Re: Importance of Failure
From: W. Dale Hall (mailtodhall_at_farir.com)
Date: 02/23/05
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Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2005 03:27:46 GMT
jstevh@msn.com wrote:
> One type of post I've noticed come up every once in a while is a post
> where some person is informing me that if I don't have everything
> figured out, I shouldn't post.
>
Right, that's once in a while.
Is it the case that these people are the same ones as those who are
actually spending their time finding your errors, and pointing them
out, and explaining what's correct and what isn't?
Don't answer, it was rhetorical. Instead, I'll hand you the answer: NO.
Now, who is it who should be hauled into court, cake-walked (er,
perp-walked), torn limb from limb, killed by the army, had their
livelihoods taken from them, burn in hell, AND, have the worst day
of their lives... (as if the former weren't bad enough) ???
Who is practicing fraud, dishonesty, deceit, and bad hygiene?
Very few people really think that progress happens without failure.
However, some of us get vilified for having the nerve of pointing out
your constant errors. Some get taken to task for suggesting that you
might take a math course, or read a math book, or LEARN something,
for Pete's sake.
> Another of the same variety, informs me that I should have every detail
> worked out formally before I dare to put something out in public.
>
> However, in real research failure is part of work, and public failure
> is not as important as wasting time with flawed ideas.
>
Yes, and so are the normal bodily functions important aspects of life.
We all know that public defecation is not as important as having a
balanced diet. So what?
> I still like the sports analogy of baseball, and I think a LOT of
> people in intellectual circles just don't get how important lessons are
> in sports, like how even the best players mostly fail--and VERY
> PUBLICLY FAIL.
>
I see, you're a Major Leaguer. You got game. How do we know you got
game? Easy: look at how frequently you fail!
> Many of you could not handle it. You'd pee in your pants at the very
> thought of being in front of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even
> millions of people to try something where you knew going in that more
> than likely you would fail--though I doubt ballplayers actually think
> of that going in--as you believe that the way the world works is that
> the top people, the best people, make it their business to never
> publicly fail.
>
Most people past their mid-twenties realize that failure is a part of
life. Almost all successful people realize that it isn't the failure
that matters, but what you do with it.
> That's just totally wrong.
>
> The top people, the best people, fail quite publicly, and in quite
> grand ways, over and over again, but other people in considering the
> fantasy of being at the top of their game, believe that the reality is
> perfection, or near perfection, where failure is avoided at all costs.
>
> The best way for a ballplayer to avoid failure at all costs is to quit
> the game.
>
Oh, and don't forget:
- Blame everyone else for all of your own failures!
- Whine endlessly about how unfair the world is, and
threaten everyone who observes your failure!!
- Predict that the world will end becuase other people
have point out that you're currently failing!!!
That's how the CHAMPS do it!!!!
> Some in looking at my many failures over the years have gone on to give
> me more advice, like I should just quit.
>
> Yet that was years ago. I think telling me to quit is a silly way to
> publicly fail, especially when I can talk about my accomplishments
> since the first people told me, ordered me, to quit.
>
> For over five years I toiled without a major result, and now I have
> four.
>
If you're counting FLT, you *really* shouldn't.
If you're counting your "algebraic integers are flawed" alleged result,
you shouldn't. I've shown that your technique produces at least one
flawed conclusion, and so is unreliable.
If you're counting the Prime Counting work, you might as well feel proud
to have come across some nice 18th century work. Minor tweaks to work
that's over a hundred years old isn't really earth-shattering, however.
The alleged differential equation, nah.
Also, you might well feel proud of your Surrogate Factoring work, but
haven't really proven anything, and as far as the "it works, but doesn't
always work" schtick is kind of broken. Something that doesn't always
work, just plain doesn't work, unless you can put some sense into the
phenomenon of failures. Until then, it's nothing more than a curiosity,
and not worth getting het up over.
> These results have a real world impact, though many try to deny them,
> and that impact grows with each passing day.
>
What you *should* give up on is this business of wagging your privates
in the town square and proclaiming how enormously huge you are.
> Now the people who are looking at public failure are the people who
> spend so much time trying to control me and what I do.
>
Sez yoo. C'mon with The Hammer, The Powers That Be, your Friends in High
Places, The Generals Who Like You, and all those other vain threats that
must make you quiver in anticipation! Let's see that mighty swing, man!
Have you ever been in a theater or at a concert, when someone in the
immediate vicinity simply CANNOT behave himself?
YAMMERYAMMERYAMMERYAMMERYAMMERYAMMERYAMMERYAMMER
... er, excuse me?
YAMMERYAMMERYAMMERYAMMERYAMMERYAMMERYAMMERYAMMER
... ahem. Um, EXCUSE ME?
YAMMERYAMMERYAMMERYAMMERYAMMERYAMMERYAMMERYAMMER
YAMMERYAMMERYAMMERYAMMERYAMMERYAMMERYAMMERYAMMER
...Hey you. Yes you! Could you hold it down a bit?
some of us would like to hear what's going on!
YAMMERYAMMERYAMMERYAMMERYAMMERYAMMERYAMMERYAMMER
YAMMERYAMMERYAMMERYAMMERYAMMERYAMMERYAMMERYAMMER
YAMMERYAMMERYAMMERYAMMERYAMMERYAMMERYAMMERYAMMER
...Come on, could you knock it off, or hold your
YAMMERWANNAYAMMERfest out in the hallway?
