Author Topic: Mathematics for Jailbirds  (Read 3314 times)

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raul

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Re: Mathematics for Jailbirds
« Reply #15 on: July 29, 2019, 07:13:38 am »
Hentrich,

¿ Que tal, Profesor? Aquí andamos.

Thank you for your response. Much appreciated. Yes, forgive and forget my vast ignorance.

Last month I read that a Paraguayan student, a 19 year-old girl got a scholarship to study advanced mathematics and physics in Russia. She said she had to confront her family in order to study what she likes. I suppose her family must have wanted her to study something  more “productive”. That is life.

Drive safely.

Silenus

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Re: Mathematics for Jailbirds
« Reply #16 on: July 29, 2019, 09:59:05 am »
It's not just sour grapes.   I think we ought to give voice to our bitterness.

[...]

Any chance I have to state the unpleasant facts, I just can't control myself.

“Never apologize for being correct, or for being ahead of your time. If you’re right and you know it, speak your mind. Even if you are a minority of one, the Truth is still the Truth.” - Mahatma Ghandhi

For me, it is conviction, or firm opinion, rather than truth, but the message is all the same. We cannot be afraid of our "stance" on reality. The way I see it, if someone is revolted by my opinion and wants nothing to do with me, that's ok. I will just wind up back in the company of myself, as it has quite often been for me.

"And the strict master Death bids them dance."

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Re: Mathematics for Jailbirds
« Reply #17 on: July 29, 2019, 11:03:37 am »
Quote from: Raul
Last month I read that a Paraguayan student, a 19 year-old girl got a scholarship to study advanced mathematics and physics in Russia. She said she had to confront her family in order to study what she likes. I suppose her family must have wanted her to study something  more “productive”.

When I was working as a maintenance worker for the state park service, I was enthusiastically taking Calculus and C Programming (1994) at a community college on the weekends and at night.   The old man on the crew who worked two days a week would scream at me that I was wasting my time with "that math crap" and would be better off learning how to hang wallpaper or taking courses on fixing lawn-mowers or heating systems.

Of course, my own paternal grandfather would "not allow" my father to just marry my mother (who had recently been asked to leave the convent due to her "emotional problems," outbursts, and general defiance), but insisted he enter the military (Navy) and then trade school to study refrigeration and air-conditioning since these trades could not be "outsourced" to "slave labor abroad."

My father did not care for "books," and worked very hard his whole life repairing and installing refrigeration into liquor stores all over Dirty Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and even further west and south.  I would say, "Keep Amerika drunk, Dad!"

Since I have never really ever been in a financial position to make a good "partner" for a serious woman, you might say I have been spared all that.  I had gotten some assistance from the government to continue my education, and I have no regrets that I was not able to stay with that government job for the past 22 years. 

That girl must be a very promising student to study in Russia.  I suspect the kids and teens are encultured there to respect mathematics deeply.    In the USA, there is definitely more anti-intellectualism.  Hell, even as cerebral as I am, I can't stand intellectual snobs … I don't know where I stand these days, Senor Raul.  I try to get along with all different kinds of people and understand that we each have to deal with our own particular circumstances.

Usually, life gets in the way of studying mathematics, and while the brighter girls get those scholarships (there is a push for more women in such disciplines), a young man, at least from my own personal experience, is more likely to be thrown to the lions.

Fortunately for me, the lions showed mercy on me, and were even kind to me at times.

Still, just thinking of that girl getting to travel abroad to study - that's very exciting for her.  No wonder she stood up to her family.  Myself, honestly, at that age, I was considering places where I might be able to pitch a tent.  I was very much on my own and completely confused and overwhelmed, terrified of ending up in the Army where I would be subjected to being at the mercy of people who would like to beat me to a pulp.

Quote from: Silenus
“Never apologize for being correct, or for being ahead of your time. If you’re right and you know it, speak your mind. Even if you are a minority of one, the Truth is still the Truth.” - Mahatma Ghandhi

For me, it is conviction, or firm opinion, rather than truth, but the message is all the same. We cannot be afraid of our "stance" on reality.

Hello Silenus,   I know you won't mind me quoting Schopenhauer.  He would say that we do not KNOW truth; we STAND in truth.

For example, there is the sentiment here in the states that "any job is better than no job at all."

