Litlog2018++

Polish protestors stopped by milicja, March 1968.

Mostly students, some academic instructors, perhaps all of them from Warsaw. This was but one group but quite eminent one.

wh, short 15--two wings

To fly, you need two wings. Look at the left wing's feathers and the respective right wing's feathers:

• discipline <--> imagination
• fear <--> courage
• modesty <--> confidence
• criticism <--> admiration
• yin <--> yang

Go up and high and far.

Class reunion, 1991.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lRWbQhuY6Q

Happy Valentine's poem, 1995

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the last summer concert
------ in San Jose ----​

wh,
1995-10-30
​

(I was sure that my Literotica Archive had this poem but I cannot find it there, strange).

Alexander Grothendieck (1928-2014)

Alexander Grothendieck among the greatest mathematicians of the second half of the twentieth century, and among the greatest ever. The work on hard problems (hard nuts) felt to him like this:

[...] immersing the nut in some softening liquid, and why not simply water? From time to time you rub so the liquid penetrates better, and otherwise, you let time pass. The shell becomes more flexible through weeks and months — when the time is ripe, hand pressure is enough, the shell opens like a perfectly ripened avocado!
​

and another image of working on mathematics by him:

[...] some stretch of earth or hard marl, resisting penetration ... the sea advances insensibly in silence, nothing seems to happen, nothing moves, the water is so far off you hardly hear it ... yet finally it surrounds the resistant substance.​

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Recently, I've quoted a boxing world champion Marvin Hagler (Marvelous). We can see that when you know something deep and intensively then you know poetry, and you are even able to express it (some did).

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Let's repeat what Alexander Grothendieck has said:


Indeed, on many occasions, even over long years.

Senna Jawa said:

Alexander Grothendieck among the greatest mathematicians of the second half of the twentieth century, and among the greatest ever. The work on hard problems (hard nuts) felt to him like this:

[...] immersing the nut in some softening liquid, and why not simply water? From time to time you rub so the liquid penetrates better, and otherwise, you let time pass. The shell becomes more flexible through weeks and months — when the time is ripe, hand pressure is enough, the shell opens like a perfectly ripened avocado!
​

and another image of working on mathematics by him:

[...] some stretch of earth or hard marl, resisting penetration ... the sea advances insensibly in silence, nothing seems to happen, nothing moves, the water is so far off you hardly hear it ... yet finally it surrounds the resistant substance.​

=====================

Recently, I've quoted a boxing world champion Marvin Hagler (Marvelous). We can see that when you know something deep and intensively then you know poetry, and you are even able to express it (some did).

=====================

Let's repeat what Alexander Grothendieck has said:

... through weeks and months ...​

​

Indeed, on many occasions, even over long years.

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Hagler is one of my favourite boxers too watch along with sugar ray and arturo gatti, skill heart determination and courage. A beautiful poem reoresentative of unfaltering determination and grinding the will into the body.

same as I can see with mental fortitude and the strength of resolve to pick up something difficult and work on it or at it. The art in perseverance is astounding at times

Post-WWII Poland, before 1989; a glimpse.

greenmountaineer said:

Senna,

I'm curious. What was life for you and your family like under the Communist regime in Poland?

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In those years there was a notorious shortage of apartments in Poland (it was still much worse in the USSR, e.g. in Moscow). There should be (I hope so) an English translation of a short novel by a very talented Marek Hasło, The eighth day of the week. Virtually, the whole novel circles around the problem of the youngsters in love who just are not able to find a private intimate place. In those days it seemed natural, you take such shortage for granted. I've reread this novel a couple years ago. It was extra depressing. I even felt (irrationally?) that's a nonsense to write a novel like this, I felt somehow angry that this talented writer wrote about such triviality.

In those years they were providing in Poland way too few new apartments. During Gomułka's reign, the new apartments were drastically small. Under communism, you mostly get apartments rather than buying them. And you wait and wait for them for 12-20 years or so. They would allow for apt cooperatives where you buy them. You wait for about 10-20 years anyway.

The half-joking half-serious knowledge was that if two lovers need some time to two of them then they buy theater tickets for the parents of one of them (or for anybody with an apt) so that they can get about 2.5h to themselves.

