New Math

As an Asst Prof in the early 1970s, I had a colleague whose office was a couple of doors down the hall. He was a retired Army colonel with an MA in math, and he taught some of the remedial and freshman courses. One day, early in the semester, he burst into the department chair's office, red in the face and clearly angry,"What is this shit!? Why prove a*0=0???" We were using Vance for College Algebra and there it was in chapter one. I was less vocal, but I too found it ridiculous to toss bits of math foundations into a more or less utilitarian course.

Proof: a*0=0

Note in the Wiki piece that Time magazine called New Math one of the 100 worst ideas of the twentieth century. :cool: — jgill

I don't know if this is relevant but- The education controllers did the same thing with teaching reading. I could not learn to read because when I was that age the school was using the "look and say method", not phonics. Many of us could not read without learning phonics and fortunately for me my grandmother was a teacher and spent a summer teaching me to read and spell.

It would be interesting to do MRI's of learning brains. What happens in the brain when it absorbs the lesson and what happens in the brain when there is no learning?

"The four core learning styles in the VARK model include visual, auditory, reading and writing, and kinesthetic." https://sphero.com/blogs/news/learning-styles-for-kids#:~:text=What%20are%20the%20four%20learning,reading%20and%20writing%2C%20and%20kinesthetic.

I find, that when I can not see it, I may have trouble thinking it. Phonics has a mechanical nature to it. It is slower but it is also closer to seeing how the symbols work together. Take that away and reading is like the explanation of proof. A jumble of symbols that do not make sense. My brain does not cross that gap. A picture of one apple and a picture of no apple make sense. What is seen with the explanation of proof? We teach math with pictures. How many apples are in the box? But a prove? If all I see is symbols, the me that is trying to learn, screams and runs away. Does that make sense? I would like to break through that barrier and be able to understand the language of symbols.

Imagine that! Perhaps human history can be retold in terms of how many and how big our failures were/are rather than as it's usually told to us, a sequence of successes. I wish I had the time and resources to do that; no worries, some are already on the job (re History's Biggest Mistakes, a book by....). — Agent Smith

I love that idea! Maybe that would give us a much better perspective on the meaning of being human.

I'm not sure I've known a colleague becoming that euphoric, but it is a really good feeling when understanding dawns. It's mostly a game of exploring concepts. But I only taught at the college level and know little of techniques used in K-12. However, the modern math movement supported by university mathematicians during the 1960s and 1970s was a failure - I ventured into it when I taught a freshman algebra course. For a few very motivated students it worked well.

As to motivation, part if not most may have to come with genetics, like musical talent. — jgill

Oh dear! What can you tell me about the 1960s-1970s math education failure? :broken: I really care. I consider my failure to understand higher math as my worst disability. I so wish my school had put geometry before algebra. I am drawn to geometry as it is explained by Michael S. Schneider in "A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe- The Mathematical Archetypes of Nature, Art, and Science".

Dropping art and music as unnecessary liberal education is so wrong because they go with understanding math. And if we had a good understanding of these things we would have a better understanding of science and then a better understanding of life. And we would use such understanding for philosophical discussions and live happily ever after. Then we would have good moral judgment and a strong democracy. :heart: I write to repair my broken heart.

Here is a video of Professor Satyan L. Devadiss, the professor who gets very emotional about math. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yR6saOaGXNg

Thank you for agreeing with me ,(it's rare to see that on a forum like this one!). Yes, the fundamental issue with unmitigated consumerism is that it is a road to nowhere. Instead of enjoying the good, it always tries to needlessly dig holes when the ground was already filled up. We should have a balanced approach.

Sharing knowledge is undoubtedly a great way to obtain happiness! — DA671

You have soothed a painful wound. I was expressing my joy of learning and how I what others to interact with me in another forum and a mod closed thread. This is not unusual. I made many enemies several years ago by answering a professor's question by saying "I am a seeker of knowledge." What is up with that intense anger towards someone who delights in learning? :worry: What has gone wrong with our society, people feeling anger towards those who enjoy
? That resentment goes against a love of democracy. And when I spoke of being poor, it is my understanding that Socrates was poor. There should be no shame for pursuing knowledge instead of wealth and I think in a democracy that pursuit of knowledge should be free. Can you help me with this- what is the virtue/moral of what knowledge for the sake of knowledge?

And for darn sure, good manners are essential to our intellectual development and the progression of our civilization. When people come to a forum they should feel safe to express what they think and they should never have to fear being attacked. Challenging their idea is wonderful because that is one way to develop our thinking and moves a discussion forward, but keeping these 3 rules in mind is helpful.

1. We are respectful because we are respectful people.
2. We protect the dignity of others.
3. We do everything with integrity.

Seems to me if we follow those rules, it pretty much handles most human problems.

↪Athena Money is a key, but not the central, cause of happiness. I agree with much of what you have written. I think that a major issue in our modern society is that people intentionally create unnecessary desires in order to acquire superficial pleasures instead of focusing on the subtle yet more potent good of contentment. I hope that our perspectives will change. Music, family, beauty, and the pursuit of knowledge can be sources of indelible fulfilment. May people get the happiness they deserve! I hope that you have an amazing day! — DA671

I like your words "intentionally create unnecessary desires in order to acquire superficial pleasures". This seems very much the focus of our consumer society, and this is worrying. For one thing, it is very bad for our planet and it leads to believing happiness is what is outside of who we are, leaving us dependent on an external world for our happiness, instead of developing our inner world.

