[FRIAM] truth, reality, & narrative

[thompnickson2 at gmail.com]

Marcus, 

 

I take my life in my hands by trying to steel man Glen.  But FRIWWMFTT.  I think that Glen means that whatever nonsense a series of mathematical proofs might spew, any attempt to explicate those proofs through narrative spews a bit more.   Adding to non-sense is a necessary feature of any explication.  Or:

All good explanations are also obfuscations.

Heard it first from me!

 

N

 

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of Marcus Daniels
Sent: Tuesday, January 5, 2021 2:23 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] truth, reality, & narrative

 

Glen writes:

 

< Those theorem-proof-theorem-proof books are nothing if not "pulling you along" ... gaslighting you with every proof. >

 

I'm not sure what you are getting at here.  For concreteness, suppose the books were Sage notebooks, and could export to Maxima or Mathematica.   Couldn’t one be reasonably confident in the correctness of the calculations by reproducing them with two or more completely independent code bases, as well as by inspection?    Or maybe you mean the books are taking the reader in some direction, where the reader mostly has to accept the story as one of many possible stories.  And by the time they are to the end of it, they are committed to a way of thinking?

 

Marcus

 

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