subject: Re: Peter Farey changes tune

text:
Mark Houlsby <[email]> wrote:
----------------------------------------------------------
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flogging_a_dead_horse

<<Flogging a dead horse, (alternatively beating a dead horse in some
parts of the Anglophone world) is an idiom  that means a particular
request or line of conversation is already foreclosed or otherwise
resolved, and any attempt to continue it is futile; or that to
continue in any endeavour (physical, mental, etc.) is a waste of time
as the outcome is already decided.

Some scholars claim that the phrase originated in 17th-century slang,
where a "dead horse" was work that was paid for in advance, e.g. "His
land 'twas sold to pay his debts; All went that way, for a dead horse,
as one would say." This attribution confuses "flogging a dead horse"
with an entirely different phrase: "to work (for) the dead horse".
This phrase was slang for "work charged before it is executed". This
use of 'dead horse' to refer to pay that was issued before the work
was done was an allusion to using one's money to buy a useless thing
(metaphorically, "a dead horse"). Most men paid in advance apparently
either wasted the money on drink or other such vices, or used it to
pay outstanding debts.

Historically, it was common practice to pay a ship's crewmen in
advance for their first month's work. Often they spent the lump sum
before boarding the ship on which they were to work. For the first
month on board, therefore, they felt as though they were working for
nothing, and were not highly motivated. After approximately one month,
ships out of the British Isles reached the Horse Latitudes.

A comparable expression for useless labour is "thrice to slay the
slain", a quotation from John Dryden, in Alexander's Feast, stanza iv.
Dryden drew his inspiration from Sophocles' Antigone in which the
blind seer Tiresias is led onstage by a boy, and declaims, "Nay, allow
the claim of the dead; stab not the fallen; what prowess is it to slay
the slain anew?" The trope was used in Latin, too: in Libanius'
funeral oration for the Emperor Julian, he declares of a scoundrel,
"Of the three who had enriched themselves through murders, the first
had gone over the whole world, accusing people falsely, and owed ten
thousand deaths to both Europe and Asia; so that all who knew the
fellow were sorry that it was not possible to slay the slain, and to
do so thrice over, and yet oftener." The expression was used in
"literary" contexts, as when Edward Young mused:

.   While snarlers strive with proud but fruitless pain
.   To wound immortals, or to slay the slain.

In the heated atmosphere of literary journalism, the phrase was often
quoted to show the writer's knowledge. In Punch for May 1861, a broad
satire on the heated controversies caused by the publication of
Charles Darwin's Origin of Species, which was defended by Thomas Henry
Huxley, concluded as follows.

.   To twice slay the slain,

.   By dint of the Brain,
.   (Thus Huxley concludes his review)
.   Is but labour in vain,
.   Unproductive of gain,
.   And so I shall bid you 'Adieu'!
.
.     —"Monkeyana" from Punch, May 1861
------------------------------------
Art Neuendorffer


author: neufer

subject: Re: Peter Farey changes tune

text:
nordicskiv2 <[email]> wrote:

Well...if Oxford is really is Shake-speare then....

nordicskiv2 <[email]> wrote:

Close enough...

nordicskiv2 <[email]> wrote:
--------------------------------------------
.  "I am firm against Shaksper — I mean the Avon man, the actor."
.  — With Walt Whitman, Traubel

.  "Conceived out of the fullest heat and pulse of European feudalism
— personifying in unparall'd ways the medieval aristocracy, its
towering spirit of ruthless and gigantic cast, its own peculiar air
and arrogance (no mere imitation) — only one of the 'wolfish earls' so
plenteous in the plays themselves, or some born descendent and knower,
might seem to be the true author of those amazing works — works in
some respects greater than anything else in recorded history."
.  — "November Boughs"
--------------------------------------------
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitman%27s_Sampler

<<Whitman's introduced the perennially popular and still best selling
Whitman's Sampler in 1912. This marked the first use of cellophane by
the candy industry. Whitman's confections have been produced for over
160 years. Originally a "confectionery and fruiterer shoppe" set up in
1842 by 19 year old Stephen F. Whitman on the Philadelphia waterfront,
Whitman's first became popular with travelling sailors and their
wives. They would often bring imported fruits, nuts and cocoa from
their trips back to Mr. Whitman so that he could make the popular
European confections people craved in that era. Before long Whitman's
chocolates were popular all along the north-eastern section of the
United States. The first prepackaged Whitman's candy was produced in
1854. It was a box of *sugar plums* adorned with *curli-cues and rose-
buds* . Whitman began advertising in newspapers shortly before the
beginning of the Civil War. In 1877, Instantaneous Chocolates were
introduced in *TIN bOXes that became much admired*.>>
--------------------------------------------

nordicskiv2 <[email]> wrote:

Bostonian Scooperish is my native tongue.
----------------------------------------
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yid

<<The term Yid has its origins in the Middle High German word Jüde
(the contemporary German word is Jude). "From the German: Jude: 'Jew.'
And 'Jude' is a truncated form of Yehuda, which was the name given to
the Jewish Commonwealth in the period of the Second Temple. That name,
in turn, was derived from the name of one of Jacob's sons, Yehuda
(Judah, in English), whose descendants constituted one of the tribes
of Israel and who settled in that portion of Canaan from Jerusalem
south to Kadesh-Barnea and from Jericho westwards to the
Mediterranean.>>
----------------------------------------
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hey_Jude

<<"Hey Jude" is a song by the English rock band The Beatles. Credited
to Lennon/McCartney, the ballad evolved from "Hey Jules," a song Paul
McCartney wrote to comfort John Lennon's son Julian during his
parents' divorce. Cynthia Lennon recalled, "I was truly surprised
when, one afternoon, Paul arrived on his own. I was touched by his
obvious concern for our welfare.... On the journey down he composed
'Hey Jude' in the car. I will never forget Paul's gesture of care and
concern in coming to see us."

McCartney said, "I started with the idea 'Hey Jules', which was
Julian, don't make it bad, take a sad song and make it better. Hey,
try and deal with this terrible thing. I knew it was not going to be
easy for him. I always feel sorry for kids in divorces ... I had the
idea [for the song] by the time I got there. I changed it to 'Jude'
because I thought that sounded a bit better." When McCartney
introduced Lennon to his new composition, he came to "the movement you
need is on your shoulder" and told Lennon "I'll fix that bit." Lennon
asked why, and McCartney answered "...it's a stupid expression; it
sounds like a parrot." Lennon parried with "You won't, you know.
That's the best line in the song."

Although McCartney originally wrote the song for Julian Lennon, John
Lennon thought it had actually been written for him: "I always heard
it as a song to me. If you think about it... Yoko's just come into the
picture. He's saying. 'Hey, Jude—Hey, John.' I know I'm sounding like
one of those fans who reads things into it, but you can hear it as a
song to me ... Subconsciously, he was saying, Go ahead, leave me. On a
conscious level, he didn't want me to go ahead." Other people believed
McCartney wrote the song about them, including Judith Simons, a
journalist with the Daily Express. Still others have speculated that
McCartney's failing long-term relationship with Jane Asher when he
wrote "Hey Jude" was an unconscious "message to himself". Writer Mark
Hertsgaard noted "many of the song's lyrics do seem directed more at a
grown man on the verge of a powerful new love, especially the lines
'you have found her now go and get her' and 'you're waiting for
someone to perform with.'" Tim Riley wrote, "If the song is about self-
worth and self-consolation in the face of hardship, the vocal
performance itself conveys much of the journey. He begins by singing
to comfort someone else, finds himself weighing his own feelings in
the process, and finally, in the repeated refrains that nurture his
own approbation, he comes to believe in himself.">>
---------------------------------------

nordicskiv2 <[email]> wrote:

Let me count the ways...

nordicskiv2 <[email]> wrote:

Why, oh why, couldn't Emmerich be more like Farina?

Art Neuendorffer


author: Mark Houlsby

subject: Re: Peter Farey changes tune

text:
On 5 Aug, 18:35, lackpurity <[email]> wrote:

Indeed, the writer was not talking *at all*.

Mark Houlsby


author: lackpurity

subject: Re: Peter Farey changes tune

text:
On Aug 5, 9:59 am, Paul Crowley <[email]> wrote:

His purpose requires a fake death.  What you have written would not
have sufficed.

Maybe someone could have said, "He's a flatliner?"

Yep.

At least, I can agree with Crowley on this one.

Michael Martin


subject: Re: Peter Farey changes tune

text:
Art,

First of all, instead of reproducing the text, post a link:

http://groups.google.com/group/ardenmanagers/msg/a5b102afca3521b4

This does two things:

1) it saves space.

2) it lets people know that the post which you lifted
from FoA was, in fact, posted in FoA.

Second, try to explain *what it is about the content*
which persuades you to assert that Peter F. has
changed his tune.

That way, people might have a clue about what you
mean.

Thank you.

Mark


subject: Re: Peter Farey changes tune

text:
On Aug 4, 5:59 pm, Mark Houlsby <[email]> wrote:

Go suck yourfelf.

Thank you.

Art


subject: Re: Peter Farey changes tune

text:
On Aug 4, 4:51 pm, neufer <[email]> wrote:

Life coming to an end and dying are the same.

Very unlikely.  The Queen had love and respect for Marlowe, IMO.

There is no evidence to corroborate the Privy Council or the Queen.
You seem to be forcing the issue here.

Well, real death is what happened.

Michael Martin


subject: Re: Peter Farey changes tune

text:
Peter Farey wrote:

At least you have recognized that a grander conspiracy
was necessary in order for Kit Marlowe to get published
after April 20, 1593.

It was also a conspiracy fully capable of inventing MAR-L.O.

A fabricated life coming to an end is NOT the same as dying.
---------------------------------------------------------
he "dyed a suden and violent deathe"
he "came to a suden & fearfull ende of his life".
---------------------------------------------------------
Claudius reads Hamlet's letter to Laertes:
.   (Act 4, Scene 7)   [ 1604  Quarto 2 ]
.
'High and mighty, you shall know I am set naked on your
kingdom, to morrow shall I begge leaue to see your kingly
eyes, when I shal first asking you pardon, there-vnto
recount the occasion of *my suddaine returne*.'
........................................................

*Roger Manners* dies in 1612...and Shakspere & Burbage
make an impresa for the 6th Earl of Rutland in 1613.

