tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post621208773885464259..comments2024-03-28T18:17:00.135-05:00Comments on Computational Complexity: Disproving the Myth that many early logicians were a few axioms short of a complete setLance Fortnowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06752030912874378610noreply@blogger.comBlogger39125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-61842354722866214582024-01-07T16:43:40.318-06:002024-01-07T16:43:40.318-06:00"Bourbaki had multiple personality disorder&q..."Bourbaki had multiple personality disorder" -- Yes they did!Warrennoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-5072309696287525842017-07-14T10:55:57.383-05:002017-07-14T10:55:57.383-05:00Thanks.
I've fixed it.
Also thanks- I had fun ...Thanks.<br />I've fixed it.<br />Also thanks- I had fun rereading the post and the commments.GASARCHhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06134382469361359081noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-34846176160010665762017-07-14T04:48:44.764-05:002017-07-14T04:48:44.764-05:00There is a broken link on this blog post. You are ...There is a broken link on this blog post. You are linking to http://www.gap-system.org/~history/Biographies/Post.html, but that page no longer works. Here is a working version https://howlingpixel.com/wiki/Emil_Leon_PostCathyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07394691110508602822noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-23551177104808472732015-12-23T13:54:38.831-06:002015-12-23T13:54:38.831-06:00From the Principia Discordia:
GP: Maybe you are j...From the Principia Discordia:<br /><br />GP: Maybe you are just crazy.<br />M2: Indeed! But do not reject these teachings as false because I am crazy. The reason that I am crazy is because they are true.<br />GP: Is Eris true?<br />M2: Everything is true.<br />GP: Even false things?<br />M2: Even false things are true.<br />GP: How can that be?<br />M2: I don't know man, I didn't do it.<br /><br />From The Criminal Mind:<br /><br />"As I have stated in an earlier chapter, in the natural world there is no such thing as mental disease or defect, but rather certain patterns of behavior to which, in a given social context, we apply certain names which enable us to talk about and to effect certain changes in the social relationships of those who exhibit them and to effect changes in the individuals themselves. At best, we are left to the imposition of purely arbitrary criteria in selecting such persons."<br /><br />The Arab poet Al-Mutanabbi:<br />"That with intellect suffers in bliss with his mind<br />And the ignorant in misery lives blissfully"<br /><br />John Nash:<br />"Though I had success in my research both when I was mad and when I was not, eventually I felt that my work would be better respected if I thought and acted like a 'normal' person. People are always selling the idea that people with mental illness are suffering. I think madness can be an escape. If things are not so good, you maybe want to imagine something better. I did have strange ideas during certain periods of time. To some extent, people who are insane are nonconformists, and society and their family wish they would live what appear to be useful lives."Anonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01360755535659830635noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-61772101885444268142015-10-06T14:42:49.160-05:002015-10-06T14:42:49.160-05:00With regard to Turing and suicide and insanity- su...With regard to Turing and suicide and insanity- suicide does not necessarily imply insanity. I hate that premise. There are many reasons for suicide; in Turing's case he was punished and shamed by the British government for his homosexuality and wanted to escape that maltreatment. This was probably a factor in his suicide. <br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-8661528730250927332014-01-16T22:18:05.600-06:002014-01-16T22:18:05.600-06:00Issac Newton said that God is the only infinity, A...Issac Newton said that God is the only infinity, As such humans are finite and cannot stare into infinity.Hugo Hallamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17537681278329703277noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-66093333441279439462014-01-16T22:06:56.779-06:002014-01-16T22:06:56.779-06:00How can one understand evolution through logic, wh...How can one understand evolution through logic, when evolution cannot be proved. Throwing billions of years around like confetti is hardly what you call logical.Hugo Hallamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17537681278329703277noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-30379500332616021162013-02-16T11:19:28.392-06:002013-02-16T11:19:28.392-06:00Enough