Well, the housing situation in the US has changed for the worse. In 1969-1970 I saw people had or were getting houses (not apt's) routinely, including advanced graduate students (teaching fellows), Blacks, and relatively poor people. The years of welfare economy has changed it for much worse. At least around 1985-1990, new PhD-engineers, who worked for the computer industry in Silicon Valley, started their families, got children, and were still buying houses without much sweat. I am afraid that these times are gone. Possibly, you know better. In Canada, till 1978, things were worse than in the US (but still pretty good). I don't know how it is now (the Canadian dollar went down over several years hence it can't be all rosy).

(Marek Hłasko has committed suicide, so sad).

Artur Rubinstein (the World, and Poland too, especially Poland)

I'll provide links with great Rubinstein playing (mostly) great Chopin
(however, Rubinstein played other great composers too, he even had influenced the way how music lovers looked at them):

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--

There are only so few great poets/poems, and so overwhelmingly many wonderful musicians/compositions. These days, many virtuosos come from China, Japan, Korea, ... Let me mention, in addition to Artur Rubinstein, a few from the past, and only pianists on this occasion: Vladimir Horowitz, Sviatoslav Richter, Martha Argerich, Kristian Zimerman, Evgeny Kissin, ... but there are so many more.

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No time for the World History?

Indeed, for instance, right now I have to rush to dinner. But I'll go back to it, I hope. When GM has asked me about a paragraph from my personal experience I couldn't help but see, step by step, the whole Book, The World History. I know only a scrap of a page here and there. For instance, it goes from me to Poland (and Russia) and communism to Stalin -> Hitler -> Franklin Roosevelt -> Bonaparte -> French-German experiences, China, medieval Europe ... but this also leads to the USA, Tadeusz Kościuszko, European anarchists, ...

I have to rush now, I may write something more concrete ( ) later.

General Tadeusz Kościuszko (1746-1817)

Throughout the whole History, since ancient times till these days, general Tadeusz Kościuszko was the noblest and most enlightened of all military and political leaders. He fought for the American and Polish freedom, and for the total social recognition of peasants, Black slaves and Jews--just for all people. In his will, he--a true pioneer--left all his money to free Blacks. In particular, this brave soldier was a superb military architect and military social engineer.

There are bridges in the New York City named after generals Tadeusz Kościuszko and Kazimierz Pułaski (1745-1779, the Polish father of American cavalry), there are many military leaders who deserve our utmost respect, many paid with their blood--including the two. And still, Kościuszko is unique.

For a huge contrast, we can look at General Napoleon Bonaparte. This may help to understand History and the complexities of the human nature (I don't even like the term "human nature" too much but this lousy concept is sometimes a handsome shortcut).

Senna Jawa said:

Throughout the whole History, since ancient times till these days, general Tadeusz Kościuszko was the noblest and most enlightened of all military and political leaders. He fought for the American and Polish freedom, and for the total social recognition of peasants, Black slaves and Jews--just for all people. In his will, he--a true pioneer--left all his money to free Blacks. In particular, this brave soldier was a superb military architect and military social engineer.

There are bridges in the New York City named after generals Tadeusz Kościuszko and Kazimierz Pułaski (1745-1779, the Polish father of American cavalry), there are many military leaders who deserve our utmost respect, many paid with their blood--including the two. And still, Kościuszko is unique.

For a huge contrast, we can look at General Napoleon Bonaparte. This may help to understand History and the complexities of the human nature (I don't even like the term "human nature" too much but this lousy concept is sometimes a handsome shortcut).

Click to expand...

It's hard trying to deal in the concrete when also relying on ambiguos broad definitions; human nature can be every variant of human behaviour but seems to be a good solid foundation to build from I.e. the philosophy of humanity can start with general capabilities and expand outward to social settings.

The question though is what is our biological nature and what is the cultural element that molds us beyond the biological imperative.

It brings many questions and little of the concrete.

But it is as good a generalised bridge as any.

Enjoying the history snippets and the commentary

wh, short 16--philosophy

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Philosophy is a blind man's sketchbook.
​

wh,
2018-04-03

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Senna Jawa said:

--

Philosophy is a blind man's sketchbook.
​

wh,
2018-04-03

--

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Glad to see the poetic wheels turning;

I do question why this would be the case. If its too much to explain then I have no qualms with this.

todski28 said:

If it's too much to explain then I have no qualms with this.

