Re: Tackling John Baez Head-On
- From: "OsherD" <mdoctorow@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 12 Apr 2005 11:20:32 -0700
>>From Osher Doctorow
So we come to Logic, and here we have a fantastic farce which might
have inspired the Loop Quantum Gravity farce. It's enough to make one
wonder about human "evolution" - was it possibly "devolution"?
Algebraists claim Logic as their own. Of course, they claimed
Arithmetic as their own until the national Security Agency (NSA)
revealed their cryptographic activites, after which Algebraists started
relinquishing title. But not to be beat by Algebraists, a number of
Logicians including some Mathematical Logicians who were trying to
figure out what other more popular branch of mathematics to ally
themselves with decided that they were a branch of Algebra. I mean,
why go against popular fads? And there really are some Ingenious
Imitators in Mathematical and Non-Mathematical Logic who go around
looking at all the Algebraic ramifications of Logic which they can
find, which should keep them in print at least until the Monkeys retype
Shakespeare (so much for Peer Review in its usual form).
Of course, Logic isn't Algebra. Logic is used in all mathematical
proofs. Let me repeat that for the
visually-impaired-but-not-physically-blind: Logic is used in all
mathematical proofs. That means that Algebra might be a branch of
Logic (no thanks, I don't want it - you can have it), but definitely
not vice versa. So all parts of Physics that use mathematical proofs
use Logic. Nice? Very very nice.
But darn it, man, why can't Algebra claim Logic since there are so few
Logical operations? Well, ask Saunders MacLane (not literally - if
he's alive, he isn't very communicative). He still hasn't discovered
the set:
1) (A-->B) = (AB' )' = A' U B
Now notice that - with all his Objects, Functors, Morphisms,
Commutative Diagrams, he hasn't stumbled upon the most elementary set
of Probable Influence (PI). So what exactly has he stumbled upon? I
was in a forum on David Bohm some years ago, and a Professor who mostly
just read the forum and "lurked" there emailed me that he was into
Symplectic structures with Category Theory. Perhaps Saunders is into
Apoplectic structures?
Now I can't close this post without referring to "fallout" or "side
effects". If Category Theory and Algebraic Topology and Algebraic
Geometry weren't only invented in order to "unify" mathematics and/or
sciences (sort of like salary-hungry teachers claiming that
Schwarzenegger is punishing "poor little children"), what side effects
and other motivations might they have had? Try Latin in Christian
services, Hebrew in Jewish services, Arabic or Farsi or other languages
in Islamic services, etc. Fewer people understand it. To be really
proficient in Algebraic Geometry, Algebraic Topology, and Category
Theory, you should have Ph.D.s in both Mathematics and Physics with
specialties in these branches. Or you try to read John Baez' columns
for the next 200 years (well, biology is advancing if nothing else).
With fewer people who understand it, Publish-or-Perish never runs of
money, criticism, or for that matter Accountability to the public or to
the Individual. But I don't want to scare Jack Sarfatti with
psychological terminology like the Subconscious. Maybe I can find a
reference for him somewhere in David Bohm's writings?
Osher Doctorow
.
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