Re: JSH: Too much energy, defense

From: Nora Baron (norabaron_at_hotmail.com)
Date: 03/27/05 

Date: 27 Mar 2005 13:50:20 -0800

karllarc wrote:
> Nora, your feeding right into his needs. He loves it every time you
> argue with him, even though he won't admit to it. It gives merit to
his
> claims that you would spend so much time picking them apart. He will
> never admit to his failings, in his mind he will always be a super
> genius.
>
> I know I am asking this in vain, but please don't feed the TROLL.

Karllarc,

  I appreciate your advice. However I don't agree. Although
Harris has truly masterful troll *skills*, it is my feeling that he
is not a troll. There is a distinction between cranks and
trolls. The primary motivation for trolls is attention. They
don't much care whether they are right or wrong. Cranks believe
themselves to be right. Harris is in this category. It is
clear that he suffers anguish, not from being ignored, but from
failing to persuade anyone that his math is correct. He is
unfortunately deluded. He believes that he has special insight
into mathematics - that he has a gift to see through the
obfuscation of modern theory to simple truths which have been
previously overlooked. He thinks current mathematicians, wrapped
up in their abstruse theories, have lost sight of elementary
methods and insights.

  He rationalizes his rejection here by thinking that we are
are a jealous close-knit club and that the main credential to
get in is a PhD in math. We are excluding him because we cannot
admit that an amateur can do anything worthwhile.

  There is a remote chance that he can still be reached by a
logical argument. It isn't likely but it may be worth a try.
I think in any case that if people quit responding to his math,
it wouldn't slow him down at all. He has sent papers to well-
known mathematicians. He has communicated with math grad students.
He has sent papers to journals. He has even visited one of his
old professors at Vanderbilt to expound his theories. None of
these people has given him the slightest encouragement. Nor,
however, did they say outright that he is wrong. (Most people feel
like it is a no-win proposition to argue with a dedicated crank.).
Harris interprets their silence as evidence that he is right.
If we acquiesce to what he says here with no objections, he will
interpret that in the same way: that he has finally convinced
us by the superior force of his argument.

  He is now in the interesting position of claiming certain
results but being afraid to even state what they are. That is
how traumatized he has become as a result of previous failures. My
objective is to pry them out of him and subject them to scrutiny.
There is a remote chance that some crappy 4th-rate, carelessly edited
journal will (as Southwest J. Pure & Applied Math did) accidentally
publish something he has written. I think it is worthwhile to
keep that from happening. Convincing him he is wrong or at least
publicizing his errors should be one way to do that.

  Unfortunately the only times he has agreed to a counterargument
are when it is reduced to simple arithmetic (like, 2 + 2 = 3).
That he can understand and believe. He refuses to learn any theory
and uses that to force us to reduce theory to arithmetic - a good
exercise in any case. He has holed himself up now in such a way that
we do not even know what he claims to be true, so no such refutation
is possible. The objective now is to get him to commit himself to
a definite statement of some kind that can at least be argued about.

  Nora B.

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