> On 2 Jun 2019, at 17:02, John Clark <[email protected]> wrote: > > On Sun, Jun 2, 2019 at 8:18 AM Bruno Marchal <[email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: > > > The fact that you compare Plotinus ir Proclus to a Caveman shows that you > > have not even try to read them > > Well of course I haven't read them! Unless your field of study is ancient > literature and primitive cultures only a fool would take the time to read a > 2000 year old book, and the history of ancient wrong ideas is not a field of > study I am personally very interested in.
Mathematicians have been wrong on the harmonic series (1+1/2+1/3+…) for 18 centuries. It is a catholic abbe, Oresme, who solved the problem in the 16th/17th century, illustrating that the neoplatonist idea that theology is very close to mathematics was still in the (catholic) air. You would have dismissed it as you seem to judge people from the category they belong too (old, ancient, believer, etc.). If mathematicians can be wrong 18 centuries on a specific question like the sum of the inverse of the positive integers, which was not consider as heretic or against the authorities at any time (unlike Cantor Set theory, for example), why would it be so astonishing that we are wrong in theology, a field stolen by the state since long. Answer: may be because you have espoused the theology of Aristotle, which is based on the act of faith that there is an irreducible (to something simpler) ontological/primary physical universe. And that is not a problem, perhaps. But it is inconsistent if you believe/assume both a primary physical universe and Digital Mechanism. > > > That is dogmatic thinking I’m afraid. It is “religion” in your pejorative > > sense. > > Yeah yeah I know, I believe you may have mentioned that before, about 6.03 > *10^23 times. But instead of repeating that old stale insult I wish you'd > done something original, like answering my question; you can not claim to be > able to read every book ever written, so how do you rationally determine > which books are worth your time and which books are not? I work top down. My initial (childhood) question was “is the amoeba immortal?”. I found quickly (in library, bookshop) the book by James Watson “Molecular Biology of the Gene”, which will be my “bible” for a long time, and I will understand/conceive that the Amoeba’s self-reproduction is a “mechanical” phenomenon. But “immortal” refers to infinity, on which I will inquire too, and will discover some book on Set Theory and Cantor to put light on this, up to the discovery of Angel & Newman little book on Gödel’s proof, which will make me realise that the conceptual solution of the self-reproduction problem is already provided in the arithmetical relation (to be sure, at that time I did not know Church-Thesis, and the continuum appearing in chemistry will make me doubt if the arithmetical solution present in Gödel’s proof could be applied to amoebas. But that will decide me to study mathematics after high school. Then digging on this, I will be led to Kleene’s “Introduction to Metamathematics”, and meditate on Church’s thesis for a long time. Etc. So I work top-down, starting from the amoeba immortality question, and I only search a new book when I have difficulties in understanding a previews book. Immortality refers not just to infinities, but to consciousness, survival, etc, so it took not much time before I discover the field of theology, and that the Gödelian limitation theorems (which are based on that conceptual solution of self-reproduction, a point made clear by Kleene) provides clear (perhaps wrong, or different from what the author intended, but clear) arithmetical interpretation to neoplatonism (but also Taoism, especially Lie-Tseu). Fundamental science is interdisciplinary. There are many books, but starting from a rather concrete problem (how finite things can refer to themselves and what they can know about that), the road (the sequence of books) is paved almost deterministically. Bruno > > John K Clark > > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAJPayv3M0FAZKdeMXoj2NPk5gBqdz6kyndUOXkoq5uv4%3Dg%2BmZA%40mail.gmail.com > > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAJPayv3M0FAZKdeMXoj2NPk5gBqdz6kyndUOXkoq5uv4%3Dg%2BmZA%40mail.gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CDD9C13B-7C1B-4019-BE41-77C3B1B17F44%40ulb.ac.be.