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Todski, you're my only conversation partner, how could I refuse you?!

todski28 said:

[...] why this would be the case

Click to expand...

You're asking me to talk about NOTHING. To do it solidly would feel up many volumes. Let me give a gist of it.

I know only one valuable philosophical principle:

That's all. And not too many people understand Occam's razor, it gets often misinterpreted. You find philosophy in pre- or post-scientific stages of different theories..

Here is a quote by one of the ten sharpest minds ever, Carl Friedrich Gauss:

_ When a philosopher says something that is true then it is trivial.
_ When he says something that is not trivial then it is false.

Science is modest. Its strength is objectivity (forget about the cases of pseudo-science).

Private religion, when no harm is meant, can be charming. Organized religion is dogmatic and arrogant but at least it makes sense, it means to control people. Say, it asks people to wash their hands and pray before a meal, that's great--you need to have clean hands and you should slow down before your dinner. On other occasions, a religion can be terrible, and often they are ridiculous because of their dogmatism, they insist on this or other nonsense too long.

Philosophy basically is a huge waste of time of funny talking except when philosophy is mixed with politics--then it is as harmful as any fanatical religion. Art is beautiful and sharp while philosophy is ugly and dense.

There were or are some decent people among philosophers but not too many. Some scientists are part-time philosophers--then they truly add to the knowledge only because of their science or mathematics, e.g. Descartes, Pascal and especially Leibnitz... Otherwise, almost all of them are dimwits or awful, to say the least.

To start with, extremely trivial, false and intellectually dishonest were philosophers Platon (428/7 to 424/3 BC) and Aristotle (384-382). It says something funny about the human race that such cheap frauds are so esteemed over more than two millennia.

An understanding of logical fallacy is useful. Philosophers did that first and best.
ETA that university enabled philosophers can be atrocious human beings, but probably that is not a quality monopolized by that profession.

cherries_on_snow said:

An understanding of logical fallacy is useful.

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Cherries, you claim that Carl Friedrich Gauss was wrong. Thus convince us, name and quote a philosopher who did something nontrivial, and who didn't just put their own name under other people's achievement.

cherries_on_snow said:

Philosophers did that first and best.

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. Back in Poland, around 1964-1965, I went to a show, which started with an actor asking the audience:

there were two identical satellites, of the same weight and orbit and duration. One was Soviet, the other one was American. Why was the Soviet satellite better?
​

The actor looked around the audience. Nobody knew the answer. Finally, the actor said: I don't know either.

Now, you Cherries, tell us why philosophers did "the best"? (Philosophers were hardly ever first at anything that made sense, far from it, and certainly not in anything significant except for the Occam's Razor; even this is a simple thing after all, profound though. I have a lot of examples of their dishonesty and muddy ways).

ETA

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What is ETA? (Estimated Time of Arrival?--perhaps not).

Edited to add. And ok. Let us look at the origins of logical fallacies. Where else might these definitions have come from than the deliberate effort after knowing what must be true?
ETA plato.stanford.edu/entries/fallacies

cherries_on_snow said:

Edited to add. And ok. Let us look at the origins of logical fallacies. Where else might these definitions have come from than the deliberate effort after knowing what must be true?

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I am not into unending questions. I thought that you will provide a NAME of a philosopher, and his/her CONCRETE nontrivial achievement. If you don't know any, then just say so or at least don't act like another philosopher who talks and nothing positive comes out of it.

This one time I will humor you. The most important so-called fallacies originate with mathematicians of the past who were stretching the scope of mathematics. Then they have risked paradoxes. Then philosophers and their students and the future philosophers were making their living out of the mathematician's work, they often arrogantly acted like they understood things.

Once David Hilbert introduced and popularized the formal approach to mathematics (about the year 1920+) there doesn't seem to be any room for the so-called fallacies (paradoxes). Since Hilbert, all result can be verified by a computer. Today, in practice, the actual computer formalization is in general still at an early stage (Andrzej Trybulec, 1941-2013, was a pioneer at this) but it is not too crucial for our discussion.

Actually, I myself have objections which are not talked about but this is a different story.

Anyway, the real work was always done by scientists, and philosophers did the posturing.