My favorite math professor loves math and he gets so excited when he talks about it. He makes comments such as "cry for the joy" of the math principle he is talking about. I don't think he needs anything else in life other than his joy of math and sharing it. That is not "a superficial pleasure" and wouldn't it be wonderful if everyone had such an internal pleasure? I know when someone expands my understanding of a concept, I feel extreme joy. Nothing makes me happier than the enlightenment feeling of getting a better sense of meaning. Except I am dependent on all of you for this pleasure. Reading is very beneficial but it is much more fun when I know I am going to share my new ideas with all of you. There is a social component to my sense of pleasure.

My dear lady, that was done long ago. Regardless of categories. :cool: — jgill

OH come on. I was looking forward to a better answer. One that might help me understand what you are talking about. When it comes to math, I am an idiot, but an idiot who delights in the subject. To me math is perhaps the best magic wand we can have. What we can know and do with math is totally awesome and my point is we do not teach math as needs to be taught. Instead of trying to "program" little minds with math that our high-tech society demands, excite them with the history of math and the wonders of math such as the magic pi. I swear, few math teachers truly love math so the best they can is "program" the little brains that are programable, but they can pass on a love of math and they turn children off.

I think in the past it may have been easier to be happy? I really am not sure about that. Aging chances our thinking soooo much! I grew up thinking happiness was a happy family. I didn't exactly grow up with that, but in Dick and Jane books family was the center of all happiness and that always made sense to me. It just is NOT what I experienced in my life. :lol:

Early in life, I realized accomplishing something resulted in much more happiness than going to a party.
I was chasing after happiness and it was always out of reach or ended as soon as the party ended, but gardening, hard work over a period of time, and then getting the results of that work, was experienced as a happiness that stayed with me. Kind the difference between eating empty calories or healthy food. Feeling satisfied by my own work was more satisfying than temporary, frivolous happiness. Few people have the land for gardening today.

Nature has always been a source of happiness for me, but I grew up in LA county in California and witnessed concrete and blacktop covering the ground from mountain to mountain. I am extremely thankful that where I live now the banks of the river have been preserved as natural areas with parks along the way and within half an hour I can out of town and in nature. I would swear, much insanity is caused by the loss of nature.

There have been times in history when music was considered essential to a good frame of mind. The Greeks, god bless them, thought music and beauty quite essential to a good life. So to defend my opinion line, modern living can deprive us of family, beauty, good music, and nature. And may god have mercy on the person who thinks happiness is using a credit card.

That's an amazing article on Indian mathematics on Wikipedia. Ramanujan, of course, was one of the great geniuses in math. When I was a math prof I would be asked occasionally to teach the survey course in mathematics history - a task none of us relished since no one had the necessary background. It would have been an enormous help had Wikipedia been available!

How do you guess mathematics might have evolved had it not been for the Romans and Christianity? Or, is it the teaching of math to school age kids that you think should be different? My wife is a retired HS English teacher and she made the same remark about coming up with the right answer without going through all the steps when she was a student. :smile: — jgill

I very much appreciate teachers confirming the truth of things I read in books and/or experience.

Your question has a very deep meaning with no empirical support that I know of. My interest in the Roman/Greek difference has become a big-picture awareness. I have always known the Celts and Greeks got a long, but not the Celts and Romans. However, only recently have I become fascinated by the deeper metaphysical significance of that difference.

Rome did not have the number system essential to developing math and science. Rome did not ask the impossible to answer questions and dare to answer them. Rome did not have the concepts for metaphysics.

Metaphysics - Wikipediahttps://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Metaphysics
Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, ...
‎Aristotle · ‎Feminist metaphysics · ‎Category:Metaphysics literature · ‎Substance theory — wikipedia

That makes Christianity a problem. On the one hand, we must believe in supernatural beings, and on the other hand, we must stand against superstition. How is it logically possible to do both at the same time? My god is real but not yours? :chin: There is a saying, "when you think you know God, you know not God". How about this, why do Christians think the unscientific story of creation is important, but not an understanding of pi? A few have put quantum physics and Tao together but that will not be discussed in Sunday school when everyone is proudly talking about God's truth. How can I explain this better? Rome did not have the concepts for such a discussion, and Christianity neither does Christianity. The Greeks and others created gods as they saw a need for them. Without all those gods (concepts) interacting we could not have developed our intellect. Without the Greek academies, the Dark Age was dark.

So what music do you listen to for healing? What is your favorite medication? What do you read for an understanding of truth?

It seems to me that years of experience are neither necessary nor even sufficient for wisdom. They can definitely help foster it, but years of experience are useless without the use of reason to extract knowledge from them. Of course children have neither fully developed reason nor years of experience, but I’d say that, on average, they have some wisdom. — Hello Human

I was raised by a mother who thought I was a child with great wisdom. I have tried to live up to that my whole life. :rofl: The older I get, the less wise I think I am. I look back on my life with horror about how much I did not understand. I wish we lived at least 300 years. I am concerned that if we live only 100 years, we might still not know enough to be sure of our wisdom. Truly Socrates was the wisest, because he knew there was so much he did not know.