........................................................
Claudius reads Hamlet's letter to Laertes:
.    (Act 4, Scene 7)     [ 1623 Folio ]
.
'High and Mighty, you shall know I am set naked on
your Kingdome. To morrow shall I begge leaue to see
your Kingly Eyes. When I shall (first asking your
*Pardon* thereunto) recount th'Occasions of,
.
.  my sodaine *AND MORE STRANGE RETURN.'     'HAMLET.'*
--------------------------------------------------------
The new added phrase *AND MORE STRANGE RETURN.*
is a near anagram for *roger manners, e. rutland*
.
And with *hamlet* it can be rearranged to form a *sword* :
........................................................
.   << *and more strange return. hamlet* >>
.
______________                            [H]
______________                            [A]
______________                            [M]
_     r o g e r  m a n n e r s,  e. r u t [L] a n d
______________                            [E]
______________                            [T]
______________                            [T]
-------------------------------------------------
.     _MOBY DICK_ CHAPTER 107  "The CARPENTER"
.
<<You might almost say, that this STRANGE uncompromisedness
in him involved *a sort of unintelligence* ; for in his
numerous trades, he did not seem to work so much by reason
or by instinct, or simply because *he had been TUTORed to it*
, or by any intermixture of all these, even or UNEVEN; but
merely by kind of DEAF & DUMB, spontaneous literal process.
.
He was a pure manipulater; his BRAIN,
if he had EVER had one, must have early oozed
along into the muscles of his fingers. He was like
one of those unreasoning but still highly useful,
.
.             *MULTUM IN PArVO* , >>
........................................................
*roger manners, e. rutland*, motto: *MULTUM IN PArVO*
------------------------------------------------------
<<The peacock (PAVO) on the shield of the college arms was
taken from the arms of the Dukes of Rutland and has now been
promoted to the crest as a symbol of pride in achievement;
he now holds the key of knowledge.>>
.
http://www.camelotintl.com/heritage/dukearms.html
-------------------------------------------------
_  *trans(F)err(I)ngl(Y) mea(SU)red on*   - _Moby Dick_
.
___       tr ___ a n
___       s (F)  e r
____      r (I) _ n g
____      l (Y)  m e
___       a (SU) _  r
___       ed ___ o n
.
_____________                             [S]
-         r o g e r  m a n n e r s,  e. r [U] t l a n d
_____________                             [F]
_____________-                            [I]
_____________                             [Y]
.
.          *SUFIY* - *WISE, PIOUS*
----------------------------------------------------------
<<[the CARPENTER] forthwith with all the indifferent
promptitude of his character, proceeded into the forecastle
and took Queequeg's measure with great accuracy, regularly
chalking Queequeg's person as he shifted *the RULE*
.
. "Ah! POOR FELLOW! he'll have to die now,"
.                 ejaculated the Long Island sailor.
.
.    Going to his vice-bench, the CARPENTER for
.     convenience sake and general reference,
.
.        now *TRANSFERRINGLY MEASURED ON*

it the exact length the coffin was to be, and then made the
transfer permanent by cutting two notches at its extremities.>>
-----------------------------------------------------------
Art Neuendorffer


subject: Re: Peter Farey changes tune

text:
On Aug 5, 8:55 am, "Peter Farey" <[email]> wrote:

The writer was not talking about ending an occupation.

Michael Martin


author: Paul Crowley

subject: Re: Peter Farey changes tune

text:
On 08/08/2010 17:43, elizabeth weir wrote:

Desperate.  Otherwise apparently sane people
can believe almost anything!

Governments will often consider semi-crazy
ideas, that later on they admit, along the lines
of: ' . . what on earth were we thinking at the
time . . '.   Governments often fall, and former
or exiled ministers reveal what went on.
So we learn about plots to kill Castro with
exploding cigars, or about projected invasions,
or the proposed union of Britain and France in
1940, and so on.

But NO government has EVER considered
arranging a faked death for anyone, let alone
for some minor, if slightly troublesome citizen.

Not once.  Never.  Ever.  Some ideas are just
too crazy, too dangerous and too troublesome.

Does the absence of ANY record by any
government at ANY time that might indicate
any such intention ever bother a Marlite?

Nah.  They need to have their Faked Death.
It's essential to their plot.

Interestingly, though there are a lot of
Oxfordians who are really jealous of them.
Marlites have a ludicrous and crazy theory
and they want a part of it -- or, at least,
have one of their own.

Who ever suggested that human beings
were rational?

Paul.


author: Peter Farey

subject: Re: Peter Farey changes tune

text:
"lackpurity" wrote:

Not necessarily. I have observed with varying amounts of joy and
regret my lives - as a schoolboy, serviceman, employee, freelance
consultant and actor - ending one after the other. My life as a cont-
ributor to forums like this may not last for much longer either, but
I'm not dead yet. (Time of posting 1455 BST)

Peter F.
<[email]>
<http://www2.prestel.co.uk/rey/index.htm>


subject: Re: Peter Farey changes tune

text:
On 05/08/2010 14:55, Peter Farey wrote:

You can often find 'equivocation' if you look
hard enough.  Many actors "die a sudden and
fearful death" on the stage, either in the sense
of forgetting their lines, or even as characters
in scenes like the end of *Hamlet*.   In other
words, the original phrase would have served
the purpose you require, as well as any.

In fact, it's hard to know what they could have
said or done that would have been adequate
to discourage you from imagining what you
want to imagine.

How about an official and thorough inquest run
by the Queen's own coroner?   Hmm . . .

In another forum (run by fascists) Daryl Pinksen
provides a good example of this kind of 'thinking'.
When asked why Marlowe did not just do the
obvious, and run, presumably to hide for a couple
of years until the trouble had blown over, he
replies that, if you just run, your enemies may
hunt you down; and a faked death stops that.

But who were Marlowe's enemies, likely to hunt
him down?  Marlowe had not raped the daughter
of a 16th-century Tony Soprano, nor stolen large
amounts of his money.  If we believe the tales
we're told, he'd merely made himself generally
unpopular.  If he'd gone off for a bit, everyone
would have been happier, but no one would have
any reason to hunt him down.

Paul.


subject: Re: Peter Farey changes tune

text:
Paul Crowley wrote:

Yes indeed, I have done both on several occasions, and not
only in Hamlet.

It may well have done, Paul. It is not my purpose which is
the issue, however, but Puckering's. I have suggested why
it makes sense for him to have changed those words in the
way he did. If there is a *better* explanation, I will be
delighted to hear it, whilst not holding my breath.

Peter F.
<[email]>
<http://www2.prestel.co.uk/rey/index.htm>


author: Bianca Steele

subject: "the same discovery had been made at least 16 times" (NYT)

text:
"It was important research, the authors believed, until they learned
that the same discovery had been made at least 16 times since the
1950's. ...  In 1957, for example, a statistician named James Hanna
called his theorem Bayesian Regret. He had been preceded by David
Blackwell, also a statistician, who called his theorem Controlled
Random Walks. Other, later papers had titles like "On Pseudo Games,"
"How to Play an Unknown Game," "Universal Coding" and "Universal
Portfolios" ..."
<http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/05/weekinreview/05kolata.html>

Maybe Drs. Tomasson and Webb can then tell us whether these discoveries
should really count as "the same."  Then, perhaps, Dr. Groves can tell
how, and whether, the matter is different in the "humanities."

I, for one, would find that enlightening, even if I were going to try
to investigate the subject myself.  Not having read the work cited by
the Times' reporter, and not being intimate with the discoveries of the
mathematicians named in the article, I would have to rely extensively
on the published results and advice of actual experts, and then,
surely, would have to consult with philosophers on the proper
application of the term "same" in the applicable context, or at least
with others such as teachers and science journalists who frequently
interpret experts' opinions in terms I'd be more likely to understand.
Drs. Tomasson and Webb are obviously much better equipped than I, not
only to do that, but also to have an opinion on the matter just off the
tops of their heads, especially on a matter so complex and technical as
the one the Times' reporter attempts to address.  So whatever they say
(in the absence of a lot of further work), I'll be compelled to accept.

----
Bianca Steele


author: gangleri

subject: Re: "the same discovery had been made at least 16 times" (NYT)

text:
Nice try, Tom - but no dice!

Some time ago, as you will recall, you agreed to my suggestion that one
of us would stand exposed as a LAUGHINGSTOCK when we were done with
Shakespeare.

I submit that the title is yours!

Unless, of course, you can set forth persuasive reasons to suppose that
the Mozart Magic Flute/Shakespeare Tempest Cipher Symmetries centered
on the Cipher Value of Virgil's advent-of-Christ "prophecy" from over
two thousand years ago, as calculated by the Saga-Shakespeare Cipher
Key placed on record in embedded form by Snorri Sturluson in 13th
century Iceland are the product of CHANCE.


author: Tom Veal

text:
Though you can't be expected to recognize it, your Mozart/Shakespeare
messages make no sense whatsoever. Anyone who reads your posts will
quickly find plenty of persuasive reasons to suppose that they are
gibberish.

Of course, if your results are as irrefragible as you imagine, you'll
have no difficulty convincing people less obtuse than I.  Why not
submit them to a few scholarly (or even Oxenfordian) publications?

gangleri wrote:


text:
David L. Webb wrote:

Three of the articles appear to be in statistics, at least two in game
theory, one appears to be in information theory, and one in the
mathematics of economics and finance.

Was I mistaken in my understanding that some mathematicians spend a
large amount of their time consulting with other mathematicians and
with researchers in the fields to which mathematics is applied, to some
extent making themselves experts in the range of work that has already
been done, as well as in communicating that range to others?

I was aware of that but was interested in something a little
finer-grained here.

This, I think, is pretty much new to me.  Thanks for a helpful post.

----
Bianca Steele


text:
gangleri wrote:

1) You are the only one comparing economics to "creation science."

2) "Creation science" is not mathematical.

3) The arguments you allude to, saying that economics is
epistemologically valid -- when it is valid -- because it is
mathematical, seem to be borrowed wholesale from the detailed
examination of physics' validity: "physics works for this set of
reasons, therefore economics works for the same reasons."  As someone
has said, this has all the advantages of theft over honest toil.
However, this particular point has purchase only against your
speculative arguments on HLAS, not against what economists do _qua_
economists.

4) There are a whole variety of ways by which confidence in physics,
and the other modern physical sciences, are instilled in students and
readers.  Almost none of these are present in the case of economics.
One cannot trace the reasoning behind the theories.  One cannot trace
the history of their discovery.  Even the claims that the theory is
mathematical are inaccessible to the undergraduate or layperson.  I
know of no academic subject where the student is required to take huge
generalities, often in conflict not only with common sense and cultural
knowledge but also with the other sciences, so much "on faith," as
economics.