HEY MAN, YOU DON'T CONTROL ME!!!
YAMMERYAMMERYAMMERYAMMERYAMMERYAMMERYAMMERYAMMER
YAMMERYAMMERYAMMERYAMMERYAMMERYAMMERYAMMERYAMMER
YAMMERYAMMERYAMMERYAMMERYAMMERYAMMERYAMMERYAMMER
This is what you're talking about, meester yammeryammer man.
> I'm more or less, to use another football analogy, like a massive
> linebacker who just keeps pushing forward, with lots of little people
> dragging at me in various ways, fighting to hold me back--and failing.
>
Oh, a massive linebacker! A muscle-bound steroidal hulk with balls
the size of raisins and only hulkoidal rage as his motivation? It
about fits.
If others were failing, just what is it they were failing at?
Did people fail to prove to you how you haven't proven FLT? That's
no one's joh! You have to convince the world you're right (which you
haven't done). You haven't done as much. No one else is to blame.
Did you prove to anyone that the algebraic integers are somehow flawed?
No, but every one of your purported defects turned out to be no defect
at all. Your vaunted "coefficient is coprime to 5" was patently false,
and you admitted as much. Is that anyone's failure but yours?
Did anyone fail to show that your prime counter is as slow as molasses?
Did anyone fail to show that your whizbang factorization concept works
slower than random choice?
I'm not getting the bit how everyone is failing, unless it's
You keep puting forth these bozo ideas, and keep insisting
until it's not even funny any more, how you're right, how
everyone else is wrong, and how there'll be some terrible
consequences when the truth comes out!
> MASSIVE FAILURE is often just a way to move forward, as you look at
> what went wrong, where your mistakes were, and try to see where to go
> next.
>
Sometimes MASSIVE FAILURE is nothing more. Just MASSIVE FAILURE.
If you keep going over the same old steps, and keep ignoring any
suggestion that you might avoid making the same old mistakes by
just investing a little of that precious mind in a bit of learning,
then the pattern of MASSIVE FAILURE is pretty much a dead end.
You don't learn a thing. Perhaps you didn't get that memo? It's
not the failure that matters, it's what you do with it! There was
a second page: you have to LEARN what it was that knocked you back.
Did you LEARN anything from your FLT fiasco?
???
Did you LEARN anything from your flawed work on algebraic integers?
Did you LEARN anything from your rehash of Legendre's Method?
Did you LEARN anything from your slow-as-molasses fast factorer?
Well???
> But I don't pretend that it's some magnificent thing that I do keep
> going--in spite of the orders to stop--as I basically do what I enjoy.
>
Oh, I thought your proclamations of victory, of the glory of discovery,
the thrill of the chase, and the richly rewarding glow of being the only
one apprehend mathematical reality directly, among all humankind, were
just that: pretense that you were engaged in a magnificent enterprise.
> If you learn nothing else in this life, you should learn that you will
> always fail at trying to convince someone that they do not enjoy
> something they do enjoy.
>
Who ever said you shouldn't have a nice day?
However, if I were an incurable "breaker of the wind", and had
particularly noxious emissions, as it were, then it would only
be reasonable for someone to try to convince me to avoid travelling
in crowded (or even populated) elevators. It's not the enjoyment
that should be denied, but the power of that enjoyment to accomplish
antisocial ends.
Your articles would nearly be welcome if you would hold off the
rudeties (as contrasted with niceties).
They're harshing my mellow, man!
> I enjoy what I do. I don't like the failures, but I accept that they
> are part of doing what I enjoy.
>
I can only take that to mean that you enjoy being the jerk.
> Some of you will make posts that basically boil down to trying to
> convince me that I don't enjoy what I enjoy, and you will stupidly
> fail, as I do enjoy what I enjoy.
>
And you enjoy being the jerk.
> But then again, failure is part of life. Maybe some of you, in failing
> to convince me, can learn from your errors.
>
It isn't the failure to convince you of the truth that's the
problem! It's the failure to convince you that you have no
natural right to threaten, insult, mock, or abuse anyone who
addresses you in a polite tone, but who merely points out your
errors. In being the *usual* originator of intemperate tone in
the threads you initiate, you are violating common decency.
It makes no sense to back off from dealing with the unsavory
aspects of your method of discourse, despite what you must
be suggesting.
Otherwise, what is the lesson? What is *your* lesson?
To kowtow to the bully, the jerk?
When kids hassle folks in the parking lots,
we should skulk away?
When the gangs want to run through the neighborhoods
and trash yards and cars, we should hide under our
covers?
When they want to run people out who won't go with
having a crack house across the street, and hookers
on the sidewalk, and when kids get shot for wearing
the wrong shirt or having the wrond sneakers, we
should just back down?
Is that the neighborhood you live in? Do you like it like that?
> I will keep doing what I clearly enjoy, and take the failures with it,
> just like a professional ballplayer.
>
Ah, a professional ballplayer. Without a knowledge of the rules of the
game, nor of the shape of the ball, nor any standard [let alone non-
standard] technique,
only to be made up for by the winning personality
of a spoiled three-year-old.
>
> James Harris
>
Dale
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