people have said it, not in jest, that I th...Enough people have said it, not in jest, that I think some take it seriously. While debunking this not-that-widely-held myth is<br />not that important, its part of a more general plan of getting people to be aware that uttereances like this can be checked an proved or disproved. Similar for a more recent post about<br />presidents with daughters.GASARCHhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06134382469361359081noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-47463007186518462282013-02-16T11:19:22.755-06:002013-02-16T11:19:22.755-06:00Enough people have said it, not in jest, that I th...Enough people have said it, not in jest, that I think some take it seriously. While debunking this not-that-widely-held myth is<br />not that important, its part of a more general plan of getting people to be aware that uttereances like this can be checked an proved or disproved. Similar for a more recent post about<br />presidents with daughters.GASARCHhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06134382469361359081noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-10890755674047812432013-02-16T11:06:46.189-06:002013-02-16T11:06:46.189-06:00The connection between logician and insanity might...The connection between logician and insanity might have been made in a jest. I find that there is absolutely no reason to take it very seriously. <br /><br />I don't know who you exactly are. But the fact that you have gone somewhat overboard in your counter proof with facts, data, evidences, that it has in fact forced me to doubt your sanity!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-59170782688394046672012-10-10T10:32:47.938-05:002012-10-10T10:32:47.938-05:00“It was once told as a good joke upon a mathematic...“It was once told as a good joke upon a mathematician that the poor<br />man went mad and mistook his symbols for realities; as M for the moon and S for the sun.”<br />(Heaviside, O., Electromagnetic Theory, Vol. 1, p.133, 1893)Reality_Checkhttp://www.realitycheck.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-59916716909767348202012-10-10T10:31:53.688-05:002012-10-10T10:31:53.688-05:00“It was once told as a good joke upon a mathematic...“It was once told as a good joke upon a mathematician that the poor<br />man went mad and mistook his symbols for realities; as M for the moon and S for the sun.”<br />(Heaviside, O., Electromagnetic Theory, Vol. 1, p.133, 1893)Reality_Checkhttp://www.realitycheck.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-60975762494816912192011-11-13T19:42:01.576-06:002011-11-13T19:42:01.576-06:00@Scott,
For Russell, I am sure you have read his ...@Scott,<br /><br />For Russell, I am sure you have read his autobiography and there are more unusual things about him than about W. Mill literally had a mental break down. <br /><br />It seems that you consider views you strongly disagree with as an indication of insanity.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-30015373661400758822011-09-25T21:13:47.735-05:002011-09-25T21:13:47.735-05:00http://spikedmath.com/421.htmlhttp://spikedmath.com/421.htmlAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-34592843383584775892011-08-08T23:10:35.253-05:002011-08-08T23:10:35.253-05:00If we are going to judge people's sanity based...<i>If we are going to judge people's sanity based on what is typical in our society at the moment then I would say Gandi was insane, Socrates was insane, Newton was insane, any extraordinary human ever lived was insane.</i><br /><br />Actually, Gandhi, Socrates, and Newton all <i>did</i> have some insane aspects, though Socrates probably less than the other two. (Gandhi: asking women to sleep naked with him in order that he could test his vow of celibacy; Newton: all that alchemy stuff.) They also, of course, had great and lasting achievements (in all three cases, more clearly than Wittgenstein).<br /><br />But "insanity", in the sense that I'm using the word here, is clearly <i>not</i> a precondition for extraordinary moral or intellectual achievements. Charles Darwin, John Stuart Mill, Bertrand Russell, Albert Einstein, Richard Feynman, and Martin Luther King were all giants who challenged orthodoxies of their time, yet they all come across to me as perfectly sane (in some cases, <i>frighteningly</i> sane). If you know something about the biographies of these people, do you not agree that Wittgenstein, Gandhi, and Newton were "a few axioms short of a complete set" in a sense that Einstein, Russell, and Darwin were not?Scott Aaronsonhttp://www.scottaaronson.