Life can become impossible in the Industrial World if one is without a secure shelter, without access to food.   One cannot just jump from homelessness to employment and wait for it all to come together.   Once you have been homeless, incarcerated, hospitalized, or whatever, once it sinks into your head of just how alienated and marginalized you have become in society, you tend to start looking out for yourself.    If I require government assistance due to being "a deeply reflective and opinionated" individual, it is safe to say that maybe having no job at all is better than any job I might be offered.

In other words, something snaps, something changes within us when we realize we are perhaps a different kind of animal than those who allow themselves to be trained to jump through hoops.

Some street people in my old hometown used to assure me that they respected my intelligence, and that I should never believe the System when it implies that I am "crazy."    One man told me that, before his wife passed, she told him that I was not crazy, that I was one of the most honest men she ever met. 

That carries a certain weight to it, that "support from the streets, or, "the people."  It may be even more precious than the "Bachelor of Science" degree I earned from Rutgers in 2002.

Well, it's time to find the food banks.   There are those who very often forget that we are all only a couple weeks away from dying of thirst should the grids go down and all the livestock perish.   Then I will be crying for the military to deploy helicopters to drop peanut butter and water from the sky.

Stock up on the peanut butter.  The good news is that, having developed an inner life, I may be far richer at the moment than the wealthy Lords of the Universe!    With 10 dollars in my bank account, this is an awesome truth to stand in.    So, it's not all doom and gloom, right?



Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

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Nation of One

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Re: Mathematics for Jailbirds
« Reply #18 on: July 29, 2019, 06:11:22 pm »
Quote from: Ibra
As I have GNU (MinGW) installed on my windows machine, I compiled your cmd program.

I thought you might be interested in how I went about compiling a program I call rational_calculator.cpp, compiled as qc (or qc.exe for Microsoft Windows version) in Windows with the GMP library using Big Integers.

The following is directly from comments I left in the code:

// SPECIAL INSTRUCTION for building Windows version
// g++ -g rational_calculator.cpp -std=c++17 -lgmpxx -lgmp  -o qc.exe

    I compile with GMP 6.1.2
    In Windows, this was tricky but remarkable:
    Using scoop I installed MSYS2: scoop install msys2
    Then in MSYS2: pacman -Syuu, -Suu until done (be sure to close window when
    instructed to do so.
    pacman --needed -S bash pacman pacman-mirrors msys2-runtime
    Then, in after restarting MSYS2 environment, pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-toolchain
    MSYS2 also needs its own gcc compiler for builds: in msys2 env,
    pacman -S  base-devel gcc cmake nano

     In the MINGW64 environment:  pacman -S gmp

     Be sure to add bins to Environment Variable PATH (local user).
     Order is important.  Mine were:
     c:\users\mwh\scoop\apps\msys2\mingw84\bin
     c:\users\mwh\scoop\apps\msys2\usr\bin
     

I use tmux (a kind of window-manager for terminals/consoles) and split the screen to run hc and qc side by side, where hc (hentrich calculator) was built with standard capabilities (and handles roots such as 8^(1/3) = 2, whereas qc is for large integers, so 1/3 is integer division leading to unreliable results.  So, I use both.  The Rational Calculator with Big Integer library GMP is useful for Probability problems as it handles the large values of factorial.

I have not built into hc the try{ } catch blocks around factorial !, so it will just display wrong result for anything over 20!.

So I use them for different kinds of calculations.  Whereas "hc" came directly from working through chapter 7 of Stroustrup's textbook, the rational big integer version was my own personal "tweaking" of that code to get it to help me work through some exercises involving combinations and permutations.   It turns out, I really prefer knowing the rational form alongside the decimal.   

We are running out of storage so I am not sure if anymore code will upload without me deleting some attachments here arbitrarily.

A better idea would be to provide links to DropBox, but that's filled with my drunken recordings of my blabberings.   I can create a separate folder on Google Drive just for this message board.

Let's see if this works.  That way, you could even grab the binaries if you were to run into problems linking to the GMP library.  Placing -lgmpxx and -lgmp (in that order is a must) AFTER g rational_calculator.cpp and BEFORE -o qc.exe did the trick for me.

As for using scoop to install MSYS2, that is not necessary, but just to show how I went about it.  I like to keep it far away from c:\, all the way in c:\Users\mwh\scoop\apps\msys2 where I would not have to be concerned with "Permission Denied" ...

