Richard,

The only reason I asked about his education was to determine if he has the tools to follow my thoughts. You can not talk about things which are outside a persons ability to understand.

It is no criticism of him. There are lots of things that I cannot follow because I lack the knowledge to understand the common terms used.

For example, check out David Chalmers web page at the University of Arizona. He has a lot of publications linked to his site, obviously held in high regard in his field, he is surely a very rational mind; yet I can make no rational judgement of him. That is because I find it very difficult to follow his publications as I have no education in his field.

Or take string theory, I have been out of physics for over 30 years. I have been trying to pick some of the ideas up and haven't been very successful (couldn't find any math, most all introductions just talk in vague terms). I finally found out what P-branes, D-branes and N-branes are. But I still haven't found any samples of successful calculations: i.e., the actual math represented by their shorthand notations.

So I say again, in order to communicate, you have to be aware of what the other party can understand. I have met a lot of very rational people in my life but most of them have very little technical education.

I am sorry I upset you, I was just looking for a little information. I have no wish to rain on someones parade. My problems are clearly mine and none of theirs.

Dick

• Strings are mathematical objects. - alexander - March 22, 2001 - 14:58 UTC