And of course, just getting old does not assure we gain any wisdom at all. I used to think rich people were intellectually superior and then I met some well-off people and I was horribly disappointed about them not exactly being the intellectual people I expected them to be. They didn't know any more than the poor folk and didn't care any more than the poor folk. Their life goals were pretty much about money and social status, not gaining wisdom.

However, I want to make a point that how our brains function literally changes with age. The Greeks doubted if anyone could learn anything of a philosophical nature until at least age 30 and when we did have liberal education it was part of our culture to think age 30 was still youth and just beginning to be capable of serious thinking.

While a google search leads to mostly negative explanations of the age brain, there is a positive....

Aging may also bring positive cognitive changes. For example, many studies have shown that older adults have more extensive vocabularies and greater knowledge of the depth of meaning of words than younger adults. Older adults may also have learned from a lifetime of accumulated knowledge and experiences.6 days ago

How the Aging Brain Affects Thinkinghttps://www.nia.nih.gov › health › how-aging-brain-affect... — National Institute on Aging

That means it is too late for me to learn math, but I can enjoy the wonder of pi and the history of math and appreciate the importance of math. I can also be angery with sexist father who prepared his son to be an engineer and insisted I major in home economics. :lol: I really really wish I understood the value of math when I was young enough to develop those neurons. My IQ would be much higher if I had learned advanced math.

As someone who is sympathetic to vedanta, it would have been difficult for me to have not heard of him! I really enjoyed reading Ethics.

Doing the right thing for the right reasons is certainly quite important. It is the only way one can ensure the long-term triumph of the good

I am sorry, but did you mean to say that poverty does not have to mean ignorance and suffering? Your reply seems to suggest so. If that is the case, I would definitely agree with you. Coming from a relatively poor country, I have been amazed by the degree of satisfaction many of the financially less fortunate people seem to experience. Additionally, they seem to have a wisdom about how to live a good life that many well-off individuals appear to lack. The pursuit of knowledge is undoubtedly a source of great satisfaction. I am glad to know that you have had a nice day. May you have plenty more ahead! — DA671

Don't tell me I forgot to put in the word "not" again. I hate it when I do that.

You reminded me of shows of poor people around the world that I have seen and how impressed I am with their happiness. I sure do not want to romanticize being poor however where everyone is relatively poor and there is equality, there is no relative deprivation between the have's and the have-nots. In these cases, it appears to me happiness is dependent on relationships and everyone doing a lot of singing and dancing together and of course eating together. They do not need math and a search for truths.

You have me really thinking. The Greeks developed the idea that happiness is gaining knowledge. Now I am wondering, what are the social conditions that made that so? Why a search for truth, instead of just singing and dancing together?

There are about 24,000 math topics on Wikipedia, many if not most by "Western minds". That doesn't sound like the Western mind is terribly limited. — jgill

I don't know if that is enough information for that judgment. Do you want to provide some of those categories on the chance of conceiving me?

I suppose there are psychoanalytic threads woven into the relationships between the gods of ancient Egypt, but, yes, nonsense. On the other hand, some of the spiritual practices originating in the East, like Zen Buddhism, are relevant today. I once wrote a chapter of a book on a certain aspect of a sport being a "mystical art form." :cool: — jgill

In India, it seems religion and math went hand in hand. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_mathematics
That is not so in the West outside of Egypt and the Greeks who delighted in learning from Egypt. In India, the relationship between religion and math made it possible for them to recognize 0 as a legitimate number and to recognize negative numbers, and it made them capable of contemplating infinity.

The mystical and math go very well together and I think the Western mind is biased and this bias is like blinders that limit the consciousness of the Western mind.

PS In another thread I tried to have a discussion of how ancient Greeks and Romans differed and that discussion didn't go very well, so here I want to bring up the fact that the Roman number system would have never led to scientific discoveries.

How did Romans calculate without zero?
The Romans never used their numerals for arithmetic, thus avoiding the need to keep a column empty with a zero symbol. Addition and subtraction were done instead on an abacus or counting frame. https://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/Education/rome/

Why is math important to philosphy?

What I experience is mentioned in the video about Spinoza, that the more I learn and expand my consciousness, the more I see a bigger picture and that decreases the importance of the small things. Learning other languages and traveling are good ways to expand our consciousness and so is MATH. With math, we can see the invisible. I know a professor who can lecture for at least 4 hours about knots and how we can use math to know if the DNA is knotted or not. Like pi can explain so many surprising things making math mind-blowing as we can know more than our six senses can detect.

[quote="DA671;724052"[/quote] Are you aware of Spinoza? Given what you said I think you may be familiar with him.

