Re: JSH: Pure math, sci.math and reptiles
From: Nora Baron (norabaron_at_hotmail.com)
Date: 02/02/05
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Date: 2 Feb 2005 08:40:22 -0800
Kin Chung wrote:
> Nora Baron wrote:
> [snip]
> >>So you see some posters who just mindlessly reply, year after year,
> >>literally.
> >>
> >>I find it fascinating, but also, sad and disturbing as the reality
of
> >>human behavior is that much of it is not sentient, not aware, but
> >>instead much of it, like that of posters here, is reflexive,
> >>instinctive.
> >>
> > You "find it fascinating". You say it is "not sentient", that it
> > is "reflexive, instinctive". The subtext here is: you are a
> > supersentient, superlogical superior being, looking down with
> > bitterness and mild amusement upon us reptilian automatons. You
> > are the genius and we are a cackling horde of brainless but jealous
> > dinosaurs, trying to keep you down and away from your rightful fame
> > and glory.
> >
> > So explain why in hundreds of arguments, over and over again,
> > over 9 years, you have lost purely on the grounds of mathematical
> > logic - lost after saying we were all liars and cheats, and then
> > had to say "Oops! I was wrong!" Is that what superbeings do,
> > over and over again?
>
>
> Having observed (and tangled with in the past) both James Harris and
> Archimedes Plutonium over the last 10+ years, it appears that both
are
> "playing for keeps".
I don't know much about Plutonium - from what I have seen there
is no reason to give him any credence at all. Certainly Harris is
serious - he definitely falls in the crank category [believes what
he says, mostly] rather than the troll category [just wants
attention, probably doesn't really believe what he says].
> Under this approach, it doesn't matter how many
> times Harris is wrong or embarassed publicly---he just has to be
correct
> once and his fame will be assured with all the failures forgotten.
As
> an example, Plutonium once said to me "I may be wrong this time, but
> what if I am right?" or something to that effect.
>
Harris rarely says he may be wrong this time. His pattern is:
argue at great length - accuse your critics of being liars and
cheats and suppressors-of-the-truth, etc.,- then eventually be forced
to admit that he is wrong and the critics are right - and THEN all
he ever remembers from the episode is, his critics were liars
and cheats and suppressors-of-the-truth, and he starts all over
again. I don't know about Plutonium, but Harris adds a strong
dose of nastiness to his arguments.
> To me, it's like the gambler who keeps feeding the slot machine,
> throwing good money after bad. There is a demotivational poster (see
> www.despair.com) that says "Quitters never win, winners never quit,
but
> those who never win AND never quit are idiots." Harris believes he's
a
> winner who never quits. Enough said.
True enough. However Harris puts in just enough to sometimes raise
an interesting mathematical question, or enough to make it a
challenge to find a really simple way to prove him wrong (since he
refuses to learn or accept any actual theory). You are right, it is
very much like gambling addiction - I think gamblers often have a
feeling of destiny - that somehow they have been chosen to get
lucky and that the big win is just around the corner. Every now
and then they win a little bit, and this just reinforces this
feeling, and they keep going till they are broke. In Harris's
case, his feeling of destiny may have had its origin in his being
identified when he was a kid as brighter-than-average. He has
never realized that that does not confer special status - that to
fulfill the promise, you also have to work a lot harder than
average - he always thinks he has special insight that makes it
unnecessary for him to work hard and learn even the basics. For
a boy wonder, high school math is all you need.
Nora B.
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