The below was supposed to be off-list, sorry. jks --- andie nachgeborenen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > > Nash went mad, but you can't > > argue with his maths.< > > > > you can easily argue about the applicability of > the > > math. Math doesn't correspond to reality; it only > > represents the abstract dimension. > > > > By the way, Nash is currently deemed sane. And his > > sanity or insanity has nothing to do with the > > validity of the Nash equilibrium concept or of > game > > theory. > > > > I actually knew Nash a bit when he was mad. The math > majors at Tigetown called him the Ghost of Fine > Hall. > He would scrawl brilliant and bitingly hilarious > "formulae" on the blackboards -- not at all like the > merely wacko stuff depicted in the movie, much > funnier. Political too. And not right wing. > Apparently > he hated Nixon. That wasn't hard, of course. My > friend > (at the time, haven't been in touch in years) Dave > Donoho, now a hotshot stat prof at Stanford, said > that > mathematically Nash's crazy "formulae" _almost_ made > sense. > > Sorry I teed you off about your post on madness, but > frankly I was surprised to read your remarks about > GT > in the context of the Westlake book and your > substantive post -- reread them yourself and see if > you can see how someone might understand the point > the > way I did. Of course I know it's easy to be > misconstrued, having had it happy to me a lot. But > as > a lawyer I've learned to assume that it's not > necessarily the other guy's fault -- something I for > one at least didn't learn as an academic. Maybe you > have, but if so, given that you know how hard it to > be > clear and how easy it is to me misunderstood, maybe > it > would be helpful to be less uptight about being > misunderstood even if it is the other guy's fault. > > For instance, not that I am a shining examplar of > anything, I said about eight times in my post that > GT > was an abstraction, an idealization, and based on > false premises, and yet apparently I still wasn't > clear enough. Still, it's not worth getting mad > about > . . . . > > jks > > > > > __________________________________ > Do you Yahoo!? > SBC Yahoo! - Internet access at a great low price. > http://promo.yahoo.com/sbc/
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