I have no doubt that there are areas within economics that are
well-founded.  Indeed, that economics does not simply collapse, given
some of the disadvantages I just referred to, strongly suggests there
is something of validity in it.  But none of those areas is equivalent
in solidity to, say, hydraulics.

Also 5), "axiomatic" is generally considered mutually exclusive with
"empirical."  Thus, you have a problem: it seems your position is
untenable and perhaps you should search for a new foundation.  Or you
can go "postmodern" and stop trying to attain the prestige-level of the
physicists.

----
Bianca Steele


text:
Bianca Steele wrote:

Please pretend I didn't put it quite that way.

----
Bianca Steele


text:
Bianca Steele wrote:

My comment was to the effect that, just like "creation science",
mathematical economics possess validity ONLY with respect to its
axiomatic foundations.

Which, as noted earlier, are creations of the imagination as are the
axioms of Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometry, both of whose
real-world applicability remains problematic.

Of course not - it is axiomatic and, like mathematical economics, has
passed NO test of real-world applicability.

I have said nothing to the effect that "economics is epistemologically
valid" - if that is your understanding, then (a) I have not been clear,
or (b) you have misunderstood.

As someone

See preceding comment.

Agree.

There are - but NOT in mathematical economics.

Indeed, that economics does not simply collapse, given

Axiomatic structures of thought are IMMUNE to "collapse" except as a
result of a negative outcome of tests of their real-world
applicability.

In the case of mathematical economics - according to which, for
example, there can never be any INVOLUNTARY unemployment in the US
economy - negative outcome of de facto tests of its real-world
applicability are simply IGNORED.

Says who?

MIT Professor Robert Solow, winner of Central Bank of Sweden's memorial
prize in honor of Alfred Nobel, in his Presidential address to the
American Economic Association years ago.

OF COURSE!   And, since they are axiomatic, that's precisely why the
propositions of mathematical economics are on par with creation
"science" as being "deduced from thin air or from a priori propositions
of universal truth and vacuous applicability." (Samuelson's
characterization - see my preceding post.)

Thus, you have a problem: it seems your position is

???


text:
David L. Webb wrote:

The "problematic" relates to the geometry of the cosmos.

Agree.

Axiomatic structures of THOUGHT cannot be "inconsistent" - muddled
"thought" cannot in principle represent an axiomatic structure.


text:
David L. Webb wrote:

Comment:

There are ONLY two kinds of "thought" - coherent and incoherent.

It took Bertrand Russell some seventy years to recognize that his
youthful "thinking" about and view of mathematics was "muddled".

Russell, one of the brainiest individuals ever, acknowledged this in
his last book (?), entitled "My Philosophical Development."

Late in life, Russell confessed to having "very reluctantly" come to
view ALL mathematics as "tautology" - as in "A four-legged animal is an
animal." - and cheerfully acknowledged that his long-standing view to
the contrary was nonsense.

Clearly, he would NOT have labeled it "coherent nonsense".

For it was the product of PREMATURE GENERALIZATION on his part - that
is, Russel had arrived at them WITHOUT adequate thought.

Here is a succinct summary of the epistemological grounds on which I
base my contention that "Axiomatic structures of THOUGHT cannot be
"inconsistent" - muddled "thought" cannot in principle represent an
axiomatic structure." - I posted it to another Internet forum a year or
two ago.:

***
I take epistemology to be concerned with the validity of claims to
knowledge - science.

All claims to scientific knowledge are the product of the mind's
processing of a sub-set of the universe of sense impressions.

Thus, invalid claims to knowledge are the result either of mental
malfunction or mis-specification of the sub-set in question.

In principle, invalid claims to knowledge may be the result of two
distinct kinds of mental malfunction.

The first kind - error in deductive reasoning from a given set of
axiomatic premises - is easily caught.

The other kind - error in the specification of axioms appropriate to a
given sub-set - is the seed of scientific revolutions. (Planck,
Einstein, et al.)

label for correction of some gargantuan error of axiom specification.

Hence Einstein's comments in his August 1954 letter to Michele Besso
cited earlier:

"I concede, however, that it is quite possible that physics cannot be
founded on the concept of field - that is to say, on continuous
elements. But then, out of my whole castle in the air - including the
theory of gravitation [General Relativity], but also most of current
physics - there would remain almost nothing."

Let me add in this respect that it is crystal clear that the "field"
axiom is untenable - for example, a photon of light propagating through
the solar system along a straight line will appear to an observer
outside (hence not rotating with) the solar system to be moving along a
curved path.

In the context of relativistic physics, this implies that "the concept
of field" breaks down at the solar system's boundary - that universal
space is discontinuous.

Gargantuan errors of axiom specification are not unique to economic
"science"!


text:
It's no surprise that the Great Gangleri doesn't know a hawk from a
handsaw, no matter which way the wind blows. I stopped trying to follow
his drivel a few posts ago, when he wrote, "In the case of mathematical
economics - according to which, for example, there can never be any
INVOLUNTARY unemployment in the US economy - negative outcome of de
facto tests of its real-world applicability are simply IGNORED." I
wonder whether he could identify any "mathematical economists" who hold
that view of the labor market.

David L. Webb wrote:


text:
Tom Trimegistus:

MIT Professor Robert Solow, Nobel Laureate in Economic "Science" and
then President of the American Economic Association took his peers to
task for routinely "reasoning" AS IF there could not be any INVOLUNTARY
unemployment in the US economy.

Solow didn't - and had no reason to - name names because the
proposition is AXIOMATIC in the tomfoolery which passes for
mathematical "economics."


text:
I have no reason to believe that you are paraphrasing Dr. Solow
accurately. If the proposition that you quote is widespread, you should
be able, as an economic professional presumably familiar with the
literature in your field, to cite at least one "mathematical economist"
who believes it.

gangleri wrote:


text:
gangleri wrote:

You've finally lost me.  What you think the difference between science
and non-science signifies, that you can say that, I'm not willing to
just guess.

As I think I've mentioned before, I'd be far from the last person to
deny there might be foundational problems in modern economics, much
less social science generally, in certain respects, but I can have
little sympathy for arguments that amount to nothing more than (so far
as I can see) perpetual whining.

----
Bianca Steele


author: David L. Webb

text:
In article <[email]>,
 "Bianca Steele" <[email]> wrote:

   The particular incident to which you allude refers to the statistics
literature, with which I do not keep up, so I cannot offer any opinion;
however, the phenomenon to which you allude is fairly common.  Actually,
it may be best to distinguish between *re*discovery of older ideas and
near-simultaneous independent discoveries of new ideas.

   In the former case, the rediscovered result would not normally be
published unless the paper contributed some new insight, or perhaps a
new proof.  (Gauss himself produced eight proofs of the celebrated
quadratic reciprocity law, and new proofs are still being discovered and
published.)  It is not too uncommon for excellent mathematicians
familiar with the literature to rediscover some result of Lagrange, Lie,
Cartan, etc. without realizing it.  In part, this occurs because
comparatively few mathematicians study the nineteenth century
mathematical literature carefully, and it is understandable that they do
not -- the discipline has undergone several foundational revolutions
since then, and the key contributions of the mathematical Titans of the
past have been thoroughly digested and rewritten in a new mathematical
language, with some errors and imprecisions removed.  Thus a modern
mathematician may be quite familiar with the significant ideas of (say)
Poisson, yet be unaware of some incidental result and hence may
rediscover it.

   In the case of near-simultaneous discovery of new results, it is
sometimes the case that both papers are published if the approaches are
substantially different.  Sometimes, if it becomes known that two or
more people have hit upon the same thing before the papers are actually
published, the groups may join forces and publish a joint paper.  For
example, in the wake of Jones's ground-breaking discovery of what is now
called the Jones polynomial of knots and links, several independent
groups of researchers hit upon a two-variable extension, and submitted
their work at about the same time; the ultimate result was a six-author
paper.

   Finally, it sometimes happens that a paper containing results that
are not new is published because the journal editor or referee is
unaware of the earlier work.  For example, Art Neuendorffer has alluded
several times in this newsgroup to his mathematics paper (joint with
Crone), whose Math Review reads "The solution which [Art and Crone]
obtain is equivalent to that of, e.g., G. Koenigs [Ann. Sci. ï¿½cole Norm.
Sup. (3) Suppl. 1884, 1--41; Jbuch 16, 376]. See also a paper by G.
Szekeres [Acta Math. 100 (1958), 203--258; MR0107016 (21 #5744)].  Thus
in this instance, the result was first published (apparently) in 1884,
but rediscovered in 1958 and again in 1988.  This is not that common,
but it does happen.


text:
Re. the following:

You've finally lost me.  What you think the difference between science
and non-science signifies, that you can say that, I'm not willing to
just guess.

Comment:

No need to guess - here is a bird's-eye view of the epistemological
considerations which warrant placing mathematical economics alongside
creation "science" as non-science.

(a) All mathematical science, including mathematical economics, is
axiomatic;

(b) The axioms of mathematical science are products of the imagination,
whose real-world applicability cannot be judged on a priori grounds;
and

(c) NO proposition in mathematical economics has passed empirical tests
of the kind which scientists use to separate the wheat from the chaff -
mathematical science from pseudo-science,

This bird's-eye view of the subject matter is reflected in Paul
Samuelson *Foundations of Economic Analysis* as follows:

"By a meaningful theorem I mean simply a hypothesis about empirical
data which could conceivably be refuted, if only under ideal
conditions. [...] In this study I attempt to show that there do exist
meaningful theorems in diverse fields of economic affairs.  They are
not deduced from thin air or from a priori propositions of universal
truth and vacuous applicability." (pp. 4-5)

In other words, the applicability of the propositions of mathematical
economics can only be judged by empirical testing.


text:
In any event, however, the journal titles Ms. Kolata cites suggest
probably similar mathematics but slightly different contexts of
application, different from your situation.  Though much criticized
(often, unfortunately, on apparently political -- or "politically
correct" -- grounds), "priority" remains a frequent preoccupation of
students of the history of science, many persisting cases possibly
involving national chauvinism.  Dr. Vohra, on the other hand, seemed
primarily interested in a lack of ability to retrieve past results for
reuse now, and scientists' understandable disappointment when they
discover that they might have spent their time more fruitfully.

