Thus spake Nicholas Thompson circa 10-03-22 04:58 PM: > Yes. I am sorry. That was my fault. There was a bit of a slipup between > the "provost" and the professor.
No worries! It looks like a great book and I expect I'll enjoy it when I pop it off the queue. > Byers main point is that it is AMBIGUITY that makes maths great! But its a > subtle argument because what he is really saying is ironic: as > mathematicians strive to reduce amibiguity they inevitably generate more, > and thus, against their feverish and futile resistance, does math progress. Very interesting. If there's one conviction I'm actually guilty of, it's believing that irony (or, more accurately, paradox) is the ultimate teacher. And ambiguity is closely coupled with paradox. (Warning: the broken record begins again.) That's why I'm so fond of "Vicious Circles" by Barwise and Moss. It's the closest body of math I've found that tries to explain how cycles impact the definiteness of math. But it's wrapped in other stories, too. I remember once looking up "impredicative definition" in the index of some overly large math reference book in some library somewhere. (I lose track sometimes. ;-) It told me to look at a particular page. That page made a vague reference to the term "vicious circle". So, I looked up "vicious circle". It took me to another particular page, which made a vague reference to "impredicative definitions". If it hadn't been such a large book, it would have been funny. Instead, I learned a valuable lesson. -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