Baruch (de) Spinoza[13] (24 November 1632 – 21 February 1677)[17][18][19][20] was a Dutch philosopher of Portuguese Sephardic Jewish origin.[12][18][21] One of the foremost exponents of 17th-century Rationalism and one of the early and seminal thinkers of the Enlightenment[17][22] and modern biblical criticism[23] including modern conceptions of the self and the universe,[24] he came to be considered "one of the most important philosophers—and certainly the most radical—of the early modern period.
— wikipedia

I have been watching and rewatching this video about him. Especially his reasoning of cause and effect impresses me as how the ancient Athenians thought and I think this thinking is the foundation of democracy. It goes with what Cicero said about happiness and doing the right thing when one knows what the right thing is. It is the foundation of democracy being rule by reason and good moral judgment being good reasoning.

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

And thank you, I am having a nice day. I am enjoying the forum and eating popsicles on this hot day. I just finished eating a shrimp salad. And I want to say I have an extremely low income that forces me to live very simply while thanks to the internet and libraries and books, I can have what Cicero and Jefferson meant by happiness. Intellectually my life is very full and that makes any personal troubles seem very small. Poverty does have to mean ignorance and suffering.

I think in the West much of Eastern is considered nonsense. But I also think this is more about perspective than fact.

Is God outside of nature or is nature God? Should we look for God in everyone? Could our understanding of God affect our understanding of democracy?

Imagine a loved one has been abducted by aliens. The aliens set about reorganizing their brain. They do not add new materials to it, so your loved one's body continues to have the same constitution, it's just that some structures have been rearranged. These rearrangements were done in such a way that your loved one now has an entirely different set of memories, entirely different preferences, and an entirely different personality. However, they still look the same, and the molecules making up their body haven't changed any more over the week they've been gone than they would have had they been living on Earth. — Count Timothy von Icarus

:lol: It was not an alien that changed the daughter/son. It was hormones! That person most certainly is not the sweet child I raised.

Try a stroke or Alzheimer's disease for wiping out memory. One woman said the benefit of having no memory is not knowing who one is angry with and having a chance to have a relationship without the anger.

Those changes do not change the identity of the person but like the clay, what is left after the change is different. I am still Mary the daughter of John and Susan and mother of Alex and Kayla no matter how much they change or I change and this is a beautiful part of being human. And if the body is found, we can identify it with its DNA or forensics to reconstruct the face. Of course, a mush of clay will not retain even the foundation of facial features so it will not be possible to identify the statue that no longer exists, but we can identify the clay by its properties.

We might even determine the trade route that the pot took by analyzing the property of the clay and the cultural characteristics of its shape and the designs on it. Forensics and archology have gotten very good and identifying things and their path through life and I don't think this fits in the formula you provided but there does seem to be some value to acknowledging the passing of time and change.

Today a young paraplegic requiring medical help has been thrown out of the hospital with a sleeping bag and he will be sleeping on the streets somewhere. Good luck sucker. This is America the wealthiest country in the world and we are great. The marginalized people do not count.
— Athena

Sad but true. "Sorry about your luck." — Pie

Trying to get us to the topic of math and philosophy. Today it matters what we measure and what measurements have to do with public policy. Maybe we should not be divided between those who have made math and science their God and those who have not because we are butting heads. I think a lot may rest on if we see numbers as sacred or not. If we have no sense of awe and no reverence could we go in the wrong direction?

This is a good description of us fitting ourselves to our own machines, become their obedient robots. It's easy to imagine AI playing larger and larger role. It's my understanding that banks already loan or not according to algorithmic decisions, and someone might joke about the replacement of juries (trained on transcripts of previous trials and associated verdicts.) — Pie

I had no idea how important @Agent Smith's question is. I don't think we are going in the direction of the expected discussion, but I am seeing a lot of importance starting with no longer seeing numbers as sacred to no longer having a sacred notion of humans. I stand against all the God of Abraham religions, but now I am seeing the Beast and I have a sense of horror.

It seems we agree on the important of the humanities. A good citizen needs critical thinking and historical awareness. A mere cog in the machine, however, needs only a set of a skills. I've been reading Howard Zinn's history lately, and the presence or absence of class consciousness looks central to me. Am I to be merely a monkey pulling levers as directed ? Or an enlightened, autonomous being working with others to build a just and happy society? Certain politicians and oligarchs would rather me be the former, surely. — Pie

Please go to this thread about our ID and how to have a better society. Some people's utopia is another person's hell. https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/13274/doing-away-with-absolute-indiscerniblity-and-identity

I think you truly have a better understanding of what is important than some people. :grin: But how much fun would we have if everything was absolute and we had no reason to argue from our different perspectives? It is a big step between identifying ourselves with our human relationships or with numbers and thinking of numbers as sacred or as cold lifeless things useful for recording information or making predictions.

I am a number. Everyone in the US is a number. Everything about our lives is a number, our birthdate, our address, our Social Security number and the amount of our income determines if we get a loan or government assistance. You said a lot about our ID but why? Just validate all your numbers so I have a good empirical idea of who you are.