I'm not sure I understand this, as I had been under the impression that
war mobilization was sufficient to account for most states' economic
recovery in the 1940s and late 1930s, which indeed occurred under
governments of both right and left.  Should I set this down as a
mistake, instilled by pro-New Deal "propaganda" in my public schooling
(I'd rather not)?

I've never formally taken an economics class, but it does seem to be
the case that in such courses economics is taught "like a science," in
Kuhn's sense (emphasis on being able to solve problems of specific
types), rather than its being taught, as it were, "like philosophy."

Under Marxist-Leninist regimes, I imagine, this was different --
everyone being required to study "scientific materialism" -- but
whatever that was, that is not economics (I might go so far as to say
it's neither scientific nor materialist, only Lenin's fantasy dressed
up with words he knew to be considered complimentary by many people).

----
Bianca Steele


text:
For your background information, here is my "note on the intellectual
history of creditary economics" viewed by my European correspondent as
"essential for [him] to place [the concept of Creditary Economics] in a
context.

I prepared the note in response to a request for clarification of the
concept of "Final Demand Inflation" which I had coined with respect to
core monetary issues with which Keynes struggled in the 1920s, as
reflected in his *Treatise on Money* in 1930, but put aside unresolved
in his work which resulted in the *General Theory* of 1936.

***
The concept of Final Demand Inflation is the end product of a
step-by-step analysis, which began with my decision in the 1970s to go
back to basics and rethink monetary economics from the bottom up.

After I had arrived at what I viewed as the basics, it struck me as
inconceivable that all earlier economists had somehow overlooked them.
So I began going through the writings of earlier economists in the
IMF's outstanding library.  At long last, I came across the writings of
Jeremy Bentham, whose publication by the Royal Economic Society in 1951
or thereabouts had been undertaken on the initiative of Keynes as
Society President.

Alas, Keynes didn't live to see the results, which previously had been
available mostly in manuscript form.  And, apparently, Keynes was not
familiar with the details of Bentham's monetary writings - or so I
construe his comments somewhere to the effect that the classical
economists never wrote up their monetary ideas in coherent and
comprehensive form.

For it was immediately clear to me on reading Bentham, that I had
simply rediscovered essential ideas which were at the heart of his
monetary writings.  Nor were the ideas original with Bentham for he
advised Adam Smith to the effect that they constituted little more than
elaboration of monetary ideas found in embryonic form in Smith's Wealth
of Nations - a work which Bentham's editor described as his economics
"bible", which he had read and re-read until he had mastered its core
ideas.

Nor, for that matter, were the core ideas original with Adam Smith!

For, as indicated by Smith's plan to dedicate Wealth of Nations to
Francois Quesnay, he recognized his intellectual debt to Quesnay - and,
indeed, the core ideas are neither more nor less than a monetary
counterpart of Quesnay's Tableau Economique.  In the event, Quesnay
died before the publication of Smith's work.

It was left for two writers - Bentham and Jean Baptiste Say - to spell
out (without expressly stating that this is what they were doing) the
purely analytical implications in the field of monetary thought of
Quesnay's Tableau Economique viewed as an embryonic version of
relations between economic agents associated with what I termed
Production in Entrepreneurial Market Economies.  (Earlier, Leontief's
Input-Output Table view of the U.S. economy had been rooted in
Quesnay's Tableau Economique.)

While Bentham's writings remained unpublished for the most part, those
of Say became the foundation for 19th century analytical economics, the
high point of which was John Stuart Mill's Principles, written in 18
months in mid-19th century.

Neither Say nor Mill ever spelled out that their core monetary ideas
concerned the analytical aspects of Production in Entrepreneurial
Market Economies.  In the General Theory, Keynes had gone half-way
towards this objective, but stopped short of working out the monetary
implications of his conceptual framework in rigorous fashion on the
grounds that "whilst it is found that money enters into the economic
scheme in an essential and peculiar manner, [he let] technical monetary
detail fall[] into the background," as he put it in his Preface.

Yet - and this is where the monetary economics of the past 70 years was
launched on its track to Bedlam - Keynes wrote that "A monetary
economy, we shall find, is essentially one in which changing views
about the future are capable of influencing the quantity of employment
and not merely its direction.  But our method of analysing the economic
behaviour of the present under the influence of changing ideas about
the future is one which depends on the interaction of supply and
demand, and is in this way linked up with our fundamental theory of
value.  We are thus led to a more general theory, which includes the
classical theory with which we are familiar, as a special case."

Not so!

The "classical theory" of which Keynes wrote (and ascribed to "J. S.
Mill, Marshall, Edgeworth and Prof. Pigou" in footnote 1 on p. 3) had
nothing to do with the classical view of relations between economic
agents engaged in Production in Entrepreneurial Market Economies in the
Quesnay-Smith-Bentham-Say-Mill tradition - a fact which is reflected in
what, surely, must rank as the single most embarrassing statement ever
written by this would-be Einsteinian General-Theory pathfinder in
economics:

"From the time of Say and Ricardo the classical economists have taught
that supply creates its own demand; - meaning by this in some
significant, but not clearly defined, sense that the whole of the costs
of production must necessarily be spent in the aggregate, directly or
indirectly, on purchasing the product." (Ch. 2, p. 18)

In other words, Keynes took aim at some je-ne-sais-quoi and not at
Say's Law viewed as conceptual framework for analysis of the monetary
relations between economic agents engaged in Production in
Entrepreneurial Market Economies.

Enter Creditary Economics.

1.  A monetary system's primary function is to facilitate productive
activity.

2.  All productive activity involves Economic Agents - Entrepreneurs
and Suppliers of Factor Services.*

*  This analytical division accords, broadly speaking, with Keynes'
views in Ch. 16 - "I sympathise, therefore with the pre-classical
doctrine that everything is produced by labour, aided by what used to
be called art and is now called technique, by natural resources which
are free or cost a rent according to their scarcity or abundance, and
by the results of past labour, embodied in assets, which also command a
price according to their scarcity or abundance.  It is perferable to
regard labour, including, of course, the personal services of the
entrepreneur and his assistants, as the sole factor of production,
operating in a given environment of technique, natural resources,
capital equipment and effective demand."

3.  All productive activity involves a Creditary Relationship - formal
or informal - between Entrepreneurs and Suppliers of Factor Services.

4.  Whatever its form, such Creditary Relationship implies that Supply
of Factor Services to the Production Process constitutes Credit
extended by Suppliers of Factor Services to Entrepreneurs in exchange
for formal or informal IOUs, which entitle Suppliers of Factor Services
to a commensurate share in the Final Output equivalent of Factor
Services Supplied.

5.  This is Say's Law, as expressed by Say in a letter to Malthus - Say
wrote that by "commodity", he meant a product that is actually sold.
William Baumol took note of Say's statement in a paper on Say's Law and
dismissed it as "tautology" - which, of course, it is!

6.  That is to say, Say's Law is an analytical concept on par with
propositions in analytic geometry or algebra.

7.  The incongruous transfomation of Say's Law into an empirical
proposition was the work of mathematical would-be economists in the
third part of the 19th century, for whom - as for their 20th century
successors - analytical economics in the Quesnay-Smith-Bentham-Say-Mill
tradition was - and remains - as water off a duck's back.

8.  Profit and Interest on Production Credit is necessarily zero in an
economy where Factor Incomes generated in the Production Process are
the sole source of Demand for Final Output - a point emphasized by
Schumpeter in The Theory of Economic Development and implied by
Böhm-Bawer's view reported by Schumpeter therein - "Böhm-Bawerk was
indeed the first who expressly said that the whole value of the product
must in principle be divided between labor and land, if the process of
production is to proceed with ideal perfection." (Ch. 1)

9.  In real-world Entrepreneurial Market Economies, this implies that
all Entrepreneurial Profit and Interest on Production Credit must be
the result of what I have termed Final Demand Inflation - defined as
Credit Creation in one form or another whereby Nominal Demand for Final
Output is made to exceed the Factor Supply Cost/Factor Income
equivalent of Final Output sold.

10.  From an analytical point of view, Final Demand Inflation is an
addendum to Credit Creation associated with Production in
Entrepreneurial Market Economies - it does not involve Creditary
Relations between Entrepreneurs and Suppliers of Factor Services as
such, but the exchange of some Third Party's IOUs for "money" or IOUs
issued by an economy's Financial System.

11.  Entrepreneurial Profit and Interest on Production Credit generated
by such Final Demand Inflation, while providing the motive force of
profit-seeking Entrepreneurial Activity, is always and necessarily a
means of diverting a corresponding share of Final Output from Suppliers
of Factor Services to Third Parties, whose IOUs have been 'monetized'
by the economy's Financial System.

12.  In addition to Credit Creation which "finances" (a) Supply of
Factor Services, and (b) Entrepreneurial Profit and Interest on
Production Credit, there is a third kind (c) whereby Third Party IOUs
are 'monetized' by the economy's Financial System for Purchase of
Existing Assets and, as the case may be, generating Asset Price
Inflation

Of course, real-world Credit Creation cannot be carved up into
categories (a), (b), and (c), for these are analytical concepts.

 As such, they are a sine qua non for an analytical approach to
coherent thinking on objectives and instruments of real-world monetary
management.

***
There's nothing original - except, possibly, common sense - in this.

***
You wrote:

I've never formally taken an economics class, but it does seem to be
the case that in such courses economics is taught "like a science," in
Kuhn's sense (emphasis on being able to solve problems of specific
types), rather than its being taught, as it were, "like philosophy."

Comment:

That, indeed, is the reason why "mainstream" economics is on par with
creation science  - the reason why it makes "sense" ONLY with respect
to a set of axiomatic premises which have reigned in the field since
the last third of the 19th century, and which Paul A. Samuelson gave
"rigorous" mathematical form in his 1941 Harvard Ph. D. thesis
"Foundations of Economic Analysis."

Premises which are NEVER questioned by "mainstream" scholars much as
the idea that the Stratfordian Shakspere may be a figment of Francis
Bacon's imagination cannot make it to first base in the minds of the
Kathmans, Rosses, Reedys and assorted hanger-ons.