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-18249413452452570082011-08-02T17:05:28.044-05:002011-08-02T17:05:28.044-05:00'The craziness of those "outstanding"...'The craziness of those "outstanding" examples may have derived from their conviction that they were uncovering the inner secrets of the universe; specifically, the illusion that sets, axioms, proofs and logic, inclusing the infinite ones, were real entities, and not merely artificial constructs of our mind.'<br /><br />Most people presume that there is an absolute reality out there, but in fact, we humans do not have absolute knowledge - we have subjective experiences and fallible perceptions.<br /><br />So, suppose that math is not really the language of God. Suppose that math is not really the secret of absolute reality. Nonetheless, we humans live in subjective narratives. If math is the utmost essence of human experience, then it is, so far as any human can ever know, the essence of reality.<br /><br />Of course, even in that case, it might be possible for a human to transcend humanity, and thus to transcend math.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-47371270975349342162011-08-02T16:55:28.594-05:002011-08-02T16:55:28.594-05:00'Kurt Godel (1906-1978): He stopped eating bec...'Kurt Godel (1906-1978): He stopped eating because he thought people were trying to poison his food. They weren't. A few axioms short of a complete set.'<br /><br />This looks like a case of social maladjustment and rationalizing a behavior with other motivations.<br /><br />People stop eating for many reasons. Many animals have an instinct to avoid food when they feel that digestion would take up too much energy.<br /><br />If Godel was fasting for other motivations and rationalizing it, that is not the same thing as being entirely deluded.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-60087608880795910452011-07-25T14:49:28.443-05:002011-07-25T14:49:28.443-05:00To give perspective, there's crazy/raving insa...To give perspective, there's crazy/raving insane, there's mental illness, and there's eccentric. Cantor was the raving kind. Goedel/Post was the mental illness kind (debilitating paranoia/food aversion late in life for Goedel, debilitating depression throughout life for Post). For Wittgenstein, however viscerally disturbing it might be, principled suicide is not necessarily a sign of mental illness. As to Frege, he was probably just kind of a jerk.Mitchhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06352106235527027461noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-85911129986540786372011-07-25T09:28:00.996-05:002011-07-25T09:28:00.996-05:00Ron- thanks for the Church comment. It raises the ...Ron- thanks for the Church comment. It raises the question<br />of- what is ECCENTRIC and what is INSANE.<br />Are Church's actions eccentric or insane? I would go<br />with eccentric, but ... VERY eccentric.GASARCHhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06134382469361359081noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-37743069164802203402011-07-23T21:57:41.359-05:002011-07-23T21:57:41.359-05:00You quote Rota as saying:
it cannot be a complete...You quote Rota as saying:<br /><br />it cannot be a complete coincidence that several outstanding logicians of the 20th century found shelter in asylums at some point in their lives: Cantor, Zermelo, Godel, and Post are some. <br /><br />However, you do not quote the next sentence in that article, which is about Alonzo Church:<br /><br />Alonzo Church was one of the saner among them, though in some ways his behaviour must be classified as strange, even by mathematicians' standards. <br /><br />Rota goes on to tell stories about Church, including the following:<br /><br />Every lecture began with a ten-minute ceremony of erasing the blackboard until it was absolutely spotless. We tried to save him the effort by erasing the board before his arrival, but to no avail. The ritual could not be disposed of; often it required water, soap, and brush, and was followed by another ten minutes of total silence while the blackboard was drying. Perhaps he was preparing the lecture while erasing; I don't think so. His lectures hardly needed any preparation. They were a literal repetition of the typewritten text he had written over a period of twenty years, a copy of which was to be found upstairs in the Fine Hall library. <br /><br />See http://www.gap-system.org/~history/Extras/Rota_Church.htmlRon Faginhttp://www.almaden.ibm.com/cs/people/fagin/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-83844527646831315062011-07-23T11:23:17.871-05:002011-07-23T11:23:17.871-05:00@Scott, the idea to go through difficulties to ach...