I'm a little bit stretching things because anybody who did something real is already a specialist in something, thus then they are only the part-time philosophers. However, the authors of Principia Mathematica, Alfred North Whitehead & Bertrand Russell, are still philosophers (and one of the paradoxes is attached to Russell). Thus, my anti-philosopher statement seems to be a tautology. Yin & Yang.

By the way, typical, the paradox is ATTACHED (mostly) to Russell while it was discovered about a year earlier by Ernst Zermelo, who told about it around the University of Göttingen (Hilbert, etc.). But it's a philosopher who gets recognition.

Regards,

Aristotle's logic found wide application, particularly in science and mathematics. Later Stoics, particularly Crysippus, developed predicate logic. Logic derived from mathematics first and applied to language afterward did not occur until the mid 19th century. Aristotle was first and arguably best.

But yeah ok I am semi bullshitting. This was lifted from Wikipedia. The Stanford article was too lengthy to easily summarize. I despise one philosopher but figure I should give the rest a break. Oh yeah. ETA.

cherries_on_snow said:

Aristotle's logic found wide application, particularly in science and mathematics. Later Stoics, particularly Crysippus, developed predicate logic. Logic derived from mathematics first and applied to language afterward did not occur until the mid 19th century. Aristotle was first and arguably best.

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(Do you mean Chrysippus?).

Aristotle's logic? What logic?! A bunch of ad hoc, poorly organized, obvious statements, and you already pay attention to this junk? You act like you cannot tell the true profound deep results from Aristotle's blah-blah-blah. A huge impossible gulf is between profoundness and your Aristotle's junk, etc. You talk like a philosopher yourself. Centuries before Aristotle, ancient Greek mathematicians created a mathematical reality of rational proportions. They have created a harmonious theory, something similar to Newtonian mechanics or Einstein's relativity theory (say, General Relativity). Except that this vision broke down! Mathematicians were so good that they have discovered intervals which were not comeasurable. A Pythagoras' student made this discovery. Then Eudoxus of Cnidus did something incredible, outstanding--he created the full system of proportions, equivalent to the present modern system of real numbers by Richard Dedekind (German). Eudoxus did a lot more, he introduced geometric integration--he computed the volume of any pyramid, etc. Two plane polyhedra of the same area can be finitely decomposed and recomposed into disjoint triangles, one from another. This kind of a finite decomposition for a tetrahedron and cube of the same volume is impossible! This impossibility was shown only just before the year 1900. Nevertheless, the genius of Eudoxus was able to overcome this impossibility, he managed to provide a cube of the same volume as any given tetrahedron or even pyramid.

All this happened centuries before Aristotle who was able only to talk a lot of nonsense. ...wide application? From Aristotle? Ha-ha-ha!!! And in particular your Chrysippus still just talked hm-intelligently like philosophers do, blah-blah... fine, great, but not much out of it followed.

It's not only that Plato and Aristotle, so politically minded, were nothing but muddy talking but also later many philosophers to this day practice this disgusting phony referencing to these two guys.

Unfortunately, regular folks, including many superficially intelligent high IQ folks, can't tell the difference between something profound and something virtually empty, be it research papers or simply statements of results. Archimedes was before Aristotle. Just think like incredible was Archimedes law about bodies immersed in a liquid. And compare it with the ridicules philosophers' garbage about air and water and fire and soul and all this nonsense--philosophical vomit.

Thomas S. Kuhn (1922-1996) about Arystotle

Thomas Kuhn used to be a physicist but switched to the history of science (thus he himself became a bit of a philosopher). There is an interview with him conducted at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), where Kuhn worked from 1972 to 1979 almost non-stop for almost 7 years (hm, I could have met him at IAS during my 1973/4 year, possibly I saw him or he saw me ). Reference: "Who got Einstein's Office?" by Ed Regis; ISBN 0-201-12065-8, 0-201-12278-2(pbk); (c) 1987 by Ed Regis.

Kuhn seems to be in awe of Aristotle. Nevertheless, this is what he says from his on his knees position:


Then about ten more lines about Aristotle's garbage follow, just sick. Then silly Kuhn asks:

[...] is it conceivable that his errors had been so blatant?
​

Then at some moment, poor Kuhn experiences something of an epiphany ( ), looks through Aristotle's eyes and everything seems from then on a kind of ok. Then Kuhn wants to look at the whole science in a similar way.