Even admitting it for consideration as a highly speculative hypothesis
cannot be tolerated - for doing so is tantamount to admission by the
Kathmans, Rosses, Reedys and assorted hanger-ons that - gulp - they MAY
be clueless in their proclaimed field of "expertise".


text:
Bianca Steele wrote:

Comment:

My correspondent's comments on the Creditary Economics aspects of
"Schacht's financial Wizardry" accord with my understanding that
Hjalmar Schacht's approach to German monetary management was to
"the Nazi economic recovery" what that of Alan Greenspan has been
to the (lop-sided) growth performance of the US and world economy
during Greenspan's service as Chairman of the Federal Reserve.

In both cases, the key has been creation of NEW nominal purchasing
power through the money supply process, the very thought of which was
abhorrent to the old-money classes in England in the formative years of
"classical" economics during the first part of the 19th century and
in the United States in the 1930s.

The hyperinflation after World War I wiped out Germany's old-money
class, eliminating a source of opposition to Schacht's enlightened
monetary policies long before German aggression necessitated "war
mobilization" by the Allies through means including NEW money
creation.

I might add that, in my view, Keynes understood perfectly well the
monetary mechanics of Schacht's approach, but chose to OBSCURE its
essence in the *General Theory* so as not to alarm the old-money
interests in the UK and the US.

As a result, the *General Theory* is more properly viewed as a vehicle
designed to serve the cause of rational monetary policies in a hostile
environment than the analytical work it was proclaimed to be - a Trojan
Horse swallowed whole by UK and US economic scholars.

In his last Economic Journal article, published post-humously, Keynes
cautioned his peers against what he termed "much modernistic stuff,
gone wrong, and turned sour and silly."

His peers were not amused.

Paul Samuelson, primus inter pares among the stuff's creators, began a
memorial piece on Keynes by stating there was reason to believe that he
hadn't understood the ideas in the *General Theory* until half-dozen
mathematical "economists" had sorted it out.

Decades later, Don Patinkin, once Samuelson's associate at MIT and
long-time student of Keynes' monetary writings, charged that Keynes
could "not be forgiven" some introductory remarks to the German version
of the *General Theory* to the effect that implementation of its
monetary policy implications would be more readily effected in a
dictatorship than in a democracy.

Keynes as Nazi sympathizer?

The facts speak for themselves - Schacht was implementing "keynesian"
policies while old-money interests and their academic turf guards in
the UK and US opposed them.


text:
It was important research, the authors believed, until they learned
that the same discovery had been made at least 16 times since the
1950's. And no one, Dr. Vohra said, ever realized they were not doing
original work.

***
That makes a total of at least 17 researchers who did original work.

How so?

In 1988, 3 researchers (one in the US and two in the UK) made initial
contact after one of the UK researchers published a letter in the
Financial Times, which the other two happened to read.

It turned out that all three had been working for some years to think
through certain basic conceptual issues in a field which subsequently
has come to be labeled "creditary economics".

On comparing notes, it turned out that the 3 researchers, while
proceeding along three different lines of approach, had arrived at
essentially identical conclusions.

After I, as the US member of the threesome, had arrived at my
conclusions, it struck me as inconceivable that SOME earlier economic
scholars had not addressed the subject matter and come up with
conclusions identical to my own.

After a lengthy search through the literature, I found that Jeremy
Bentham had done just that but, since he did stuff of this kind mainly
to clear his own mind, his work done in the first decade of the 19th
century remained in manuscript form until 1950 or so.

So did Bentham alone do original work?

In a letter he wrote to Adam Smith on related issues, Bentham expressly
credited Smith with having stated in embryonic form in *Wealth of
Nations* the ideas which Bentham then worked through and elaborated to
arrive at the conclusions in question.

So was Smith the original thinker?

Not so, in my view!

For the ideas in question may be viewed as the monetary counterpart of
Francois Quesnay's *Tableaue Economique* - Smith had planned to
dedicate *Wealth of Nations* to Quesnay, but he died before the work
was finished.


text:
gangleri wrote:

The fact that this happens relatively (at least surprisingly) often is
actually well-known and not very interesting in itself, as you probably
already know.  The most probable explanation is that the science as a
whole is advancing at the same rate in every part of the globe so that
it's more probable than not that more than one person, pursuing
research according to the established standards in the field, will end
up doing the same thing and thus coming to the same conclusions.  In
literature the phenomenon is sometimes known as "the Spirit of the Age"
(if I understand that phrase correctly).  For example, many
19th-century writers either were aware of or came up with ideas related
to historical change.  But this doesn't mean that Darwin's theory can
be found in Hegel.

I suspect that if you look up a history of economics, you will find
that historians agree among themselves as to the significance (relative
and also absolute) of Quesnay, equally as of Smith.  Bentham's place in
history is also, of course, very well known.  What might remain to be
explained could be, what does our time have in common with his, that
the same questions are spontaneously occurring to us?

----
Bianca Steele


text:
You raise two very interesting questions.

1.  How does The Spirit of the Age influence choice of research topics?

2.  What does our own age have in common with that of
Quesnay/Smith/Bentham so "that the same questions are spontaneously
occurring to us?"

I'll get back to both questions later.

In the meantime, here is a message I received last September from a
young European academic economist of first rank on "creditary
economics":

Many thanks for your note on the intellectual history of creditary
econmics - essential for me to place it in a context. Would I be
correct in summarising that the contemporary form of Creditary
economics then goes back to your rethinking in the 1970s? How did it
spread from there?  And how does this connect to [X]'s ideas, as in his
essays which that I read earlier in the week? Was this a case of joint
development or of independent but contemporaneous rediscovery?

These are exciting ideas which, ever since I first encountered them
through [Y]'s writings, seem to shed light on a number of paradoxes and
puzzles (or should I say muddles?) that have deterred me from
macroeconomics. They also finally seem to provide a full answer to some
episodes in economic history that have always puzzled me as holding
lessons but I never quite found out which - e.g. the Nazi economic
recovery, which until now I had put down to Schacht's financial Wizardy
which would go beyond my technical knowledge of the systems of the day.
But creditary economics seems to give the foundations on which that
wizardry was based.

It is indicative of modern economics training & practice that the only
context I personally had for creditary economics - style thinking was
my 1st year undergraduate history of economics ideas class - nothing in
my later courses & policy work & readings in contemporary economics
literature seemed remotely to mesh with it!


text:
Re.

How quaint to see a reference to the author of "Zen and the Art of
Motorcycle Maintenance". What's next? Charlie Reich? Bell bottoms?

Comment:

How amusing to see an ex cathedra putdown of Pirsig and/or "Zen and the
Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" from Tom that's-not-my-style Veal!

Again, although it's none of your business, Pirsig's paper in question
was entitled "Subjects, Objects, Data and Values".

Ex-cathedra proclamations apart, and assuming that you do in fact know
and understand what Pirsig was/is talking about, what's your take on
his view stated therein as follows:

There is no way one can possibly construct a scientific experiment to
determine whether or not an external reality exists if there is a
difference in metaphysical interpretation. Whatever results you come up
with can still be explained differently in each metaphysical system.


text:
You needn't feel obliged to keep telling me things that are none of my
business.

As for your quote from Mr. Persig (who would ever have imagined that he
is still alive?), ideas like that were exciting when I first
encountered them in 10th grade. Since then, I've learned that we must
muddle through life without perfect epistemology. It's easy to
demonstrate that deduction, inference and everything in between are
inadequate tools for apprehending reality. Yet bridges get built,
airplanes fly, and computers (most of the time) work. Since I haven't
had the time to think at length about how that can be, I have no
particular insights to offer, though I thank you for your unexpected
interest in my views.

gangleri wrote:


text:
In article <[email]>,
 "Bianca Steele" <[email]> wrote:

[...]

   Most good mathematicians spend a great deal of time in such pursuits;
however, the literature is almost unimaginably vast, and mathematical
ideas that appear to belong to one area have a charming way of showing
up in areas that one would not expect.  Thus, even experts may well be
unaware of results that may be rediscovered later.  This is especially
true of very old results that may lurk hidden in the nineteenth century
literature, which is (1) relatively inaccessible (because of severely
limited shelf space, many research libraries only keep recent journals
in the stacks, the older material being relegated to a remote off-site
storage facility), (2) often very difficult to read (being written, as I
mentioned before, in a different mathematical language and idiom -- many
ideas that have pervaded mathematics (e.g., sets, matrices,...) are
comparatively recent and were not in use when some of the classic works
were written), and (3) not especially well indexed and referenced in
review volumes.  Mind you, the mathematical work of the "old masters"
has been very thoroughly digested, appreciated, and rewritten, and it
continues to inspire much contemporary work; thus it is not the main,
important ideas in the older work that are typically rediscovered (the
main results and ideas are almost universally known and appreciated),
but rather comparatively minor but nonetheless interesting peripheral
tidbits that may have been overlooked because of the sheer wealth of
ideas to be found in (say) Cartan; indeed, several distinguished modern
mathematicians have found it very fruitful to revisit the works of
Cartan, Lie, Darboux, Poincarï¿½, etc.

   Often the context of a discovery or rediscovery is important in
bringing it to the attention of the mathematical community.  What may
have seemed a mere curiosity when it was introduced may be rediscovered
much later by someone in a very natural context of compelling interest,
and the rediscovery may thereby attract more attention than did the
original discovery (although when the idea gains widespread currency,
its earlier introduction generally comes to light and its original
discoverer is duly credited).


author: Art Neuendorffer

text:
Bianca Steele wrote:

-----------------------------------------------------
Not bad company atall:

http://keithbriggs.info/documents/Szekeres_seminar_QMUL_2006jan10.pdf
-----------------------------------------------------
http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Koenigs.html

         Gabriel Koenigs
Born: 17 Jan 1858 in Toulouse, France
Died: 29 Oct 1931 in Paris, France

<<Gabriel Koenigs was appointed lecturer in mechanics at Bresancon, then
in analysis at Toulouse. He returned to ï¿½cole Normale Supï¿½rieure in
Paris in 1886 where he had obtained a doctorate 4 years earlier. He
became professor of mechanics at the Sorbonne in 1897.

Koenigs was greatly influenced by Darboux and his first work was on
geometry following work of Plï¿½cker and Klein. Then he looked at
iteration theory and analytic mechanics where he applied Poincarï¿½'s
theory.

In [3] his work on roulettes is discussed and put into context
relating it to the work of several other mathematicians:-

The construction of centers of curvature of plane roulettes by
Bobillier (1831), Gilbert (1858) and Koenigs (1897) was based on the
theory of centroids by M Chasles (1830). This problem has kinematical
origins (a roulette is the plane curve described by points of a plane
figure moving in its plane) but each plane curve may be considered as
a roulette.>>

http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Koenigs.html
-----------------------------------------------------
Art Neuendorffer


text:
Re.

