survival have been enabled by technological agriculture,
>> scientific medicine, and cast-iron sanitation pipes forged in dark satanic
>> mills somewhere. ****
>>
>> ** **
>>
>> Could you provide some pointers to help me distinguish the “dynamism of
>> the mind” in stitching together such discrepant “ideal” and “pragmatic”
>> selves from simple incoherence and posturing? ****
>>
>> ** **
>>
>> *From:* Ian Livingston [mailto:igrlivingston at gmail.com]
>> *Sent:* Tuesday, July 31, 2012 2:23 PM
>>
>> *To:* Monte Davis
>> *Cc:* pynchon -l
>> *Subject:* Re: TP or NP? Trial ballon goes up****
>>
>> ** **
>>
>> 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****
>>
>
>
>
> --
> "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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