@Scott, the idea to go through difficulties to achieve purity and personal growth is not an indicator of insanity, and is a part of many Asian beliefs. War is no different.<br /><br />I am not punishing students in that area of time was unusual. What is unusual is the fact that he went back after several years to ask for forgiveness. I don't remember anyone claiming that W was insane. I can guess that you admire Russell, probably also GEM, so you can count on their opinion.<br /><br />This way of judging extra-ordinary humans has happened here more than once. I found completely unbelievable that thoughtful people like you judge insanity of others (those we don't understand) so easily. If we are going to judge people's sanity based on what is typical in our society at the moment then I would say Gandi was insane, Socrates was insane, Newton was insane, any extraordinary human ever lived was insane.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-57993797906375259932011-07-22T13:17:17.708-05:002011-07-22T13:17:17.708-05:00With regard to Wittgenstein's sanity (or lack ...With regard to Wittgenstein's sanity (or lack thereof), Monk's biography (that Scott mentioned) is good, but even better is the <i>Recollections of Wittgenstein</i> (Rush Rhees, ed.) which consists of essays written not by historians or philosophers, but by people who knew Wittgenstein personally.<br /><br />If we adapt from the Greeks the maxim "Call no person sane until you know the manner of their death", then the immensely dignified death of Wittgenstein (pp. 167-71) illuminates a personality that was sane to a very high degree.<br /><br />As for Wittgenstein's interest in Otto Weininger, Rhees discusses this at some length (pp. 91-2 and 177-87), in passages that are fascinating but too long and intricate to summarize here, and the verdict again (IMHO) must be "sane".<br /><br />To summarize, the recollections in Rhees' book are challenging, in that they leave one <i>more</i> confident in Wittgenstein's sanity ... but a little bit <i>less</i> confident in every else's sanity (including one's own). :)John Sidleshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16286860374431298556noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-40397198788498702472011-07-21T10:52:59.815-05:002011-07-21T10:52:59.815-05:00Incidentally, according to the Fefermans' biog...Incidentally, according to the Fefermans' biography, Tarski once modestly referred to himself as "the second-greatest logician of the twentieth century, and the greatest sane one." That might be my favorite self-description of all time. :)Scotthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13456161078489400740noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-11499248437001651552011-07-21T08:48:34.577-05:002011-07-21T08:48:34.577-05:00I have often wanted to box the ears and pull the h...I have often wanted to box the ears and pull the hair of students who couldn't understand induction, though I do both to either sex. Wittgenstein's only boxing BOYS ears<br />and pulling GIRLS ears is surely insane :-)<br /><br />Seriously, THANKS for the correction- For now I'll modify<br />the post to note your comment. If enough corrections come in I may redo the whole thing (yours was the first so far).GASARCHhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06134382469361359081noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-47182094373843236532011-07-21T07:54:48.934-05:002011-07-21T07:54:48.934-05:00Bill, you might want to reconsider your "sane...Bill, you might want to reconsider your "sane" classification for Wittgenstein!<br /><br />According to Ray Monk's biography, during World War I, he volunteered for the Austro-Hungarian army and repeatedly begged to be sent to sent to wherever the heaviest fighting was, not because he cared at all about the war's outcome but because he thought the experience of battle would ennoble and purify him.<br /><br />One of his main influences was Otto Weininger, a raving misogynist and anti-Semite who shot himself; Wittgenstein was ashamed that he didn't kill himself as well.<br /><br />At one point, Wittgenstein abandoned philosophy to become an elementary-school teacher in a small village in Austria, where he quickly became notorious for boxing boys' ears and pulling girls' hair when they couldn't solve math problems (he later went door-to-door to beg the parents' forgiveness).<br /><br />My impression, after reading Monk, was that Wittgenstein was not merely insane but committed to insanity as a philosophical ideal.Scott Aaronsonhttp://www.scottaaronson.comnoreply@blogger.com