What is the point of wasting your time not calling others names on an
Internet forum?

Comment:

I like your company.


text:
Tom Veal wrote:

Why do you maintain a blog, or for that matter organize science fiction
conventions?  What is the point of that?  Though I do notice you've
narrowed the range of areas you post stuff about.  Why do people write
poetry or keep diaries?  Why do they do anything?

----
Bianca Steele

        "No hallowed skein of stars can ward, I trow,
        Who's once been set his tryst with Trystero."
                ---- Richard Wharfinger


text:
Have I really "narrowed the range of stuff [I] post about"? There's
bound to be an ebb and flow of topics, but I certainly don't intend to
become a specialty blogger.

As for my dispute with the Great Gangleri, I shall leave it at this: If
I write incomprehensibly (and perhaps I do - who am I to judge?), I
blame myself instead of denigrating the intellectual capacity of my
readers. I also try to give reasons why people should agree with my
views, rather than proclaiming them ex cathedra and then growing livid
when they aren't immediately accepted.

Bianca Steele wrote:


text:
In article <[email]>,
 "gangleri" <[email]> wrote:

   Huh?  Both Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometry (understood very
broadly, from hyperbolic geometry to Lorentz geometry to symplectic
geometry to spherical geometry) have many very important practical
applications in a wide variety of fields.

   It is really a stretch to call "creation science" axiomatic -- it is
so ill-formulated that it scarcely even qualifies.

   No, this is quite wrong.  Axiomatic systems can "collapse" by virtue
of being inconsistent.  Indeed, this has happened at pivotal points in
the development of the foundations of the subject.  That is one of the
reasons that mathematicians strive to formulate axiom systems that are
consonant with "real-world" intuition -- while intuitive plausibility is
no guarantee of consistency, it is at least a starting point.


text:
In article <[email]>,
 "gangleri" <[email]> wrote:

   The fact that *one single* potential application of geometry may not
be realizable yet due to insufficient data certainly does NOT mean that
the "real-world applicability" of geometry "remains problematic";
indeed, as I said, there are numerous overwhelmingly successful
applications of (for example) symplectic geometry to classical
mechanics, to optics, to the formation of caustics, etc.  The same
observation holds for the other flavors of geometry.

[...]

   Certainly they can be inconsistent.  For example, the original Greek
axioms for geometry were inconsistent, as the Pythagoreans discovered;
the commensurability assumption was too naï¿½ve.  Similarly, the axioms of
set theory at the time of Frege were inconsistent, as Russell
discovered, and a good deal of effort went into their reformulation.
Nor would I characterize either of these seemingly plausible axiom
systems as "muddled thought" -- both were the product of some of the
best, most original mathematical minds; that inconsistencies were
eventually discovered is no more indicative of "muddled thought" than
the replacement of one physical theory that does not adequately explain
observations by a more successful physical theory.  It could be that
Zermelo-Frankel set theory is inconsistent, in which case mathematicians
would begin retooling the foundations yet again.


text:
In article <[email]>,
 "Tom Veal" <[email]> wrote:

   True.

   I would not have bothered to follow up his ravings either had not the
thread been prompted by someone else's question; having once set the
record straight, I am inclined to follow your example and simply to
disregard his subsequent misunderstandings.


text:
Tom Veal wrote:

Better be careful not to look at any of their own, either.


text:
Re.

What is the point of wasting your time calling others names on an
Internet forum?

Comment.

My listing two alternative explanations for your "antic disposition" -

1.  You're kidding.

2.  You're a buffoon.

- doesn't represent name-calling.


author: seaker

text:
People like gangleri, Chess One, Richard Kennedy, and Art are convince
they are too great to bother with academic journals.  They wouldn't
consider coming down from their peaks of self-importance to dirty them
hands with the riff- raff of academic journals. In truth, gangleri,
Chess One, Richard Kennedy and Art could NEVER come up to the standards
set by academic journals.


text:
It isn't fair to put Art N., who is good natured, entertaining and
occasionally informative, in the same class as the others you name.

seaker wrote:


text:
Fine, whatever you say. I'll rephrase my remark: What is the point of
wasting your time not calling others names on an Internet forum?

gangleri wrote:


author: Dr. Poul Chowdley

text:
seaker wrote:

Aside from Richard Kennedy, I'm not sure the members of your quartet
can write a grammatical sentence. Here's Chess One in action:

"What do you think of mostly men who say that they would object to the
book becoming part of a high school studies course, not because of the
history between the covers, but because of the word "Bitch" in the
title."

Anyone, please, enlighten me; what is a "mostly men"?


text:
David L. Webb wrote:

    The Szekeres paper doesn't count since he stole those results
     from Marlowe while Ingram & Poley were holding him down.

Art Neuendorffer


text:
Briefly.

1.  This is non-responsive to my message.

2.  A "language" crafted more than two thousand years ago (apparently)
by Horace, Virgil, Propertius, and Ovid is no more "private" than were
the "incomprehensible" Egyptian hieroglyphics before the Rosetta Stone.


text:
Tom Veal wrote:

I'm not quite willing to defend gangleri's "number symbolic 'language'"
based on "the imagery of ancient creation myth," but please be careful
slinging accusations of "writ[ing] in a private language."  Some people
take very seriously the injunction, also expressed by Wittgenstein,
that the very idea of "a private language" is an improper one.  In the
circles in which they move, to be subject to that accusation is a very
serious matter indeed.  Just for the idea of their guilt to come into
consciousness could cause them real and severe harm.

----
Bianca Steele

        "No hallowed skein of stars can ward, I trow,
        Who's once been set his tryst with Trystero."
                ---- Richard Wharfinger


text:
Bianca Steele wrote:
I appreciate the warning. I shall also be careful not to picture them
in cartoons.


text:
And if you want to claim that Horace, Vergil, Propertius and Ovid also
wrote in "your" language, you are welcome to do so. Again, however, you
should be neither surprised nor angry that others regard your esoteric
readings as gibberish.

Still, if you are the Champollion of a mythic language unknown to
anyone else, why not take your case to academic journals, where it can
be evaluated by philological experts? What is the point of wasting your
time calling others names on an Internet forum?

gangleri wrote:


text:
Wittgenstein's concept of 'private language' -

A human being can encourage himself, give himself orders, obey, blame
and punish himself; he can ask himself a question and answer it. We
could even imagine human beings who spoke only in monologue; who
accompanied their activities by talking to themselves. -An explorer who
watched them and listened to their talk might succeed in translating
their language into ours. (This would enable him to predict these
people's actions correctly for he also hears them making resolutions
and decisions.) But could we also imagine a language in which a person
could write down or give expression to his inner experiences - his
feelings, moods, and the rest - for his private use? - Well can't we do
so in our ordinary language? - But that is not what I mean. The
individual words of this language are to refer to what can only be
known to the person speaking; to his immediate private sensations. So
another person cannot understand the language.

- concerns the limits of *language*.

Tom Veal's concept of 'private language'  -

A "language" crafted more than two thousand years ago (apparently) by
Horace, Virgil, Propertius, and Ovid is no more "private" than were the
"incomprehensible" Egyptian hieroglyphics before the Rosetta Stone.

- concerns the limits of [Tom Veal's] *comprehension*.


text:
Tom Veal wrote:

That's a lie - you wrote:

I have no reason to believe that you are paraphrasing Dr. Solow
accurately.

***
My statement -

Axiomatic structures of thought are IMMUNE to "collapse" except as a
result of a negative outcome of tests of their real-world
applicability.

In the case of mathematical economics - according to which, for
example, there can never be any INVOLUNTARY unemployment in the US
economy - negative outcome of de facto tests of its real-world
applicability are simply IGNORED.

Says who?

MIT Professor Robert Solow, winner of Central Bank of Sweden's memorial
prize in honor of Alfred Nobel, in his Presidential address to the
American Economic Association years ago.

- concerned "axiomatic structures of thought", exemplified in the
present case by "mathematical economics," and the "negative outcome of
de facto tests of [the] real-world applicability [of its AXIOMATIC
presuppositions]."

To the best of my knowledge, NO member of the American Economic
Associatio has ever questioned the NON-applicability of such axiomatic
presuppositions to the US economy - hence I cannot name any such for
you.

As for Solow's point, it may be summarized as follows:

1.  All of us know the axiomatic presuppositions of mainstream
mathematical economics.

2.  All of us know that these presuppositions do NO accord with
real-world facts.

3.  Why, then, do some/many/most (I don't recall Solow's precise choice
of words in this respect) of you continue to write papers, whose
axiomatic presuppositions are so clearly incompatible with real-world
facts?


text:
Tom.

Your statement -

"Anyone who reads your posts will quickly find plenty of persuasive
reasons to suppose that they are gibberish"

- attests to one of two things.

1.  You're kidding.

2.  You're a buffoon.

For "anyone who reads [my] posts" without working command of the
imagery of ancient creation myth and associated number symbolic
"language" will find himself at sea along with your good self.

For all language - including mathematics - is rooted in convention.
 And there is nothing to be "understood" in convention as distinct
from its being mastered for use with respect to some purpose at hand
and for communication between individuals on matters relating thereto.

In brief, the meaning of language is such by convention, beyond which
it is meaningless.

Another case in point.

Scholars had no way of knowing whether Egyptian hieroglyphics were
"gibberish" before the "key" to their decipherment was discovered on
the Rosetta Stone.

Tom Veal wrote:


text:
If you wish to write in a private language, that is your privilege, but
you should not be upset when others find it incomprehensible.

gangleri wrote:


text:
I merely ask you for evidence that ought to be easy to produce. You
attribute a prima facie preposterous opinion to a group that you label
"mathematical economists". I should like to know who these people are
and what they actually said.

gangleri wrote:


text:
Bianca Steele wrote:

That's an article of "faith" among Popperians, who make-believe that
successive "advances" in experimental science bring us ever closer to a
je-ne-said-quoi version of "Truth" - one that is no less elusive and
intangible than Angels on pinheads.

But the Popperians have failed to consider that successive "advances"
in Mechanics - from the Newtonian to the Relativistic and Quantum
varieties etc. - reflect changes in underlying axiomatic premises,
leaving their article of "faith" in ever-present danger of
"falsification" through discovery of flaws in such axiomatic premises
themselves.