Really is that better than knowing you by personal relationships as a daughter/son, sexual orientation, mother or wife, mill worker or doctor, and religious affiliation? I guess you can choose your preference but I am not sure you have a good awareness of the empirical number alternative. I think it destroys our humanity and leads us into a very dark nightmare.

jgill
2.2k
What is not worth the effort?
— Athena

Competing with the wisdom of the ancients, such as:


Ennead The nine worlds of the Odine Mysteries. The Egyptian Ennead, or company of nine gods and the goddesses, represents archetypal principles that regulate and rule the cosmos through the laws of number. The pharaoh came forth from between the thighs of the divine Nine.
— Athena — jgill

I love your reply! I am not sure of your meaning or why you quoted me about the Egyptian Ennead but given the greater discussion, I delight in pondering how the Egyptian Ennead is different from how we think of number 9 today. Today we no longer think of numbers having a sacred meaning, do we? We don't know what they have to do with the laws of nature do we?

I wish I had found this information when the subject was the trinity.

The Archetypal Synergies
1. Associations and Manifestations
The energies represented by the various neteru (gods/ goddesses) rarely function individually, but are often allied or fused with other neteru (gods/goddesses). The union of certain pairs of complementary energies/attributes (masculine and feminine forms) results in a third energy/attribute. Trinities are sometimes portrayed together as a single composite entity; sometimes separately and sometimes in binary form.

In human terms, a family consists of a man, a woman, and a child. The three are one unit—a family. There are also binary relationships such as: husband–wife (marriage), father–child (fatherhood), and mother–child (motherhood).

Egyptian deities are connected in a complex and shifting array of relationships. A neter’s connections and interactions with other deities helps define its character. Such relationships were the base material from which Egyptian allegories were formed.

A distinction must be made between associations of deities and manifestations of a neter principle into other neteru’s principles/forms. For example, it is wrong to assume that Re-Sebek is an association of two deities. When we realize what Re REPRESENTS, then we can figure out that Re-Sebek is the manifestation of the creation force [being Re] into the Sebek form/aspect. As mentioned earlier, the Litany of Re shows his manifestation into 75 forms/aspects.

Synergetic combinations were not permanent. A neter/netert who was involved in one combination continued to appear separately and formed new combinations with other deities.

The combined synergies are basically found in dual, triple, octad and ennead combinations, to be detailed as follows: — ?

Why not?

The key points we need to address.

1. Nonexistent people (no rights, consent Mu)

2. Possible people (rights? can't consent)

3. Actual people (have rights, can consent) — Agent Smith

Excuse me, but if you do not have the right proves to validate your eligibility, the only right you have in some cases is the right to a hearing, and if you don't have an attorney you are screwed. And in other cases, you have no rights at all.

Money is also helpful. Today a young paraplegic requiring medical help has been thrown out of the hospital with a sleeping bag and he will be sleeping on the streets somewhere. Good luck sucker. This is America the wealthiest country in the world and we are great. The marginalized people do not count. Surely this is not what you mean by people who have rights and those who don't?

Hi ! Excellent point. The main reason for most people to learn math is probably its central role in science. I don't just mean physics. I mean any science that infers from data. Math helps us decide rationally whether a drug is safe and effective, or (as you mention) whether a policy is safe and effective. It plays a central role in rationality.

How does a society motivate its members to cultivate their rationality? As others have noted, this is an expression of caring for others and not just for oneself. Granted that none of us are angels, how can we create a virtuous circle ? — Pie

Your first statement is the belief. However, it is even worse than the belief in the gods, because the bureaucrats have real power. I studied public policy and administration at the University of Oregon. After something has gone through the process of social research, it resembles reality as well as a plastic-wrapped stake resembles the cow it came from.

Your second statement is perhaps the most important thing we can talk about right now because we are on the same path as the world war enemy of the allies, to a mechanical society that totally crushes individual authority and power.

How is this cultivated? Replace the humanities with education for technology. How we think depends 100% on how we are taught to organize our logical thinking and the conceptual thinking we learn. The young of our technological society have been trained to think in terms of proves and reliance on AUTHORITY. That manifests a very different culture than the one coming out of the humanities and religion.

:fear: Your post is so meaningful to me it makes me cry. Warning I am feeling emotionally insane at the moment but if anyone can help me deal with this insanity it is the people posting here. The point of insanity frequently comes up but I don't have a good word for it, so like Tocqueville, I will attempt to describe it.

On the one hand, we may worship math and science because of the wonders we can achieve with this mathematical and scientific reasoning. On the other hand, we may totally turn our backs on math and science because they can bring us evil and may seem to lack anything that is good about the humanities and religions.

In the past, bureaucratic problems could be resolved by reasoning with the bureaucrat. We were all basically on the same page with the same human reasoning. That is no longer the reality for the technological world we are in now. As the old retire and die we are losing the human consciousness that once defined our democracy. Like we shifted from analog to digital electronics, there is a serious shift in our reasoning. It is no longer the humanities forming our reasoning, but the laws and requirements of math and science.

I have a non-taxable income that is to be disregarded when I apply for any form of government assistance. In the past, all I had to do was explain this and maybe present the letter from the bureaucracy at the federal level, and the bureaucrat disregarded that income. This is no longer true. The requirement has totally changed with a demand for information presented in a form that is acceptable in this technological age validated who I am, what my position is, and the legal explanation of this income being disregarded. To be clear about this, my word is no longer good. The form letter we have used in the past is no longer good enough. I can not even imagine the form that they are demanding so I am turning to an attorney for legal help. The young man handling my request for a hearing could not comprehend I can not get the equivalent of an employee's pay stub from the volunteer organization because no one has thought as the bureaucrats are thinking today.