I will return to provide the links once the folder on Google Drive is created.

Peace.

___________________________
update:  You can explore the Binaries in Windows and Linux, and if you are curious to see the code, you can let me know, and I will track down the source code and drop it in For The Miserablists, which is the name I came up with to describe us (those who post regularly at whybother--- )
« Last Edit: January 04, 2020, 08:40:42 am by { bones? } »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

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Ibra

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Re: Mathematics for Jailbirds
« Reply #19 on: July 30, 2019, 05:22:06 am »
Thanks Hentrich for providing the way to compile the program. I grabbed the compiled qc.exe program and tried to run it but missing bunch of gmp dlls. In windows it is always frustrating to compile programs. before I tried messing around with mysys2 and such but my frustrations levels are so low that I give up every time.

Now I find it easier to fire a WSL https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install-win10 on my windows 10 machine and start a debian instance and do it the linux way.
I installed libgmp and compiled the program  under 2 minutes (including searching how to install the libgmp library).now tinkering with the compiled program before I go slaving at my work.

The good thing about WSL is being lightweight compared to VM (virtual machine) and could use any windows editor to edit code before compiling it in Debian.



Suffering is the only fruit of human race

raul

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Re: Mathematics for Jailbirds
« Reply #20 on: July 30, 2019, 08:04:30 am »
Hentrich,

Thank you for your response. Below is a translation of an article published by Ultima Hora about Natasha Hrycan. In the link you will her picture.

Published by Ultima Hora

Natasha Hrycan, 19, is a native of Captain Miranda, Department of Itapua, and was recently admitted to the National Nuclear  Research University MEPHl (Moscow Engineering Physics Institute) in Moscow, Russia.

She does not know of obstacles and, from a very young age, she struggled so that her family could accept her vocation in the scientific field, little developed in Paraguay.

“Many still think and say that, supposedly, in Paraguay there is no future for that and that it is not worth waiting for a future,” he acknowledges.

Representing Paraguay

However, from a very young age Natasha was responsible for knocking down barriers; From the age of 9 she was a competitor in the National Mathematics Olympics (Omapa), with 16 medals won.

https://www.ultimahora.com/la-joven-paraguaya-que-estudiara-fisica-nuclear-moscu-n2825892.html


Nation of One

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Re: Mathematics for Jailbirds
« Reply #21 on: July 30, 2019, 08:18:33 am »
Thanks for the feedback on that, Ibra.    I understand that it requires patience and even a heavy dose of goofing off time (SLACK).   We need some serious slack.


But every morning we awaken with a rumbling tummy.  I'm glad you are able to keep a clear mind and patiently explore such things.   Life has a way of "getting in the way."

The cool thing to check out initially is 20!, 21!, 22! in both hc and qc to see the superiority of qc (with GMP).   The q in qc stands for Rational Numbers Q.

There are many calculators available, but I enjoyed building a couple from scratch.

You can do combinations and permutations and group to specify what is meant.  Sure, many calculators have this built in, but it is cool to see that sometimes we can just build a calculator with only specific capabilities in mind.

Stay cool, stay hydrated.    Don't let the bastards grind you down out there.


Senor Raul, it is sad to say, maybe, that I do not envy this girl.   Maybe she will be resented.   You never know the level people will stoop out of sheer jealousy, resentment, or spite.     Nietzsche called it "resentiment" (or something similar).

I would also be concerned about her were she my daughter, so I understand the concerns of the family also.   Also, I am never impressed with Nuclear Physics and all that.   They always want to mold someone intro one of their tools.

May she take what she can get, and ride it until the wheels fall off.   Take the education opportunity, but not commit to any employer. Tough call actually.      She appears maybe a bit naïve and may find danger travelling abroad.

“Owners of the new mechanical technology created a new technology of social control through abundant use of police, spies, sabotage, propaganda, and legislation … In the society just ahead, one profession has astonishingly good prospects. I’m referring to the various specialties associated with policing the angry, the disaffected, and the embittered. Because school promises are mathematically impossible to keep, they were, from the beginning, a Ponzi scheme, like Social Security.” (Gatto)


“School is a jobs project for a large class of people it would be difficult to find employment for otherwise in a frightening job market, one in which the majority of all employment in the nation is either temporary or part time.” (Gatto)

While John Taylor Gatto is speaking of the United States in particular, all you have to do is look around in your own society. I'm sure you will find many bitter lifelong students who have simply taken to drink while holding down a job that does not require any of their "education."

