I agree with Steve that the VSI's sound great.
However, in the end, isnt it true, Wittgenstein decided that the only value of
philosphy was to dispell the illusion of philosophy. It was like a ladder that
you used to climb into a tree house, and then, throw away. I am afraid he
would not be in favor of my belief that you can build understanding through
honest and careful argument.
n
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
Clark University ([email protected])
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
----- Original Message -----
From: Steve Smith
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Sent: 7/2/2009 10:01:52 AM
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Direct conversation - 1st vs 3rd person
Owen Densmore wrote:
Thank you Nick, good explanation. And Steve -- we actually started down this
road on the thermodynamic formulation of ABM .. Guerin-Speak .. with some
success.
Much more generally: There is a rift between the formal and philosophic that I
have a partial solution for. Both are VSI (Very Short Introduction) books.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0192853619/
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0192854119/
The first is the Mathematics VSI. It is written by Timothy Gowers and really
does get the reader into the mind of mathematics folks. Gowers is a Fields
Medalist -- the Nobel for math. And he is driven by a Wittgenstein
understanding of abstraction. Gowers' discussion of a 5th dimensional cube is
a wonderful example. He constantly comes back to the type of abstraction he
prefers: very clean and focused on the properties under discussion.
The second is the Wittgenstein VSI, to bind Gowers' math with his inspiration,
Wittgenstein. I've not finished this one (I've got a digital version and have
just sent for the paper one) but there is hope we might actually find a
connection between the more philosophical discussions and a formalism for them.
I'd be very interested in this endeavor.
Count me in... I'll go dust off my Witty Wittgenstein and take a Gander at
Gowers .
I am a *total* sucker for formalisms about interesting things even though all
of my philosophy professors, and at least one (each) of my math/physics
professors beat me about the head and shoulder's with Godel (and others) to try
to break me of that bad habit.
Let's check back in after we (myself and anyone else) has done some (more)
homework...
- Sieve
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