Technological thinking is demanding proof, whereas in the past we just had human reasoning and social agreements. Today these different modes of thinking are colliding like a very messy train wreck. Every job is divided into the smallest parts and the people doing each part are isolated from the larger organization. All people know is their own little piece of the bigger whole and they are not working together as we did in the past, with the pandemic accelerating this problem! In relative isolation, they turn to technological demands like another mechanical society we defended democracy against. There must be absolute obedience to authority and there is no other way to get through this. Trying to reason with the person making the decisions is suicidal! Wow, will that piss them off and get a very bad result.
and at this point, all hope depends on having a good attorney. Why be so resistant to showing the required proof? Off with your head!

Should we deal with this in philosophy? God, I hope so.

Not worth the effort — jgill

What is not worth the effort?

One of the biggest concerns mathematicians have is very few people have a good understanding of math, and this is why I said we are teaching math wrong. By the beginning of high school, students may not have great math skills but they should at least know how math is applied to everything in our lives so they might at least be motivated to learn math. Why would anyone want to learn math? For most people, it is tortuous especially when we get to algebra. Part of the problem is they do not explain to children why they must do all the steps in solving problems so the kids put down the right answer without doing the steps and later when algebra is a requirement they can not do it because they have not learned the steps. Math must be learned one step at a time, and when a student begins failing math, that means the student must go back to previous lessons of learning the steps. The point is, I do not blame you for not knowing things that are not taught.

Math is a very important part of our lives and that includes policy making and government.

What You Need to Know About Becoming a Public Policy Majorhttps://www.usnews.com › Education › Best Colleges
Oct 21, 2020 — Public policy requires an understanding of both of those disciplines as well as an understanding of mathematics and data collection to make ... — Josh Rhoten

Math and psychology

Mathematical psychology is that branch of psychology focusing on the use of mathematical and computational models to explain and predict human behavior. Typical areas of interest are memory, attention, problem solving, perception, decision making, and motor control.Jul 29, 2020

Mathematical Psychology - Oxford Bibliographies — Parker Smith, Yanjun Liu, James T. Townsend, Trish van Zandt

But, you should ask one of the mathematicians here, like jgill or others, who could help you out much more than I ever could. — Manuel

Western minds tend to be closed minds, thanks to Rome. So those who understand stand math as it is taught in the West have valuable information, but we should know they most likely come to the study of math and all other things with closed minds.

One interesting question that arises as a follow-up to yours is, what is math? What does it study? — Manuel

An educated guess, math is the study of patterns but wait, that's not all, math also has to explain patterns + numericize/geometrize them when doing so. — Agent Smith

An educated guess, math is the study of patterns but wait, that's not all, math also has to explain patterns + numericize/geometrize them when doing so. — Agent Smith

Perfect. Right now schools are teaching math all wrong because it does not deal with those questions and an answer such as Agent Smith provided, the study of patterns. Excite me! I wish everyone would get the book "A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe THE MATHEMATICAL ARCHETYPES OF NATURE, ART, AND SCIENCE" by Michael S. Schneider.

This is not just a study of patterns but also function. Triangles and hexagons have obvious structural functions. The US Republic is a triad, triangle, of checks and balances. Unfortunately, it doesn't work as well today as it once did, but that is another subject, except that it brings out the importance of education and having a shared sense of purpose and goals. But maybe if we held a better understanding of what math has to do with our lives, we would have a better understanding of democracy as rule by reason, and good moral judgment.

lol I need an emoticon of someone standing on a soap box and giving a lecture. Thanks for being tolerant of me and my passion for the greatness of Athens and democracy.

"Geometry existed before the creation." Plato

Monad "You cannot conceive the many without the one... The study of the unit is among those that lead the mind on and turn it to the vision of reality." Plato

Dyad "The opposit is beneficial; from things that differ comes the fairest attunement; all things are born through strife." Heraclitus

Triad "A whole is something that has a beginning< middle and end." Aristotle
"The One engenders the Two, the Two engenders the Three and the three engenders all things." Tao Te Chi'ing

Tetrad "It is hard to be truly excellent, four-square in hand and foot and mind, formed without blemish." Simonides

Pentad It is a frequent assertion of ours that the whole universe is manifestly completed and enclosed by the Dyad, and seeded by the Monad, and it gains movement thanks to the Dyad and life thanks to the Pentad." Iamblichus

"God has established nothing without geometric beauty which was not bound beforehand by some of law of necessity." Johanne Kepler
and all the biblical and Kabalah references to the numbers 6 and 7

Heptad - A regular heptagon cannot be constructed with the geometer's three tools and so is not born like other shapes through the vesica piscis. But an approximate Heptagon is possible to construct. From the Beginner's Guide. There are biblical references to 7 and we can see Plato's notion of nothing being as perfect as things are in a higher realm.