I think it is important to value education for its own sake and not to expect it to lead to financial posterity.   She can take her learning experiences with her … She may lose her love of mathematics in the process,  but this is all most likely worth the risk for her.

Us older dogs, Senor Raul, we are too cynical to expend too much effort for "blue ribbons" or gold stars.  I would be intimidated by the language barriers to be faced.   I do not think I would know how to "behave" and might end up in trouble.   

Yikes!


[diary entry] 2009.12.11

Something strange and dangerous is happening in Amerika. Organization imposes an ethic of conformity on its employees. Businesses test for levels of conformity. There are monotonously similar ideas of success: a house, a wife, a good job with some organization – perhaps a gigantic monster of a corporation that destroys environments in India like Coca-Cola, a car (maybe two or three), a family (at least 2.3 kiddies) …

The real difference between people is the degree to which they are other-directed or inner-directed. In parts of Europe, especially England, even in parts of India, China, and Japan, and certainly in the “United States” itself, the character of the last few generations of youth is formed mainly by television and cinema. The so-called “good characters” are socially well-adjusted. The so-called “bad characters” are curmudgeons or are obviously self-centered.

[note: curmudgeon = “a crusty, ill-tempered, and usually old man”]

[note 2: The Underground History of American Education by John Taylor Gatto ]
« Last Edit: December 27, 2019, 03:38:45 pm by Kaspar Heinrich »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

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raul

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Re: Mathematics for Jailbirds
« Reply #22 on: July 31, 2019, 10:04:38 am »
Hentrich,

Thank you once again for your words. Most important.  I hope this young woman learns much in Russia and as you say, commit to no employer. Here many Paraguayan students get grants or scholarships to study abroad and in return they come back and work in public institutions.

In this world you are valued for your work or productivity. Consequences will be paid for having this attitude or behavior for this inhuman and materialistic Weltanschauung.  I admit I had this behavior too. That is the way I was judged  and I judged most in this way. I realize all this at this time of my life while millions of men and women do not grasp anything at all.

Stay safe.

Nation of One

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Re: Mathematics for Jailbirds
« Reply #23 on: September 04, 2019, 08:58:36 am »
I wish to clarify that in naming this thread, "Mathematics for Jailbirds," I certainly do not intend to indicate content remedial in nature.   No, and again, no.   I wish to pay honor to the great stretches of time and "isolation from the Mad World Rat Race" which is such robust soil for intellectual development and exploration of the abstract mental world of concepts and logical structures.

In a make-believe world where the incarcerated masses were offered opportunuties by the Powers That Be to enrich their Inner Lives with education.

And why not provide education-encouraging Youth Hostels, cabin-oriented shelters with shared Library, self-farming communities?    There is a thin line between Military Rule and "peace time" in our Global Civilization.

All it takes is a certain degree hurricane "event" to trigger a series of Haywire flags militarizing local authorities, where the priority is not to protect human life, but to protect "human property."

Bizzare and horrifying joke.

Unfortunately, even the criminal world is populated mostly with mall-rats and gorts.

It is a Razor's Edge to keep one's own head together amidst the inane chatter and News of the World in Flames.

<snip, snip, snip>

 That's what makes human beings such Absolute Liars.  We talk about everything but the smell of our own shiit.   :)    We must lie to ourselves in order to maintain some "composure."    We must not allow ourselves to see ourselves as decaying meat.  It might freak us out too much.
« Last Edit: December 03, 2019, 09:20:03 am by Kaspar Heinrich »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

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Nation of One

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When Prisoners Dare to Become Scholars
« Reply #24 on: December 02, 2019, 02:12:21 pm »
In another thread between Holden and Raul:

Quote from: Raul
In a post to Hentrich you said that you were trapped like a rat. Indeed we are all trapped like rats on this farm called Earth. You also say that many people believe in reincarnation and you have earned quite a lot of bad karma. If that is the case, the punishment is worse than the crime. Who decides if if we have a good or bad karma? After all, this world is a prison, not a classroom.

This made me think of this research paper:

When prisoners dare to become scholars: Prison education as resistance

Quote
In this rhetorical autoethnography, we attempt to grapple with the meaning of teaching and learning within prison. Or, as my student put it, what's the point? From Key's experiences in the classroom, our argument emerges that education functions as a means of resistance to hegemonic masculinity, even to the point of neglecting survival, in order to achieve individual worth.