Talking about a double standard and nonsense. Somehow, in the case of Eudoxus, Archimedes, Fermat, Newton, Gauss, and so many other true thinkers, you never have to look through their eyes, you simply look at things OBJECTIVELY--only then the things make sense.

All this Aristotle junk is just awful! So many buy it without any questions (on an eternal discount; no wonder that Cherries buys this garbage too ).

Oh, Aristotle's characteristics talents--yeah, sure, like political talents and for BS.

So, Senna, who if not philosophers defined logical fallacies?

I understand how you may dislike the concept seeing how heavily you rely on them in your arguments.

cherries_on_snow said:

I understand how you may dislike the concept seeing how heavily you rely on them in your arguments.

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Cherries, finally you start to see the light. It's good to see your slow but systematic progress.

Share with us what you mean specifically by "the concept" (at this moment you're vague), and spell out specifically what you mean by "your arguments". Actually, I provide FACTS, not any "arguments". I mentioned the ancient Greek theory of proportions, the discovery of irrational proportions, the Eudoksus total theory of proportions (equivalent to Dedekind's real numbers), I mentioned his geometric method of integrations, applied to the otherwise intractable challenge of computing the volume of pyramids, ... Thus, I am still waiting for your meaningful arguments and facts, you may start now.

cherries_on_snow said:

who if not philosophers defined logical fallacies?

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Cherries, first of all, state "fallacies", list them one after another, the ones which seem to you important.

Scientists, including mathematicians, are modest. They see trivial things, they live with them on an everyday basis, but they are not in a hurry to attach to those trifles their name. Occasionally, later some people may do it. Mathematicians care for ingenious and/or hard results. On the other hand, philosophers crave for recognition, they name is all over the place where mathematicians are above such trivial PR+business+politics games. On the top of it, some philosophers commit intellectual stealing and/or some philosophers do it on behalf of the earlier philosophers. Once again, mathematicians are modest, they value their name, they respect other authors of true results; while philosophers are shameless, they do not have respect for the knowledge.

(I need to rush again, perhaps for the better ).

Why did Bonaparte attempt to subjugate Russia?

Napoleon Bonaparte was famous as a military strategist but he also promoted the French revolution ideas outside France. Actually, Napoleon respected and was concerned socially only about Western Europe. When it comes to things like the metric system, it got spread out throughout entire world but for the British Imperium. In the social domain, Napoleon was ready to conquer the entire world but without spreading his social reforms there as well. Tadeusz Kościuszko already had experience of fighting against British and Russians, so that Napoleon tried to involve Kościuszko. Kościuszko had responded with some preconditions, and soon they got mutually disgusted one with another and vice versa; thus nothing came out of it. Kościuszko demanded to free Polish farmers (peasants), and he asked for proper territorial guarantees for Poland. Many other Poles were devoted to Bonaparte. For tens of years, many Poles had a naive attachment to France. And there is also this romantic love story of Maria Countess Walewska and Emporer Napoleon I; well, it was romantic at least on the Waleska's part.

In a contrast to the selfless and idealistic Kościuszko, Napoleon was selfish and ego-driven. If you know about the dealings and relations between French politicians and activist on one hand and Napoleon on the other, I'd be happy to listen.

***************

About the title question:


I don't know (but for some vague ideas). He tried to win the war by the military means, and he lost bad, he lost everything. Bonaparte could win easily and instantly the moment he would give Russian farmers land--that's what Kościuszko would do (he was attempting to do it in Poland within his space of influence).

A couple centuries earlier, for a longer time, Polish aristocrats could do in Russia whatever they wanted, they would go back and forth to Moscow on occasions. However, it was not worth the effort to stay in Russia, to attempt anything. At one time they established a Polich dimwit as Russian Tsar, he didn't last long, I don't even remember his name. OK, see Polish–Muscovite War.

BTW, if you replaced Bonaparte by Hitler, and Russia by the USSR, then I have a perfect answer, and it seems that I am the only one (except that I shared my explanation with several people). Let me add that Hitler could win in the USSR too if he gave land to Soviet farmers except for that fascism and communism don't work this way.