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http://www.askjeeves.com/main/metaAnswer.asp?t=m&s=a&en=directhit&o=0&frames=True&url=http%3A%2F%2Fask%2Edirecthit%2Ecom%2Ffcgi%2Dbin%2FRedirURL%2Efcg%3Furl%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Etheatlantic%2Ecom%2Fissues%2F97jun%2Fwitt%2Ehtm%26qry%3DWittgenstein%2Bcontroversy%26rnk%3D1%26cz%3D897b52f8bf4f1cab%26src%3DDH%5FASK%5FSRCH%26u%3D&ac=62&pt=The+Wittgenstein+Controversy&dm=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Etheatlantic%2Ecom%2Fissues%2F97jun%2Fwitt%2Ehtm&io=0&qid=0B4517F58037484AB4CA71E345687663&back=ask%3DWittgenstein%2Bcontroversy%26o%3D0&ask=Wittgenstein+controversy&dt=020305205705
That is supposed to be a link that will work.
Dear Harvey1,
Truly I do not know who you are, and don't want to presume your gender. Harvey might be a last name. As you may know, women too have been giants of science in astronomy.
Harv wrote:
"Mathematics is a game (as Wittgenstein said). Mathematics says nothing about reality, so I don't see how you can think that mathematics is any authority on this subject manner. Where in mathematics do you have definitions of terms like: reality, senses, mental image, observation, etc.? This isn't mathematics."
There is some truth in that. Yet you can define every one of those terms mathematically, and in artificial intelligence, they often have to try.
While defining it mathematically for AI purposes may be a weak version of some of those,
NOT defining it mathematically in the real world's public policy advisement questions is
negligence. However freedom-loving we are, we share a common planet few have the vehicles to leave. This leads to strict ranges for conduct and rationing in the long run if we want society to be sustainable. Money is a rationing system, and if we don't manage it well in terms of our interface with the biosphere, money will not buy our long term survival. This is not my equation
but a very general argument that mathematics is indeed essential in every part of the real world.
Moral purity such as Wittgenstein's was admired
by Bertrand Russell and John Maynard Keynes,
as the article above stated in Atlantic Monthly June 1997. I don't know if you already know much about those two. But either of them would have been hounded out of any high political office in the recent climate, because for some reason the press mistook one kind of personal integrity for the
essential kind of personal integrity which we truly need -- ON TOPIC personal integrity that recognizes needs at a deeper level and creates value where it is truly needed.
Rules I live by in communication...
*Yes, it is a science. The following IS content:
1) This isn't for practice. Our precious time counts in the real scheme. Yet we may do our best thinking in play-land, away from anxiety.
The present is always the best chance you'll ever have to say something that matters. Don't waste it.
2) Real crises loom in the world which will dash the hopes and lives of love-worthy life forms. So, we have a duty not to waste a lot of our opportunities with bullshit. We have work to do.
From your writing, I don't know if you are a precocious 14-year-old or a 42-year-old with over-developed verbal skills and who has led a sheltered life. Or you could easily be just being a kind of troll who doesn't really care much about the people or issues here. Either way, perhaps you can be anyone you want at the list... but I can't.
Mind,
Box Holder
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