Quote
The system doesn't care if the prisoners are competent and they certainly give no regard to whether they achieve competence. What they do expect — what they demand at the end of a baton and a can of mace — is that prisoners comply without complaint. These qualities, of course, are the opposite of what makes a good student.

Who decides if we have good karma or bad karma?    Isn't the law of karma simply, "you become what you do?"

We are in a prison.  We are still scholars.  I have no doubt in my mind about this.  I have been a scholar for most of my life.  Even the classrooms outside the actual prisons are inside the Big Prison.   Some cities are Open-Air prisons where the bars of the cages are made of money.   Regardless, Holden is a scholar, most definitely.  I don't think anyone, not even his father, has any say in whether he continues to "be" what "he does."

The classroom is inside the prison.  People wonder what the point is.   Holden's father does not see the point in studying mathematics if it is not a requirement for one's duties on the prison farm.   He wants Holden to comply without complaint. These qualities, of course, are the opposite of what makes a good student.

One must confront the prison ambience, standing up to toxic masculinity, defying the mandates of survival.

A mild example of prison ambience and toxic masculinity:  When I was working for the park service, sometime back in 1994 or so, there were a couple rangers (law enforcement equivalent to state troopers inside the parks) gabbing loud enough for me to overhear.   Maybe they saw me with my book open on a table during a meal break.   The one was bragging to the other about how, when his son was holding his head a little too high over doing well in "Calculus," he beat the daylights out of him.   Needless to say, I was not impressed. 

That's the kind of authority I wish to defy, even if to the point of neglecting survival.

Quote
Today’s hegemonic masculinity in the United States of America and Europe includes a high degree of ruthless competition, an inability to express emotions other than anger, an unwillingness to admit weakness or dependency, devaluation of women and all feminine attributes in men, homophobia, and so forth (Brittan, 1989). Hegemonic masculinity is conceptual and stereotypic in the sense that most men veer far from the hegemonic norm in their actual idiosyncratic ways, but even as they do so, they tend to worry lest others will view them as unmanly for their deviations from the hegemonic ideal of the real man.

Ah, the old question, what is a "real man"?

Quote
Respect is a very important factor. There is nothing toxic about the need to be shown some respect. All men have that need and go about satisfying it in various ways. What can lead to toxicity is the repeated frustration of a man’s need to be respected. Thus, there is the well-known caricature of domestic violence or toxic masculinity in the community, where the man feels chronically disrespected at work and in the community, drinks alcohol to numb the pain, and proceeds to beat or otherwise abuse the woman he is closest to while screaming, “All I ask for is to be shown a little respect!”

When someone wonders what the point is in studying anything that does not help them increase the respect shown to them, or to study things not respected by those disrespecting them, they get to the heart of the matter.   The point is ... maybe we find our worth in our own eyes and accept that a half a dozen blockheads will always gang up on the genius, maybe even physically abusing him.   

Ah, yes, this world is a prison, and we must dare to become scholars nonetheless.

“You become what you give your attention to. If you yourself don’t choose what thoughts and images you expose yourself to, someone else will ... and their motives may not be the highest.”

~ Epictetus



"Conduct yourself as a knower rather than as a sufferer."

"How better to subdue a slave than to 'treat' his desire for freedom?"
« Last Edit: December 03, 2019, 09:49:14 am by Kaspar Heinrich »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

~ Tabak und Kaffee Süchtigen ~

Nation of One

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Re: Mathematics for Jailbirds
« Reply #25 on: December 12, 2019, 05:35:25 pm »
A lower middle class which has received secondary or even university education without being given any corresponding outlet for its trained abilities was the backbone of the twentieth century Fascist Party in Italy and the National Socialist Party in Germany. The demoniac driving force which carried Mussolini and Hitler to power was generated out of this intellectual proletariat’s exasperation at finding its painful efforts at self-improvement were not sufficient.

~ Arnold Toynbee, MA Study of History

Lifted from The Underground History of American Education by John Taylor Gatto
Chapter Sixteen : A Conspiracy Against Ourselves
« Last Edit: December 27, 2019, 03:36:31 pm by Kaspar Heinrich »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

~ Tabak und Kaffee Süchtigen ~

Holden

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-van Gogh.