Einstein took note of this danger a few months before his death as
follows:

"I concede, however, that it is quite possible that physics cannot be
founded on the concept of field - that is to say, on continuous
elements.  But then, out of my whole castle in the air - including the
theory of gravitation, but also most of current physics - there would
remain almost nothing."

In General Relativity, the "concept of field" is exemplified by the
cosmos.

And it is not rocket science to see that it is LOGICALLY impossible for
a photon of light to propagate through the rotating Milky Way along a
path which is "straight" with respect to BOTH the Milky Way and the
cosmic field itself.

This "falsifies" the twin axiomatic propositions of relativistic
mechanics (a) that a photon propagates through space along a "straight"
line, AND (b) that there exists no "preferred" frame of reference
[either Milky Way or Cosmos in the present instant] for specifying the
laws of relativistic mechanics.

Whence it follows "that physics cannot be founded on the concept of
field".


text:
Re. the following:

...give me a source, or two or three, for your ideas on "epistemology,"
including your idea that epistemology is the right word in the context.
 Or at least give me an argument that consists of more than a sequence
of quotes from Wittgenstein and Einstein.  Or give some inkling that
you might have developed your ideas from experience rather than by
reading theory.

Comment:

1.  I understand the concept of "epistemology" to relate to that branch
of philosophy which evaluates the validity of claims to "knowledge".

2.  In the course of original research in theoretical physics in the
1970s, it became clear to me that all claims to "knowledge" in the
field are predicated on some set of axiomatic premises created by the
theorist's imagination as a means of, as it were, imposing intellectual
order on selected aspects of the universe of sense impressions.

3.  Hence, the evaluation of the validity of claims to "knowledge" in
physical science ("theory") consists in nothing more nor less than
checking to see whether any given "theory" does in fact accord with its
underlying axiomatic premises.

4.  Since such axiomatic premises are creations of the IMAGINATION, a
valid claim to "knowledge" in physical science must necessarily leave
us in the dark as to the structure and attributes of whatever REALITY
may be generating the selected aspects of sense impressions with which
"theory" is concerned.


text:
gangleri wrote:

Regarding the following, you have said this before, and it is still
incorrect.  I have no idea what concept of "epistemology" or whatever
you have in mind, and you clearly don't understand the limitations of
your method.  I have no wish to help someone who uses your method.  I
especially do not wish to help strengthen the arguments of someone
whose views about science are those you have described in this post.

A few comments.

Okay: given that you aren't able to articulate anything more clear or
specific than this, I shall lower my expectations accordingly.

On the other hand, what you say is not good enough for anyone who
aspires to knowledge of how those educated in philosophy use the terms,
I feel obliged -- in this discussion group, where what you write might
be read by easily confused students -- to point out that it is
insufficient.

And whereas point 1 refers to knowledge, points 2-4 refer to the kinds
of opinions you are able to express by means of your method.  In other
words, they are true if you are content to limit yourself to "gematria"
and to posts in English that are structurally identical to "gematria."
They are not true if you aspire to discuss science, and you are wrong
to say they are.

The last time we discussed this, I said your discussion did _not_ apply
to physical science.  You conceded this did not apply to "mere"
experimental physics but only to "mathematical" or "theoretical"
physics.  You appear to have improved your argument as a result of our
disagreement: it is now more logically consistent, it appears to have
accreted some additional philosophical "support," and it has changed
from being a correct argument with limited application to a dangerously
wrong argument.

I am sorry you have been duped by a method.  Dialectic, whether
Platonic or Aristotelian, can bring out truths that are known by a
person or a group.  If you start without knowledge, dialectic will not
give you any.  Nor will enlarging the network of participants.
Furthermore, in my opinion a moral use of dialectic would have to
permit substantive contributions from both/all participants; you are
apparently either limiting these to your own beliefs, or pre-selecting
whose beliefs you will admit for consideration.

If you start with a bad argument, even if you add the word
"epistemology," you will not end up with a good argument.  Similarly,
if you start with "gematria," and you add a canned account of the
method's limitations, you do not enhance any reader's interest in the
products of your "imagination."  It is difficult to see what benefit
someone might expect to gain from the kind of analysis you suggest in
points 2-4, but your obsession with "gematriaizing" HLAS participants'
posts is starting to seem creepy.

----
Bianca Steele

        "No hallowed skein of stars can ward, I trow,
        Who's once been set his tryst with Trystero."
                ---- Richard Wharfinger


text:
Tom Veal wrote:

I meant all the topics on your old website, categories where you
haven't posted anything new recently, reviews of books other than
Shakespeare authorship books, etc.

I can't follow his posts, most of the time, for more than a line or two
at best.

I have trouble imagining what you see as going on in HLAS, leading you
to say that, if you aren't merely dropping witty remarks to which you
don't really expect a reply.  Why don't you try engaging on a subject
matter, and in a language, that other people are already happily using
amongst themselves, and see what they have to say about what you write?

If he reacts that way to every disagreement expressed by every other
person, it seems likely he has trouble imagining that he is not correct
on every single topic without exception, or at least that he has
trouble imagining there could be more than a single reasonable point of
view.  Perhaps he also has trouble distinguishing civil disagreement
from the kind of tantrum that's likely to get someone thrown out of a
restaurant or other public place.

----
Bianca Steele

        "No hallowed skein of stars can ward, I trow,
        Who's once been set his tryst with Trystero."
                ---- Richard Wharfinger


text:
Bianca Steele wrote:
You're not the first person to note that my old site has been
neglected. I really must remedy that. Unfortunately, the past year or
so has been rather busy, and it's temptingly easy to post on my blog
rather than sit down and write something more substantial. (Not that
the world suffers greatly from the tardy appearance of my "substantial"
thoughts.)


author: The Historian

text:
Tom Veal wrote:

Far from it, Tom. Even though I disagree with some of your political
views, I think your blog is wonderfully written.

 I


text:
Tom.

1.  As for my dispute with the Great Gangleri, I shall leave it at
this:

Comment:

What "dispute"?

2.  If I write incomprehensibly (and perhaps I do - who am I to
judge?), I blame myself instead of denigrating the intellectual
capacity of my readers.

Comment:

Good for you!

3.  I also try to give reasons why people should agree with my views,
rather than proclaiming them ex cathedra ...

Comment:

Again, good for you!

4.  ... and then growing livid when they aren't immediately accepted.

Comment:

This is incomprehensible in the context of my NON-dispute with you.

Yet this is at least the third time you have made the like point, as
indicated in my following message posted on January 15, 2006.

***
Newcomers to HLAS may wonder why Tom Veal - who has pledged on one or
two occasions not to respond to my postings - feels compelled to
instruct others to do likewise.

Insofar as compulsive behavior is fit for non-professional analysis,
the following extracts from exchanges between me and Tom on April 29,
2005 may shed some light on its root causes.

1.  Me to Tom Veal:

Gematria = "calculating the "cipher sum" of one set of words and then
finding a different set of words with the same sum".

Ancient sages took Gematria seriously - you don't.

In principle, different views on the subject matter cannot be judged on
a priori grounds.

2.  Tom Veal to me:

You have never offered an intelligible reason why anyone should take
your version of gematria seriously, which is why I don't.

3.  Me to Tom Veal:

Should I care?

Diagnosis:

Tom Veal's behavior is indicative of RDS.*

*  Rodney Dangerfield [I get no respect.] Syndrome.


text:
As I've said before, the Great Gangleri is presumably under the
impression that he is making sense. Does he ever ponder why hardly
anybody else thinks so?

gangleri wrote:


text:
Tom.

Not that it's any of your business, but the following message from
someone who, in my view, is way ahead of you in recognizing and
distinguishing sense from nonsense, sent me the following email message
this afternoon:

A couple of things.

Firstly. just a note to say how much I appreciated your thoughts on
Pirsig's paper.

And secondly you may find the attached of interest.  I aim to attend a
"fringe" workshop at LSE next week at which Mr Fleetwood is presenting
his thinking.

Best Regards

xxxx

***
That's "Pirsig" as in Robert Pirsig;

"Mr Fleetwood" as in Steve Fleetwood, author of a paper entitled Causal
Laws, Functional Relations and Tendencies (2001), Review of
Political Economy, Vol. 13, No. 2, 201-220; and

LSE as in London School of Economics.


text:
For:

Not that it's any of your business, but the following message from
someone who, in my view, is way ahead of you in recognizing and
distinguishing sense from nonsense, sent me the following email message
this afternoon:

Read:

Not that it's any of your business, but someone who, in my view, is way
ahead of you in recognizing and distinguishing sense from nonsense,
sent me the following email message this afternoon:


text:
Paul Streitz has a testimonial from a Supreme Court Justice. Much more
impressive than an anonymous e-mailer.

How quaint to see a reference to the author of "Zen and the Art of
Motorcycle Maintenance". What's next? Charlie Reich? Bell bottoms?

gangleri wrote:


text:
Re. the following:

It's interesting what you'll expand upon and what you won't: I think I
have to conclude that you think what you said is sufficiently
unambiguous for what you wanted to say.

I guess I'll have to live in the benighted state of not knowing what
you mean.

Comment:

I shall be pleased to answer any and all germane questions you may have
with respect to the subject matter.


text:
Re. the following:

I know from experience that you won't answer questions regarding your
sources (except when the subject matter is Nordic gematria), and that
you won't explain the significance of your examples (except via Nordic
gematria), so I have to conclude that your definition of "germane" is
different from mine.

If I'm wrong, give me a source, or two or three, for your ideas on
"epistemology," including your idea that epistemology is the right word
in the context.  Or at least give me an argument that consists of more
than a sequence of quotes from Wittgenstein and Einstein.  Or give some
inkling that you might have developed your ideas from experience rather
than by reading theory.

But if your idea of "answering questions" is to generously permit me to
draw out, bit by bit, your theory, which you attach for no good reason
to the names of real people though it does not accurately describe
their work, I'd rather not.  You can remain silent about your theory if
that's the case.  The only way I am going to answer is by offering my
own ideas on those writers, if I have any ideas, and hoping we can find
common ground.

----
Bianca Steele

        "No hallowed skein of stars can ward, I trow,
        Who's once been set his tryst with Trystero."
                ---- Richard Wharfinger


text:
In article <[email]>,
 "Tom Veal" <[email]> wrote:

   Agreed -- Art's good nature, his original sense of humor, and his
comedic talent set him apart from the others (Mr. Innes and the lesser
Kennedy are at best amusing only occasionally, and even then only by
virtue of apparently unintentional buffoonery).

