Posted by
Steve Smith on
Aug 18, 2011; 6:44pm
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/no-one-shall-expel-us-from-the-paradise-that-Cantor-has-created-Hugh-Woodin-s-ultimate-L-Richard-Elw8-tp6699752p6700417.html
I appreciate your post Rich and owen and Bruce's responses.
I have a couple of observations:
1) I am always amazed (euphemism for offended) at our use of hyperbole
and superlatives in such things. We all know that mathematics and
science only has false-summits and that all "ultimates" are perpetual
"penultimates", and yet our rhetoric is always laced with absolutes and
mega-gigas and supra-ubers.
2) I have long been fascinated at the interplay between language and
deep understanding. I studied Esperanto alongside Greek and Latin and
Mathematics and Computer Languages in the hopes of finding the right
universal tool, or even a toolbox filled with appropriate tools to
think/communicate in qualitatively better ways. It was not for naught,
and perhaps if I did not have these in my toolbox I would either miss
them dearly or not know enough to miss them. But for the most part, my
improved thinking/communication feels quantitative, not qualitative.
3) Of the several auxiliary languages, I find Interlingua the easiest to
read/understand without any particular training... Esperanto seems to
rely heavily on Portuguese vocabulary/roots which are just (un)familiar
enough for me to find it difficult. In every case, I am not fluent
enough to feel I am able to *think* in these as alternate languages
while I do sometimes think in Spanish, in Mathematics, and in several
computer languages (for very narrow thinking unfortunately). I wish I
could think/percieve in musical structures or holographically, both of
which I have a formal understanding of but only limited intuition.
4) I found David Bohm's Rheomode and Dialogue even more compelling
because it went deeper than "merely" normalizing somewhat across
historical and cultural biases. Esperanto was a great 19th century idea
but I felt it did not go nearly far enough. I was (and am still to some
extent) enamored of his Holonomics and of course the Rheomode and
Dialogue, though the latter two seem under developed and somewhat naive.
- Steve
> Thanks, Rich, for the interesting note.
>
> For another kind of completeness, I'll comment that I speak Esperanto.
>
> In the period 1900-1905, approximately, there was a lot of interest
> among French intellectuals in the possible use of a constructed
> language for the purpose of international communications, with
> Esperanto the leading contender. This led to a conference of
> scientific groups that actually picked a language, Ido, which was a
> modified Esperanto which supposedly "fixed" perceived failings of
> Esperanto.
>
> Roughly speaking, Ido rejected the unusual non-European structure of
> Esperanto in favor of a more "naturalistic" scheme thought to appeal
> more to educated Europeans, and possibly easier for Europeans to read
> at sight (but likely to be more difficult to speak or write). The
> whole affair was a major schism which damaged the movement to adopt an
> easy-to-learn second language.
>
> Both Esperanto and Ido still exist in globally dispersed communities,
> but the Esperanto community has by far the largest number of speakers
> of all the constructed languages. It is difficult to get good numbers,
> but there are probably 50 to 100 thousand fluent speakers. I've even
> known a number of native speakers of Esperanto, born to parents who
> met in the Esperanto-speaking community and continued to speak the
> language at home.
>
> Few educated Americans have ever heard of Esperanto, and what they've
> heard is in my experience mostly incorrect. Google Esperanto for vast
> amounts of information, much of it accurate.
>
> An interesting math connection: Sometime around 1900 Peano, of
> mathematical fame, gave a talk in which he started in pure Latin,
> progressively during the talk introduced various simplifications, and
> by the end was speaking a much simplified Latin which he proposed for
> international use.
>
> Bruce
>
> On Thu, Aug 18, 2011 at 9:41 AM, Owen Densmore<
[hidden email]> wrote:
>> Wow, thanks Rich. And the follow-on conversation on the website is also
>> interesting.
>> I have to admit the Axiom of Choice has been puzzling to me, why its
>> importance, how it is applied and so on.
>> -- Owen
>>
>> On Thu, Aug 18, 2011 at 9:11 AM, Rich Murray<
[hidden email]> wrote:
>>> "no one shall expel us from the paradise that Cantor has created",
>>> Hugh Woodin's "ultimate L": Richard Elwes: Rich Murray 2011.08.18
>>>
>>>
>>>
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21128231.400-ultimate-logic-to-infinity-and-beyond.html?full=true>>>
>>> Ultimate logic: To infinity and beyond
>>>
>>> 01 August 2011 by Richard Elwes
>>> Magazine issue 2823.
>>>
>>> The mysteries of infinity could lead us to a fantastic structure above
>>> and beyond mathematics as we know it
>>>
>>> WHEN David Hilbert left the podium at the Sorbonne in Paris, France,
>>> on 8 August 1900, few of the assembled delegates seemed overly
>>> impressed. According to one contemporary report, the discussion
>>> following his address to the second International Congress of
>>> Mathematicians was "rather desultory". Passions seem to have been more
>>> inflamed by a subsequent debate on whether Esperanto should be adopted
>>> as mathematics' working language.
>>>
>>> Yet Hilbert's address set the mathematical agenda for the 20th
>>> century. It crystallised into a list of 23 crucial unanswered
>>> questions, including how to pack spheres to make best use of the
>>> available space, and whether the Riemann hypothesis, which concerns
>>> how the prime numbers are distributed, is true.
>>> <snip>
>> ============================================================
>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
>> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at
http://www.friam.org>>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at
http://www.friam.org============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at
http://www.friam.org