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Re: Mathematics for Jailbirds
« Reply #27 on: December 28, 2019, 06:05:35 am »
That was kind of interesting.   While reading it, I had some "negative thoughts" ... reflecting upon the exceptional  mathematical understanding possessed by one such as Teddy Kaczynski.   Compare this to the kind of authority the author from MAA projects, speaking as some kind of "insider."   

It's a fuucked up world, as you know Holden.   There is ice in people's laughter, and the poor man who figures things out may be in danger of being made a total fool of by this mass of meat called the silent majority.  How can an honest man be anything but a dark-minded satirist?    Could you imagine a conversation between this Professor Keith Devlin and ex-Professor (for only 2 years since he was over-the-heads of mostly all students and faculty) Kaczynski?   Kaczynski would be "behind the times" as far as computer programming goes, and how dependent upon computers "doing" current mathematics has become.     I suppose it is all relative how "intelligent" one is deemed by "industrial society".

Is one intelligent enough to command a military troop using algorithms?   Does it take a deeper kind of sense to have no desire to apply mathematics to the "mathematized," "alphanumericized," so-called real world?  They would judge such a man as Teddy Kaczynski harshly even if he had not become the Unabomber [RED FLAG! I don't care].  You see, they would say he was unable to communicate his ideas to make themselves (and the hordes of happy slaves/consumers) feel superior.

Why did Kaczynski study the complex mathematics he studied?   Was he simply doing as he was told or did he have a genuine interest?    What kind of creepy world have we been born into?   What a nightmare zoo!   The wiz kids who master the new monkeys' tricks may develop a certain hubris that will leave them ill-equipped to handle complex problems without access to the awesome machines with the amazing compter-algebra-systems .   I imagine there was a time when computations had to be handled by many individual computing-human-beings, where a large problem is divided into manageable sub-problems.  No wonder so many of us drawn to "calculating and computing" find ourselves all-too-superflous.

I can't see getting through this life without coming to the conclusion that our entire society is one great farce, and that those who really "get it," end up institutionalized.   

I have serious mistrust of the insiders.    Hell, what is deep learning?

Quote
    “First, what  is taught is not, in itself, of any significance. The chances of anyone who finds they need to make use of mathematics at some point in their life or career being able to use any specific high school curriculum method is close to zero. In fact, by the time a student today graduates from university, the mathematics they may find themselves having to use may well have not been developed when they were at school. Such is the pace of change today.”

    “Second, what is crucial to effective math learning is what is sometimes called “deep learning”; the ability to think fluidly and creatively, adapting definitions and techniques already mastered, reasoning by analogy with reasoning that has worked (or not worked) on similar problems in the past, and combining (in a creative fashion) known approaches to a novel situation.”

    “But here’s the rub. The mass of evidence from research in cognitive science tells us that the only way to acquire that all important “deep learning” is by prolonged engagement with some specific mathematics topics. So, to be effective, any mathematics curriculum has to focus on a small number of specific topics.”

I believe it is the first that made you think of my work with the Dolciani texts, where I am using it as inspiration to adapt modern C++ generic programming techniques to their approach of "Modern" [abstract] mathematics:

The chances of anyone who finds they need to make use of mathematics at some point in their life or career being able to use any specific high school curriculum method is close to zero. In fact, by the time a student today graduates from university, the mathematics they may find themselves having to use may well have not been developed when they were at school. Such is the pace of change today.

He may simply have mentioned the increase use of computer algebra systems.

It is impossible for me to engage in any dialogue with "insiders" since I am such an extreme "outsider" when it comes to academia and its master, industrial civilization.

I am afraid that I have become of quietly bitter man with a great deal of resentment and hatred in me.   It is difficult to hide my own disgust with the things people are proud of.    I see and feel too much.   I get it that the world will have a good hearty laugh whenever a so-called "genius" flips the script and tells academia and Master Big Busine$$ to shove it up their collective a-hole, then gets punished or dealt with accordingly.   The blockheads who follow orders but don't really understand anything beyond "report to your position" get off on seeing deranged geniuses go off the deep end, getting pulled from shacks in the woods ... literally making jokes about "dirty underwear."

Even though I am no mathematical genius, compared to most people in "my?" society, I might as well be.    How I imagine they delight in seeing me penniless and dependent upon the government for my sustenance.