   Besides, Art actually *has* measured up to the standards of peer
reviewed academic journals on one occasion:

Crone, Lawrence J.(1-AMER); Neuendorffer, Arthur C.
Functional powers near a fixed point.
J. Math. Anal. Appl. 132 (1988), no. 2, 520--529.

True, Art and his coauthor rediscovered a result known since 1884, but
their paper was nonetheless published in a very respectable peer
reviewed professional academic journal.  The paper is even in English,
which is something of a departure for Art!


text:
In article <[email]>,
 Art Neuendorffer <[email]>

([email]) wrote:

[...]

   "Ingram"?  Since when have been intimate enough with Marlowe's
(Masonic) murderers to be on a first-name basis with Frizer, Art?
You're not even on a first-name basis with George Mason!


text:
Re. the following:

....if I thought you held to (a) below -

(a) that epistemology is akin to a "ladder" to be discarded *once* one
has climbed to its top - whence it follows that epistemology is indeed
*perfect* with respect to the purpose at hand;

- only tentatively, or that you'd come to that conclusion by yourself
-- I might be interested in discussing it with you.

Comment:

I came to that conclusion by myself.


text:
Addendum.

Earlier today, I posted the following message to Gang8 - see
www.creditary-economics.org - on related issues:

Dear Gang.

As indicated in my following message posted today to an Internet
Shakespeare forum, the epistemological aspects of science in general
and theoretical economics in particular, which I have addressed in
Gang8 exchanges through the years, appear to have been central to the
world-view of "William Shakespeare" in Elizabethan England and the
twentieth-century philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein.

Clearly, there are many ways to skin this particular cat, with Bishop
George Berkeley (1685-1753) setting forth in lengthy literary form the
logical foundations of the world-view of Plato, as reflected in the
imagery of Plato's Cave and Cave Dwellers and Friedrich Nietzsche's
"Also sprach Zarathustra."

All of which brings to mind, once again, the inscription on the
entrance gate to a Buddhist temple which I saw in Phnom Penh in 1971:

Tout est simple.  Pourquoi le compliquer?

FYI.

Gunnar


text:
Re. the following:

It's interesting what you'll expand upon and what you won't: I think I
have to conclude that you think what you said is sufficiently
unambiguous for what you wanted to say.

I guess I'll have to live in the benighted state of not knowing what
you mean.

----
Bianca Steele

        "No hallowed skein of stars can ward, I trow,
        Who's once been set his tryst with Trystero."
                ---- Richard Wharfinger


text:
Tom.

Briefly re. your interesting views:

1.  Since then [the 10th grade], I've learned that we must muddle
through life without perfect epistemology.

Comment:

As I read them, William Shakespeare and Ludwig Wittgenstein were of one
mind in concluding

(a) that epistemology is akin to a "ladder" to be discarded *once* one
has climbed to its top - whence it follows that epistemology is indeed
*perfect* with respect to the purpose at hand; and

(b) that the view from the top is poetically expressed through Prospero
in Act IV, Sc. i of The Tempest:

Our [ladder-climbing] revels now are ended.  These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind.  We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

2.  It's easy to demonstrate that deduction, inference and everything
in between are inadequate tools for apprehending reality.

Comment:

Agree.

IF you have arrived at this conclusion by climbing the "ladder" of
epistemology to its top, THEN you - as were William Shakespeare and
Ludwig Wittgenstein before you - are living proof that epistemology is
*perfect* with respect to the purpose at hand.

3.  Yet bridges get built, airplanes fly, and computers (most of the
time) work.

Comment:

Agree.

But none of this has anything to do with the "ladder" of epistemology.


text:
gangleri wrote:

True, and yet sad and incomplete (especially in the context of this
discussion).

You agree with lackpurity then?  If you didn't -- if I thought you held
to (a) below only tentatively, or that you'd come to that conclusion by
yourself -- I might be interested in discussing it with you.  If you
think of it as dogma, or the equivalent of dogma, I'd be wasting my
time discussing it with you, wouldn't I?  And I think I'd be within my
rights asking which dogma it is you're pushing.

Also, I find your multi-point criticism of Tom Veal's second point a
bit ironic, which I don't think will please him.

----
Bianca Steele

        "No hallowed skein of stars can ward, I trow,
        Who's once been set his tryst with Trystero."
                ---- Richard Wharfinger


text:
In article <[email]>,
 "Tom Veal" <[email]> wrote:

   Men of straw are rarely the subject of attributions.


text:
You are not distinguishing between evaluation of claims to knowledge in
a particular science, which is done by scientists already trained in
that science, and evaluation of methods used by scientists, which is
done by philosophers in conjunction with trained scientists.  The rules
and practices of the latter go by the name "epistemology."  The rules
and practices of the former go by the name "chemistry," or "physics,"
or "economics."

It is entirely appropriate to observe, vide Kuhn, that one -- large --
part of working scientists' activities is to check whether new results
accord with existing beliefs.  But your point 3 amounts to saying that
there is nothing to the practice of science other checking to see
whether other people have the right answer, which is nothing more than
the equivalent of grading student exam papers.  It would be a wholly
inappropriate thing to say, except to someone whom you considered at
best a student, and a bad one.

The only sense I can make out of your argument is that you think
theoretical physics is true, while experimental physics and real-world
economics, like literary studies of novels and poems, are only kind of
true.  I cannot agree with this, I do not think any qualified person
you've discussed this with can agree with you, and what you present as
an "authorized" view is consistent with people *politely declining to
inform you that you are wrong*, and perhaps suggesting a more congenial
field for your future studies.

It is also maybe appropriate to observe that Michel Foucault used the
Greek word _epistemè_ to refer to systems of thought and discourse
that seem something like sciences, and that Foucault's books are
difficult to understand but often appeal to people who are none too
fond of science, and that as a result _epistemè_ *might* be used as a
"swear word."  Which might explain some things.  You cannot connect up
people who discuss Foucault with what is usually called "epistemology,"
they have not (and certainly had not in the 1970's) articulated their
theory *if* they even have one, and whatever scattered topics they may
have discussed with you is unlikely to have been fully developed.  That
"epistemology" is *connected* with their beliefs does not preclude
their beliefs' being *opposed to* "epistemology."

----
Bianca Steele

        "No hallowed skein of stars can ward, I trow,
        Who's once been set his tryst with Trystero."
                ---- Richard Wharfinger


text:
gangleri wrote:

[...]

See my previous post, which of course only applies to claims to
knowledge in honest-to-goodness *sciences*.  Theology is not subject to
epistemological analysis (not being a science, as is emphasized by
theologians themselves), nor is mere poetry, nor is customary opinion.
*Modern* epistemology studies the workings of modern science, it
basically assumes the Scientific Revolution has helped the West produce
new truths on a regular basis, and it examines how new or
underdeveloped sciences can also develop.  If modern epistemology loses
anything from what classical epistemology once did, even classical
epistemology *has to* start from the fact that there is a split between
theology and science, and before that between theology and philosophy.

This means a person who wants to claim knowledge of a religious sort
ought not to challenge scientists to justify his or her knowledge.
There are some theoretical physicists who subsequently became more
interested in Eastern religions than in the Western philosophy that
traditionally underlies Western science, which is why I fear that you
might be trying to redefine the so-called "theoretical" branches of
science as forms of theology.

The word "epistemology" belongs to philosophy as a university
discipline.  It does not belong to Albert Einstein, even if he used it,
as a result of his conversations with philosophers or with other
scientists who also talked to philosophers.  If you don't like academic
philosophy, then use a different word.

[...]

Your argument that the social sciences, including economics, can only
be make-believe "sciences," seems to be based on what I think is a
mistake.

See above.

[...]

There are axioms in experimental physics as in theoretical physics.

That we do not, or do not wish to, understand one another's arguments,
does not say anything about whether or not we are in some kind of
"essential" disagreement, and that I think what you said is wrong
surely does constitute disagreement between us.

As I'm not privy to your thought processes over three decades, I have
no way of knowing how developed your argument was before I started
discussing it with you.

It is dangerous to suggest that mystics necessarily have a better
handle on the premises of the experimental sciences than the
practitioners do, even more to suggest that practitioners of science
and engineering are not very smart or very skilled and therefore should
be treated as such.

[...]

----
Bianca Steele

        "No hallowed skein of stars can ward, I trow,
        Who's once been set his tryst with Trystero."
                ---- Richard Wharfinger


text:
Bianca Steele wrote:

1.  You "have no idea what concept of "epistemology" or whatever [I]
have in mind" - yet I have spelled it out for you.

2.  While you "have no [such] idea", yet you are somehow able to divine
that "[I] clearly don't understand the limitations of [my] method."

3.  And, while having "no [such] idea," you "have no wish to help
someone who uses [my] method."

Points 1. and 2. suggest that, if offered, such "someone" would do well
to decline your "help".

How would you articulate the relationship, if any, between epistemology
and the task of evaluating the validity of claims to knowledge?

Your comments addressed in 1. and 2. above suggest that "easily
confused students" would do well to beware the say-so of "those
educated in [your] philosophy".

So, contrary to your statement addressed in 1. above, you now claim to
understand my "method".

Yet, you incongruously claim that it is "true" only with respect to
"gematria" - on which it has NO bearing - and "to posts in English that
are structurally identical to "gematria"."

As for your implicit proposition that the axiomatic structures of (a)
Newtonian Mechanics, (b) Relativistic Mechanics, and (c) Quantum
Mechancis etc. are "structurally identical to "gematria"," it is a
howler of the first order.

NO method exists for evaluating claims to knowledge in make-believe
"sciences", including the political and social "sciences" - and I have
never suggested otherwise.

For, as noted by Einstein, "Science without epistemology is - insofar
as it is thinkable at all - primitive and muddled."

It is self-evident that "experimental physics" are NOT axiomatic.

That the point was not self-evident to you does not constitute
"disagreement" between us.

My argument has been unchanged for the past three decades....

... and, admittedly, it is "dangerous" to the intellectual and economic
security of such as practice political, social, and other make-believe
"sciences" for a living.

There are NO "truths" to be brought out in make-believe "sciences".

Absent such "truths", the question of "MORAL use of dialectic" doesn't
arise.

Again, "gematria" does NOT generate claims to knowledge - in this
respect, "gematria" is on par with make-believe "sciences".

Those are brave words.