QuakerInfo.com Forum

[DavidT]

The question I have do the words Good and evil belong in mathematics.
Interestingly Alfred whitehead said yes. He said that beauty or Good was foundational to logic itself. Without it we really have no logic but reductionism only. This so happens to be , exactly what Socrates said as well.

This is an extension of my thoughts of the Grelling-nelson paradox in language as it occurs in the Russell paradox at the same time in Naive Set Theory. Are there qualities in nature, that both exist and yet defy reduction, and in fact there are such qualities?

Religion and science share an interesting symmetry of the nature of self. Religion has always contended that self is not a definable reductively and has called that spirit. It's a that which resides in no locality. Neurological science has come up the the exact same conclusion that self is Non local, or not reducible to a singular phenomenology or locality.

I find it very very interesting that neither religion nor science and mathematics chooses to discuss irreducibility as being fundamental or factual. It seems there is a mutual agreement amongst many across a spectrum that reducibility is foundational. That too is an interesting symmetry to me since at the same time non locality and irreducibility has become more and more paramount in what science has discovered over the last 100 years.

[CelticNorth]

I have really enjoyed reading your posts, David T. But I am going to ask you a personal question, and it only relates to me becasue I worked in the past as a Psychiatic Tech at a Regional State Mental Hospital- are you bipolar and on meds ? No problem if you are, but I sense a thread of manic thought processes occuring in rapid sequences which often seem disjointed and confusing. I am not trying to be intentionly mean spirited or anything like that, but now you have me curious !

[Anthony]

[CelticNorth]

Friend Anthony, I was jesting with David T; except that I did do a stint wearing the white coat on the back wards of a "mental health care facility". I cannot write at two pots of coffee per sentance, but our Friend David T can. He reminds me of the brilliance in the writing of David Foster Wallace, and has the same flash of intellect. My english composition scratches the ear when read and travels at a snails pace. I just happen to see parraells in the compostion and style of David T and David Foster Wallace. Kudos.

[Anthony]

[Kiahanie]

Back to the question:

[DavidT]

Kiahanie interesting response. Since no is the answer, then No is the answer to whether infinity belongs in religion at all. You can't take a single word, split it apart say it has two separate distinct non related aspects and hope that is remotely true. Infinity in mathematics is quantity, in religion it's quality good luck justifying the conceptual split as being valid and true either way independent from each other.

[DavidT]

"I worked in the past as a Psychiatic Tech at a Regional State Mental Hospital- are you bipolar'

Astute Mcguffey. Left-handed actually synesthesia neurologically, how about you? Sharp clarity of precision always sounds autistic, are you autistic, or aspergers? So now was that an insult or was that a question. It depends on how one understands aspergers/autism I suppose ... If you say normal, what does that mean? There is no normal neurologically we are all unique across a spectrum. Bipolar is neurosis, actually or the neurotic experience of a brain spun into itself exactly like OCD.

[Kiahanie]

[DavidT]

Well infinity is an interestingly abused word to me to say the least. In math/science terms I understand the term in relationship experientially to a quantity. In religion terms I understand that word experientially in relationship to a quality. So when that term exists in both domains I have to ask how is that word exactly divided literally as being truly separate. The only real way they can be literally separate is if life around us was literally separate in context to quantity/quality.

So Good is an excellent word, to use in both domains to see if it resides in both domains like infinity does. Apparently Good can only reside as a quality and is not related to quantity, (according to you) therefore if it's not related to quantity it is not related to infinity. If good resides in religion, Infinity cannot because the two have no apparent relationship. If infinity resides in religion, then Good must have some place in mathematics somewhere as of yet undetermined by us. YET!!!! If you have read Socrates you should know where I am going by now... What is foundational to logic for Socrates (GOoD), not (good) but how he understands that is a bit different than we generally understand that word. That word can be understood in two fundamental ways. One is reductive subjective the other is not, that is easily proven just by looking at nature.




I'll stop there for comment. I don't want to muddle it up(which I am good at). My questions here on this site, really lay rooted in my concerns in regards to the environment. That seems like a long Jump from the topic at hand to the environment but it really isn't. Well for me it isn't which I tend to forget. If you knew me personally, and knew how I see things in context to nature, and were left-handed, then I might make more fluid sense. I'll work on that a bit..

[Anthony]

[CelticNorth]

I am liking you David T, becasue your compositions remind me precisely of David Foster Wallace- a hero of mine. It was stated of his writings that "his manic, exuberant prose, his ferocious powers of observation , his ability to use avant-guard techinques with old fashion moral seriousness- to create a strobe light portait of millienal America overdosing on the drugs of entertainment and self gratification- to capture the myriad "deep and meaningless" facets of contempory life" was extrodinary. You need to post here more, so I can enjoy you more. He, unfortunately, hung himself when his meds failed his creative drive and spontenaity. Working the back wards at the State Hospital when I was young had its moments, of course; while all of you were watching "One Flew Over the CooCoos Nest', I was getting to see similar lifes' drama from the other side of the celuloid, so to speak. As to infinity, I am taking Einsteins position that if light is time and subject to gravitational forces, it then bends back on itself and hence time is circular. The ancient Indo-Europeans adopted this view and manifested it in their literature as the "wheel of time".