Are not soldiers also depending on their government in exchange for service?

Me, there is no reporting to a "superior," and all they could do with me, most likely, is either put a bullet in my head, rip my tongue out, cut off my fingertips, etc.

I write while I can.    I am determined to continue to breathe life into the Dolciani classic, Modern Introductory Analysis, but I wish to increase my knowledge of the C++ STL so that I can present more mathematically elegant solutions, as far as programming exercises go.

That is a personal quest who only a handful of people might really appreciate.   I do so with full knowledge of my Outsider Status.   I do so with full knowledge of my mediocre intelligence in comparison to the wiz kids and savants.

I have tried to engage in actual conversation about actual math or actual code, but there are only crickets mostly.

I am not interested in learning how to become a good code-monkey for Big Business, the Medical-Prison-Complex.

I can't help but feel that there are many conspiring against this "I" I keep referring to.

Maybe the Internet only makes it that much more clear to me how very full of shiit this world is, and always has been.

It would not take too much to land me in the streets, and without the "stability" offered by living indoors with access to electricity and food, I can not predict what kind of animal-creature I will become next.    Who does know who they are, really, until they have missed several meals and have nowhere to rest their tired psychic body?

I have a great deal of doubt in "authority" of all kinds.  Holden, I know this will come as no surprise to you or raul, but, goddamn, I don't think I can prevent myself from becoming more and more bitter.   The gorts are not worthy of a detailed explanation of anything.   They will only mock those of us who have figured something out for ourselves, which makes it impossible to acclimate ourselves to this insane world.

The Internet is like being in a circle of drunks, each one yammering on and on, and no one hearing the others.

In the end, what will matter most may be the conversation one maintains with oneself, between the ears.

I try to be honest, but you must see by now that I am also a victim of the madness that is this world.   I am not immune!

I do not claim to have any answers.  All I can share with you is my seething bitterness, so that, when you feel yourself going insane (a consequence of asking questions which have no answers), you might be comforted that it is just par for the course if you are courageous enough to face the brute facts of our predicament.

At the risk of sounding like a Prophet of Doom, to me, the author of that article from MAA appears to believe in something like "progress" in the development of mathematics.   All well and good, but, there is something about this that does rub me the wrong way.   

Holden, do you think I may simply be a hopeless suicidal depressive who is only able to see human beings as the tubes, intestines, and nerve endings they are?

How many are in on the conspiracy to make us feel like such outsiders?

That is, how many insiders does it take to fool us, to trick us, to pull the wool over our eyes?
« Last Edit: December 28, 2019, 10:41:49 am by Sour Kraut (made in Amerika) »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

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Holden

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Re: Mathematics for Jailbirds
« Reply #28 on: December 29, 2019, 01:44:31 am »
Quote
Holden, do you think I may simply be a hopeless suicidal depressive who is only able to see human beings as the tubes, intestines, and nerve endings they are?

You are certainly that,Herr Hauser, but not simply that,because you are also a great deal more than that. You see the reality which is mind shattering and yet somehow ,by using your internal resources like your interest for mathematics,pessimistic philosophy and literature you have been able to keep this horror at bay for a long time now.
And that is no mean feat. Many people might have succumbed to acute neurosis or maybe even out and out psychosis, having glimpsed at the kind of horror that you have seen. You internal resources have served you very well.

How many are in on the conspiracy to make us feel like such outsiders?
I'd say most of the people that you see around you are a part of the conspiracy.My parents certainly are.Just a few minutes back they were giving  me yet another lecturer on getting married.My father said that they do not want to be blamed for organizing my marriage forcefully so I must myself ask for it and mean it too and then,I just could not help recalling his from Orwell's book:

The long-hoped-for bullet was entering his brain.

He gazed up at the enormous face. Forty years it had taken him to learn
what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark moustache. O cruel, needless
misunderstanding! O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast!
Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all
right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won
the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.

Not only should I get married,but I MUST do it of my own free will.What farce!
And then my father says they they would only get me married in a family which has more than one kids,meaning my would-be bride should have siblings and then my mother interrupts him and say that he is a hundred percent right as single children are very self-centered,she would make it as one of her objectives to tell every couple, who is really to listen, that they must never have a single child but two or more.Like I have told you I am an only child and my mother feels that if there were more children we would all value her more,would be more afraid of her, as the mother she would have all the authority and if there are more children ,then,the value of each of the child goes down,you see, and her value simultaneously increases.Demand and supply kind of thing.

