Abstract mathematicians are just making up stuff however they want. They
are artists whose clay is (in the modern view) formal logic. The
nature of their creation is its own reason for being. Abstract
mathematics is not natural science, nor is it the province of natural
scientists. If one of
I've forgotten the message that spawned the thread, but I'll expose my
incompetence in math to say that I was also thinking that 1 is prime. The
informal definition that I remember says that a number is prime if it is an
integer evenly divisible only by itself and 1. Well, 1 clearly is
George's observation (from Saturday) under mathematician pretty much
captures the issue for me. One can define primeness any way one wants.
The choice of excluding 1 has the fun consequence that George explains
so well. Maybe including 1 has other fun consequences. If so, then
give that
Actually you can't define primeness any way you want. The definition needs
to be negotiated by the community of professionals who are can credibly
agree on the definition.
My definition of primeness is anything bigger than 3 and painted an
attractive shade of blue. But no one listens to me. Nor
On Primeness...
I am mathematician by training (barely) but I don't think anyone should
listen to me about mathematics unless serendipitously I happen to land
on a useful or interesting (by whose measure?) mathematical conjecture
(and presumably some attendant proofs as well).
That said,
I think this is metaphysics, no?
From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf
Of Steve Smith
Sent: Sunday, December 11, 2011 11:44 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: [FRIAM] Epistemological Maunderings
On Primeness...
I am
Metaphysics being the nature of being and existence, Epistemology being
the nature of knowledge. Whether emergence is Epistemological or if it
is Phenomenological or Metaphysical is an interesting question and not
an unsubtle one...
I think this is metaphysics, no?
Just out of idle curiosity, what's the '...ysics' or '...ology' word for
'prefers to talk (incessantly) about it rather than doing it?'
Unless, of course, that is an unsuitable question. The question emerged,
unbidden, you see...
On Sun, Dec 11, 2011 at 7:50 PM, Steve Smith sasm...@swcp.com
Logorrhea (psychology) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logorrhea_(psychology),
a communication disorder resulting in incoherent talkativeness
On Sun, Dec 11, 2011 at 8:05 PM, Douglas Roberts d...@parrot-farm.netwrote:
Just out of idle curiosity, what's the '...ysics' or '...ology' word for
Steve,
I thought epistemology concerned how knowledge is possible. Thus, the
question of what knowledge actually IS, would be metaphysical. Too lazy to
look it up, so I am teasing you, instead.
Nick
From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf
Of
Prime Theory -- not to be Mocked, or Knocked! My tutor in grad school math at
Cambridge was one Shaun Wylie, dead now; a famoso number expert. He was a
supervisor at Bletchley where a chappie called Turing worked for him. They
broke ENIGMA, that may have won the war -- certainly
Robert, I detect an insinuation of dissatisfaction from somewhere. There is
a disturbance in the force. But, enough of this epistemological
relativism, I deduce that there probably no need to classify the source: it
suffices to simply know that it is there.
On Sun, Dec 11, 2011 at 9:50 PM,
Apologies all around. This was meant for Steve alone. I REALLY REALLY
don't want to do this stuff anymore. I apologize particularly to the group
at large.
All the best to everybody,
Over and out,
Nick
From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On
Bump. .. but I thought I'd let folks know that I've gotten rid of these
annoying phishing on my system. As mentioned before, simply not using
gmail's UI will do it, just use gmail as any other IMAP system.
Naturally it'd be best to use a sys-admin solution. But the solution I've
started to use
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