Octad Change has an absolute limit:
This produces two modes;
The two modes produce four forms,
The four forms produce eight trigrams;
The eight trigrams determine fortune and misfortune.
Confucius (commentary on the I Ching)

Ennead The nine worlds of the Odine Mysteries. The Egyptian Ennead, or company of nine gods and the goddesses, represents archetypal principles that regulate and rule the cosmos through the laws of number. The pharaoh came forth from between the thighs of the divine Nine. Egyptian myth

Decad In counting systems world wide, each tenth step begins a new level and recapitulates the whole. Number systems reveal a culture's picture of the cosmos. From the book Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe.

I think there is far more math in our understanding of life and our beliefs than most people realize. This fact of life enflames my anger with Rome and the Roman-Christian destruction of Greek academies which to this day prevents us from knowing the wisdom of the ancients and I include our failure to know and understand Mayan harmonic math in this Roman-caused problem. Rome closed our eyes and turned us from knowledge and when it began one with Christianity that was a sad day for the world.

I mean, Pi and mathematical formulas belong to mathematics. Applied math, the kind the gives us theories, usually belong to physics. — Manuel

How about math and our understanding of reality? That requires more than being able to add, subtract and do multiplications, and divide. I wish all grade schools introduced children to geometry and the Greek sacred math and went on to explain pi and other wonders of math such as being able to see the invisible. I wish I had better words for the mysteries of math. I can not do advanced math, but we can learn about the amazing things that can be done with math.

Mathematics once had a direct and unambiguous relationship with philosophy, Pythagoras, Euclid, Plato (Let No One Ignorant of Geometry Enter Here). Back then, there was not much of a distinction between philosophy and anything else that could be studied rationally.

Today, the relationship is much more strained. Perhaps there are things of interest in the philosophy of math. But, outside of extremely broad and general questions, which are of little interest to most mathematicians I'd imagine, I think this topic won't lead to much. — Manuel

Without math how do we have a good understanding of reality such as the many ways to use pi and if we do not have a good understanding of reality, how can we have good philosophy? I have skipped over a few threads because the complete lack of an understanding of math means nothing is being said that interest me.

The constant π helps us understand our universe with greater clarity. The definition of π inspired a new notion of the measurement of angles, a new unit of measurement. This important angle measure is known as “radian measure” and gave rise to many important insights in our physical world.

Pi: The Most Important Number in the Universe? — Edward B. Burger, Ph.D, Southwestern University

In his Socratic dialogues, (or at the very least those that I know enough about to say this), Plato presents an interesting proposition about virtue: Virtue is just another name for wisdom. So if you are wise, you are virtuous, and vice versa.

An objection to this is that even though some virtues may be reducible to wisdom, there is at least one virtue that is completely independent from wisdom, the most prominent example one could advance being courage. How can one reduce the sheer willpower behind the virtue of courage to a simple matter of knowing and not knowing, you may ask ?

To defend Plato's view from the example of courage, one might say that willpower is not in our control. And if it's not in our control, then there is no such thing as a virtue involving having willpower. So the virtue of courage is not really about willpower, perhaps it is more about being wise enough to exploit whatever willpower we have to achieve one's goals.

But what do you think ? Is virtue really just equal to wisdom, or is there a plurality of virtues, each independent from the other(s) ? Or are all the virtues reducible to something that is not equal to wisdom ? — Hello Human

Children can learn virtues but they lack the years of experience required for wisdom. That means virtues are reducible to something that is not equal to wisdom.

There is a plurality of virtues and moderation must go with courage or you get a nut case with very bad judgment such as someone who has gone berserk.

Do you realize that anyone who objects to teleology in evolution hasta prove their point by making a Kantian phenomenon (appearance - purpose) vs. noumenon (real - no purpose) distinction. — Agent Smith

I had to look up "teleology" and I see Greeks having this perspective of the notion of purpose and I see the notion of the Christian God following on the heels of Plato. Now I have a better understanding of how the Greeks got so involved with Christianity. I was really curious about why intellectual superior people got tangled up with something Roman.

It is interesting how evolution comes to an understanding of life from a position of cause rather than a notion of purpose. I never before had this understanding of the different points of view. Moments like this are why I come to this forum. It is so pleasing to see things in a whole new way.

javi2541997

This is when literally corruption started to flourish — javi2541997

Damn you put a question in my head and I started a new thread with hopes others will express their notions of sin and morality regarding private property.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/13262/sin-and-private-property

Im not sure they do share common purpose. Creationism is an ad hoc justification for biblical writings, an effort to explain contradictions with what science has discovered. Its purpose is in direct opposition to the purpose of science, and its method. — DingoJones

At least since Rome, Christianity has justified power and oppression of those who do not have it. When the Hebrew herders transitioned to agriculture and individuals owning land, instead of the communal living of herders, they came up with a system of inheritance tied to the will of a God. If there is a Satan that is when he stepped in. Rome made the religion worse.

TiredThinker
443
What general category would evolution and creationism both fall into?

And has anyone proposed anything that is neither? Creationism can't really be proven, and evolution basically relies only on the first 25 years of life when we can have the most viable offspring even if our characters in our opinion are still shit. Lol. Perhaps a theory based on perfect or ideal biological structures that are clearly more efficient and accurate than others? Maybe we start with evolution because that is the bare minimum to exist in any form, but there must be other driving forces other than surviving long enough to mate? — TiredThinker

Why must there be any other driving force?