While I was full of impotent rage inside,I kept quite and left the room.

My mother and my father are a part of the conspiracy and but they are not conscious of the rationality.My mother is watching Hindu televangelists all the time and singing right along with them.I have not doubt that he'd have another baby( or more) if only biology allowed her have them.

That is, how many insiders does it take to fool us, to trick us, to pull the wool over our eyes?
I don't think a man like you can be fooled easily. You can be tormented a great deal ,true,but not fooled.I most most of the people are on the inside but not knowingly. Its not a conspiracy as the one that that was hatched to kill Kennedy ,example. This one goes far deeper and is also far more insidious.

First, the brains of the conspirators are hardwired and second,most of the human beings are hardwired in a gortish way.
Our job is really is to kill time and do it in the most suffering-free manner.But that is an impossibility because existence always entails suffering.Maybe we should try to mitigate it as much as possible.
La Tristesse Durera Toujours                                  (The Sadness Lasts Forever ...)
-van Gogh.

Nation of One

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Re: Mathematics for Jailbirds
« Reply #29 on: January 01, 2020, 09:40:40 pm »
As for mathematics for jailbirds, I recall the words of Frederick Douglas:

 “It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men”.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Quote from: Holden
You see the reality which is mind shattering and yet somehow ,by using your internal resources like your interest for mathematics,pessimistic philosophy and literature you have been able to keep this horror at bay for a long time now.
And that is no mean feat. Many people might have succumbed to acute neurosis or maybe even out and out psychosis, having glimpsed at the kind of horror that you have seen. You internal resources have served you very well.

The thing is, Holden, you see, the things I have seen and experienced, well, others are experiencing these things right now.  There are people existing beyond their psychological capacity; that is, suppose so many who suffer extreme trauma through basic homelessness, penniless, and mental collapse simply carry on in zombie mode.  Many live beyond their threshold, beyond what they are able to tolerate, so they suffer nervous collapse, maybe not even aware of it, as it becomes NORMALIZED.   Madness has been normalized.  Many broken lives.  Many Humpty Dumpty's who all the king's horses and all the king's men can't put back together again. 

The jails are the modern day poorhouse.  In fact, since the days of Ronald Ray-Gun (Mr Star Wars), the county jails may more and more resemble high-security insane asylums ... or just Dog Pounds.  Sure, there will always be the drunken axe murderers, as well as those who have went berserk over "love triangles". 

Sadly, there are even some in the county jail whose quality of life IMPROVES while incarcerated.   That is how rough it is for penniless, landless human animals with no capital, no resources.   A few of us are able to see that we are all crabs in a bucket and we do what we can to minimize the distress we cause one another; but then, again, there are those who appear to be demons in human form, more than willing to torment those trapped in this bucket with them.

I've interacted with individuals from many sectors of our diverse society, and just like in Dostoevski's The Idiot, I have found those who are hostile toward me, as well as those who show me kindness (sharing food with me [or drugs/alcohol]).   I really believe the most intense battles we engage in with our fellowman occur within our own heart-mind. 

When I look within my own psyche, I see chaos and contradictions.  I do an awful lot of complaining about the system I live under, but I certainly would never in my right mind claim to have any workable solutions.  The planet is a madhouse, an insane asylum - all of it!   We talk to our shrinks, our shrinks talk to their shrinks, no wonder we're up the wall.

For years I have been keeping my eyes peeled for like-minded individuals ... but ... the world seems to be filled with freaks, and we are each freaks in our own peculiar ways - hence, FREAKS ----> "not easily categorized, difficult to manage, and whose behavior is unpredictable."

Looking for others like us is like looking for an author to read after finding Schopenhauer.  There was only Cioran.  That was it.  If I wanted a harder "literary drug," I would pick up Celine just to try to see what it might be like to get beyond politeness.

So, if I find any other like-minded individuals, I will be sure to let you all know.   For now, this is IT for me.   You are the few minds that "get me" and do not try to convince me that I am nuts.   You validate me, and now, the validation you offer must be counted as one of my internal resources.  You are my living Ciorans and Celines in-the-flesh.

« Last Edit: January 04, 2020, 09:33:12 am by sticks && stones && bones »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

~ Tabak und Kaffee Süchtigen ~