Re: *THE* PUZZLE (was: ascension, Smullyan, ...)

From: Bruno Marchal <marchal.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2006 12:38:13 +0200

Le 20-juin-06, à 04:04, Norman Samish a écrit :


> I've endured this thread long enough!  Let's get back to something I
> can understand!
>  
> "Why?" you'll ask.
>  
> I'll reply, "Because your audience is shrinking!  I've plotted the
> Audience vs. Topic, and find that, in 12.63 months, there is a 91%
> probability that, if the topic doesn't become understandable to one
> with an IQ of 120, your audience will be zero, and the only expositor
> will be Bruno. 



I thought only politicians were interested in audience (during
electoral period!).






> Not that there's anything wrong with that, but we must acknowledge
> that Bruno speaks a language that very few of us can understand. 


Please ask when you don't understand, unless you are not interested. I
insist enough that there is no stupid questions. Perhaps, like so many
(especially in france and Belgium) you get some traumatic experience
with math and you did persuade yourself you cannot understand math. My
experience is that people who believes they does not understand math,
well in 99,9999% are just imagining difficulties which does not exist
at all. They are too much clever! Like henry Poincare I believe
mathematics is the easiest of all the fields. Human psychology is the
most complex one.




> Bruno, and probably Russell and a few others, are clearly Homo
> Superior, while the rest of us are mere Homo Sapiens."


I am talking to the the Machina Universalis. Todays, with the exception
of those who got a highly injured brain, current universal machines are
still *very* far from being as clever as the stupidest human.
I bet you have just miss some definition, in which case it is all
normal you miss the track.




>  
> You will then say, "Our discourse is meant for Homo Superior.  If you
> can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen."


I am addressing the most "inferior" of all the creatures, the simple
mind common to all of us (but yes sometimes traumatized by teaching
driven by pure competition or moral sadism. Note that, I have nothing
against competition *per se*, but everything against competition for
competition and form of social elitism based on it, which has lead us
to some form of in-numeracy.


>  
> I'll reply, "Damn!  I was hoping to learn something!"


Just tell us what you don't understand. Do you grasp the notion of
function from N to N? Do you know what N refers to? Just ask. You have
the opportunity of being in front of a math teacher who is willing to
explain you the basic starting from zero. Not just because I would be
so compassionned, but because later it will be capital to understand
that what I say can be understandable, in some sense, by very simple
machine.

What are your relation with computers? Theoretical computer science is
a field which you can get startling results quickly when starting from
zero. This is rather uncommon.

Also, we are discussing since years. It is all normal that we arrive at
delicate points needing to be more specific, especially in
counterintuitive-land.

Come back in the kitchen Norman. You can understand the thread, and if
you ask all the needed question, perhaps the audience will grow up
again! Because then many other will benefit from your questions.

I don't believe in non-mathematicans! Those who say "I have never
understand math" are just either snobbish, or have been mentally
destroyed by some mad teacher (frequent in some country).

Bruno


http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/


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Received on Tue Jun 20 2006 - 06:49:50 PDT

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