At least, the pre-Socratic doctrine was related to nature and the search for a connection towards it: fire, water, air, earth, wind, etc...
But since Hebrew Bible or so called old testament, it looks like all depends on a supranatural figure who decides as a judge in a court what is "good" and what is "worng".
In my humble opinion, I guess it is a backwards way of witnessing our lives but I respect there are a lot of people who believe in religion — javi2541997

That change in mentality totally distorts our democracy. Ideally, our morals are based on a good understanding of nature and cause and effect, and good manners. We are compelled to do the right thing when we understand what that is. I know Aristotle argued we intentionally violate the rules and do the wrong thing, but that thinking is poor thinking because logically doing the wrong thing leads to trouble. That is why it is wrong. Look at the mess the US is in because it violated human rights and practiced slavery. Or how about global warming and the possibility that our young will not have the good lives we took for granted believing a God takes care of us. The problem is our neighbors who anger the God, who is now angry and instead of heaven on earth, we are getting hell on earth. :rofl:

Agent Smith — Agent Smith

Survival mode, or horde mode, is a game mode in a video game in which the player must continue playing for as long as possible without dying in an uninterrupted session while the game presents them with increasingly difficult waves of challenges. — Wikipedia

I think I would like that game if it represented reality well. I have often enjoyed pondering survivalist ideas. I so wanted to live off the grid but I had a husband who used his intelligence to know why something can't be done, instead of how to get it done. :angry: Today survivalist thinking for me is pure fantasy. I no longer have a user-friendly body and dread the thought of not having all my comforts.
I really hate to see the disabled and elderly homeless people. Perhaps the first thing I should look for if I am the only person is good steroids. :rofl: It would be great to feel like did long ago.

Remember the movie Waterworld? One guy who was by himself was a little nuts. Some homeless people become like feral cats and then they can not reenter mainstream society. The movie Passengers is about a spaceship traveling to another planet and everyone is in hibernation. Except one guy's module opens and he is the only person awake for 3 years and finally, he opens a woman's module because he is desperate for human interaction.

Pierce's semiotic triangle. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I had to look that up.

Peirce's semiotic triangle

It consists of three objects: the sign (i.e. the world as filtered by the sensor), the object (i.e. the physical object), and the interpretant (i.e. the understanding reached by the observer of some sign/object relation).

https://www.researchgate.net — researchgate

That can be a problematic understanding because energy such as the Holy Ghost and atomic energy can not be seen.

References to the concept of atomism and its atoms appeared in both ancient Greek and ancient Indian philosophical traditions. Leucippus is the earliest figure whose commitment to atomism is well attested and he is usually credited with inventing atomism.[4] He and other ancient Greek atomists theorized that nature consists of two fundamental principles: atom and void. Clusters of different shapes, arrangements, and positions give rise to the various macroscopic substances in the world.[5][4] — Wikipedia

I think Romans had a problem with thinking about things that can not be seen. If we consider India and the notion of "out of the one came the many" and the video of the trinity I posted, we might understand the whole of creation as the function of the trinity.

"The Triad has a special beauty and fairness beyond all numbers, primarily because it is the very first to make actual the potentialities of the Monad (one)" Iamblichus (c. 250-c 330, Greek Neoplatonic philosopher.

It was a man from Carthage who presented the trinity to the Council of Nicea.

Tertullian (Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus) lived in Carthage and wrote around AD 197 to 215. He was the first Christian writer to write in Latin. He wrote lots of works. Around AD 210, Tertullian left the main church and joined the sect called the Montanists. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVNGUx56JDc — ?

How prescient of the First Council of Nicaea — Banno

I do not understand your point. I doubt if any Romans had the perspective of math and what would be the prescient thought?

Your image of reality is full of aesthetics and honour. Let me be honest with you, I tend to make similar actions as yours. I never thought on mannequins (very good idea though) but other elements around me. Developing contact with everything which is around us is important to ensure a meaningful life.
For example: I have scheduled in my Google calendar all the "big moons" that appears in 2022. Whenever this day comes, I look so precisely the moon above my house. This situation gives some vibes of writing some poems or stories, but when I finish them I feel they are not well enough.
Nevertheless, I still think it is important to put an anime to all the elements.

I am inspired by Japanese tradition of shinto (神道): Shinto is polytheistic and revolves around the kami, supernatural entities believed to inhabit all things. The link between the kami and the natural world has led to Shinto being considered animistic....
In Shinto, kannagara ("way of the kami") describes the law of the natural order, with wa ("benign harmony") being inherent in all things — javi2541997

I think those thoughts are better for survival if our man-made world crashes, than the thinking of neigh sayers who refuse to think that way.

Hum, what you say makes me wish I could live with the Japanese who maintain those concepts. I might have a better sense of belonging with them. There is so much I can not talk about in the west because the western mind is so closed.

What, you do not see the relationship between the ancient mathematicians and concepts related to the holy trinity? They had sacrad math and I think it is pretty awesome. It is a whole lot better than Bible stories.