[DavidT]

"your compositions remind me precisely of David Foster Wallace"

HA, dang my writing might actually be getting better. SHOCKING that you brought up Wallace I know why he killed himself he didn't understand GEORGE FOX!!!!!. In person you and I would get along great, I'd take you out to my garden, and show you the magic I see directly, the magic that Wallace couldn't see...

What I have read about some of Wallace's quotes is surely synesthesia. I use that term simply because I don't allow any of us to be truly free from who we are physically. Disembodiment is a rather strange thing and even Daniel Dennett would say I am right on this, and then flip over and make completely disembodied statements. This is simply because of his aspergers neurology does not allow for him to have both a sense of Embodiement, and observation at the same time. He's the ultimate reductionist, everything is material to him, except for himself. He is a walking contradiction complete when it comes to deeper topics. People like Daniel Dennett wrote the Nicene creed. Can't get away from them. They should really stick to easy topics such as engineering, chemistry, computers, etc. much much easier topics. Dennett is lost, when it comes to consciousness. LOL...



Wallace specialized in Modal Logic, which to me I treat the same as axiomatic mathematics. Natural language itself just like Naive set theory itself cannot define itself. Axiomatic, or Modal structures are needed to create descriptions, but Natural language, and Naive set theory both cannot be themselves axiomatic. That places language and mathematics in the same category as informal. Thus both are a manifestation of nature, never a separate from nature, in us and through us as well as in nature and through nature at the same time. Mathmatics and language at the informal level span quality/quantity into a singularity. As we formalize both suddenly, language and math split into quality, and or quantity separate thus we have to contextualize. The Grelling-Nelson paradox In language , and the Russell Paradox in math are the same paradox. So the conceptual problem lays in how we understand language and math. The question is are they a part of who and what we are or are they a separate from who and what we are?

Wallace I think struggled with this greatly, as is normal for Synesthetes due to culture. Interestingly Jesus' Quote "the father and I are one" is a personal statement of synthesis he is saying "Who" he is, not "What" he is.


My feeling is that Wallace struggled with this who/what dilemma interpersonally. But if we have a culture and everyone in church reading the statement by Jesus like a Chilton's manual and they have him saying "WHAT" he is like an aspergers crowd. That aspergers tendency manifested into modern analytical philsosphy, and in that one can see the lostness of someone like Wallace. That is very very sad to me to say the least. That is a something I see around me a lot unfortunately it is sad and scary at the same time. George Fox crashed right though the Nicene creed as seeing as a "PROBLEM", in that he was absolutely right.

If we take the bible and turn it into an aspergers Chilton's repair manual we have now lost it's fundamental depth. Wallace I sense had the interpersonal awareness of the depth of life, but he had no foundation starting with nature. Spinoza hit it spot on, "God is the internal expression of the external world Thus nature." For Spinoza Logic and spirituality were not a separate notion. So God never changes over time only we change, we can see that literally through anthropology in how we understand that word. We tend to "congregate" culturally around that word as we evolve along. Thus if we think that God is individuated from nature, it's the expression that we perceive ourselves as individuated from nature...

In a sense I've been trying to extend Spinoza into math and language in it's informal nature in my writings. Not easy to say the least. Needless to say that makes my writings a "feel" like an weird "Acid" trip type of writing. I only know about this second hand by other's descriptions BTW. Don't forget Psychedelics have been fundamental to many religions of for many thousands of years. They are just getting the aspergers to be stop being so aspergers or individuated about everything including themselves...LOL.. Language tends to conceptually isolate us interpersonally from nature and in turn and we then get lost in our descriptions of nature as it being truly individuated from us. It is not.


Wallace clearly did not understand this or he would not have committed suicide. Nature is a that which defy's reductionism that is a fact, based on math and language's informal structure foundationally.

Sorry lot's of words to say I am a non reductionist...LOL...Talking about beans and the magic of gardening and the magic of trees and the art that life is, would make the above more clear I suppose... So I feel very limited by writing to say the least.

[DavidT]

"but you do try and capture it in finite terms"
s
Anthony actually the opposite is true. That's how hard it is and how bad I am at writing I guess. We strongly trend institutionally how we conceptualize individually as a culture. There is a clear split between what we conceptualize with one side being math/science and the other side being the art humanities side with religion in that category. They both appear to each own a bit of infinity, and understand that word differently. Is the split valid? Well no there can't be a split and have it literally be valid since the split would only be in our heads, literally.

As to exactly why that split isn't true, I find difficult to write to. Now don't take my statements as a broad brush for everyone either. I'm not THAT crazy, to me it trends across a spectrum. Not everyone in either science nor religion would say there is in fact a real split and I think would agree with me the split is perceptual rather than real. As to why, well there you go, that is a hard question I have tried to address and it's very hard to do with complete clarity.

[CelticNorth]

Good and Evil manifested in mathmatics, I have read, took place in the the application and use of "gematria", which was popular amoung the Greeks. This system entailed assigning a numeric value to a given sequence of letters of a word in a phrase, creating the use of phrase that reflected numerics as "the eternal essence of number as the most providential principle in the universe", taught and advocated by Orpheus. We may find this in the aversion of use of the numeric "666" in Christian theology. I think one of the foundations of the mystic attraction to the Jewish Kabbala also revolves around the sophisticded use of numerics supposedly hidden within its writings. Anyone out there familiar with Gematria ?