Thus spake Nicholas Thompson circa 10/01/2008 10:01 AM: > Ever since I first came to Santa Fe, and joined the extensive computation > culture here, I felt I have detected in the software people here something > equivalent to the physics- envy that we psychologists are prone to: let's > call it math-envy. Math-Envy seems to be that while programming is subject > to the vicissitudes of any linguistic enterprise, mathematics displays true > formalism.... "you always know where you stand" in mathematics.
Which character does this sense of math-envy seem to you? 1) mathematical _skills_ envy -- i.e. computationalists wish they were better mathematicians, or 2) mathematical _progress_ envy -- i.e. computationalists wish the discrete math of computation had as much theorem-proof infrastructure as continuum (and linear) math? The distinction is clear to me. I _definitely_ envy traditional mathematics as a body of knowledge because it has had so many years and so many brilliant minds working on that infrastructure. If I want to, e.g., learn about fluid dynamics, I have a plethora of _textbooks_, hammered out over decades, to which I can turn. But if I want to learn about, say, impredicative definitions, I have to bounce between philosophy, ill-written stuff like Rosen's work, category theory, etc. In contrast, I don't experience (1) type envy any more than I, e.g., wish I could build a house or fix my car. The envy is there; but, it's intellectually mitigated by knowing that I chose not to learn those skills as thoroughly as I chose to learn other skills. When I think of (2) type envy, I wish I were born, like, 100 years from now so I wouldn't have to work so [EMAIL PROTECTED]@#$%# hard to V&V a computer model. -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-219-3846, http://tempusdictum.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
