Author Topic: Studying Mathematics as a Way to Endure Time  (Read 3807 times)

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Nation of One

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Re: Studying Mathematics as a Way to Endure Time
« Reply #15 on: April 05, 2016, 12:54:04 am »
Patterns ... yes, I can see how you could say that mathematics is a science of patterns.


I see the patterns of the trigonometric identities showing up in many different contexts.  An identity is an equation which is always true, so I suppose using trigonometric identities to make sense of a solution is like recognizing some kind of pattern. 

Sometimes I become a bit peeved when a textbook does not show where an identity is derived as if by magic.  If I were the author of a text, I would explicitly show the details at least in a footnote or in the margins.

In fact, I am calling it quits for the night just because of such a magic trick.

I will have to sleep on it.

For me, making sense of it is most important.  I sometimes lose patience when I feel the author of a textbook is not making it easy to make sense ...

... and tomorrow morning I will have to track down the patterns called Trigonometric Identities.

Why can't the authors just explain the transformation in the margins?  Could it be that difficult to explain?  Must they be so "clever"?
Alas, another virtue these studies will inculcate:

Willingness to tolerate bad explanations

Changing gears, a lot of pedagogy in math is terrible, perhaps because people generally don't understand math all that well, or just don't know how to talk about it clearly. By wading through bad explanations, you can learn how to mentally translate something complex into something that makes sense to you. This is a useful skill in other domains too.


Do you think that I will be somewhat relieved on my death bed to realize I never had to understand everything, or at least, that I won't have to concern myself with this any longer?

It's a kind of tortured existence, after all.

By the way, I came up with a contradictory usage of the words "mathematical maturity" which is purposefully antagonistic to intellectual snobs.  Whereas the latter use this to signify sophistication in dealing with more advanced mathematics, I am using it to signify a refusal to become overwhelmed, knowing the limits of one's abilities, and calmly working in harmony with the level of one's understanding.
« Last Edit: April 05, 2016, 01:06:30 pm by H »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

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raul

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Re: Studying Mathematics as a Way to Endure Time
« Reply #16 on: April 05, 2016, 08:10:57 pm »
Señor Hentrich,
"If someone asks me, "What are you studying all that for, especially at your age?"", this is really a nonsensical question. Would this world have geniuses if everyone studied at a specific age? Do we have to wear something specific because that´s what people think it is for our age? Take care. Raúl

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Re: Studying Mathematics as a Way to Endure Time
« Reply #17 on: April 05, 2016, 10:31:45 pm »
Once again, I thank you, Raúl, for your encouragement. 

At least I defy the stereotype of the deadbeat living on government relief, although I dare not judge my fellow "losers" too harshly if they daily drown their consciousness with drugs and alcohol.  I mean, it's a razor's edge that momentarily spares me from that fate.

In a society where the few "winners" are glorified, it is difficult to have a clear understanding of who we really are.  When most measure their worth according to their position in society, their mate, their children, or even the kind of car they drive, I am sure there are countless more lost souls in our world who are in my camp of "rejects" than the minority that is supposedly the norm.

You are right about age.  Of course, when I was 17 I began to rebel and wanted a break from books and was drawn more to "the occult".  Throughout my life I have returned to study mathematics, usually after my world crumbles to pieces.  Maybe this is how I ground myself.

It's as if I am calmed by it, like these ideas are old friends that greet me, saying, "You are safe now.  The crackheads are not at your door."   :D

I am not being purposefully mean-spirited towards those in the grip of the Night.  It's kind of a horror, the human condition that is, the way we're wired, it's as if we are designed for anguish and, well, suffering.

I experienced life on the edge of nowhere, and I have been able to verify Schopenhauer's statements about human society and the wretched nature of our existence.

I am ready to grow old.  I am not squeamish about the word, "old".

I noticed in my last trip through the county jail last year at this time that I feel more comfortable with my nature and temperament now than I did at age 20.

Some of the inmates even respected me just the way I am.  I don't lift weights or watch TV or play cards or chess.  I'm not into playing games.  I just write and read over what I write.

I am a happy kind of sad and a sad kind of happy.

I think I have finally come to understand that it is not necessarily ME who is weird, but that LIFE ITSELF is weird, and I happen to be life for the time being.

There are those who theorize that life is an accident, and that nothingness is a more "natural" state.  But, what do we know, really?

Oh, as far as people who may criticize someone for being obsessed with studying mathematics, you're right about their opinions not mattering.  I mean, I remember in 1995 or so, a secretary at the park I worked at as a maintenance worker would tease me about "what I did for fun".  I studied math.   She thought that was very strange!

Well, when I went off the deep end a few months later, becoming a booze hound and turning the state-owned house I was living in into a Den of Iniquity, I wonder if she thought I was having "fun".

What are people chasing when they are looking for "fun"?

What was I chasing when I returned to college in 1998?

It was a different kind of fun.  Actually, it wasn't fun at all, but it is something I had to get out of my system, just like I had to get falling into a deep alcohol induced depression out of my system when I went back off the deep end in 2003 after graduating with honors.

I ended up on welfare. 

I guess I kind of snapped out of the funk I was in ... quite suddenly ... last year around this time.

And now ... the hours I would spend inebriated, singing to the walls or wandering around outside, I now spend in fairly concentrated and serious study.  I am breathing it.


What I cherish about this message board is that no one can give some snide remark, like "too much information".  If someone chooses to read "my confessions", this is their choice.  If they are not interested, they will not bother reading what I type. 

Oh, I wanted to say something about growing older.  I know that 49 is not considered old age, but what I mean is that I am at the point where I can appreciate having never been married (or divorced, of course), and, while I might wonder what a creature from my seed would be like, I am relieved that I don't have to look that creature in the eyes and know that I inflicted life on it.

So, as my life unfolds ... I do treasure this calm period of my life where I get my fix from a textbook.  My high comes from understanding the material I am studying.

I know we live in a hostile world full of misery.  It would be vulgar for me to gloat over having discovered a great secret path to "contentment".   All I will say is that it is not where many people are looking for it.

I am no original thinker.  Schopenhauer said long ago that one is better off avoiding pain than searching for pleasure.  We all know that there are countless "religious" mystics from cultures all over the earth who gave similar councils and maxims.  Is it true that it is difficult for us to follow our own advice?  What a quandary, huh?

Peace and Compassion!
« Last Edit: April 06, 2016, 11:48:39 am by H »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

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raul

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Re: Studying Mathematics as a Way to Endure Time
« Reply #18 on: April 06, 2016, 09:40:07 am »
Señor Hentrich,
Once again thanks for your reply. In Paraguay there is no government relief,maybe only for the elderly people who get some money monthly. But as a compensation,we have almost 300,000 employees working for the state.This situation also implies a sort of social control because at the end of the month what really moves the economy is the state sector. I do not include the black sector, that is to say, drug smuggling (I hear the Paraguayan marijuana is the best in the region),arms trafficking,corruption at very high level,etc. Take care. Raúl

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Re: Studying Mathematics as a Way to Endure Time
« Reply #19 on: April 06, 2016, 10:29:03 am »
Quote from: Raul
In Paraguay there is no government relief,maybe only for the elderly people who get some money monthly. But as a compensation,we have almost 300,000 employees working for the state.This situation also implies a sort of social control because at the end of the month what really moves the economy is the state sector.

I see ...

“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)

It took me many years to discover that the Chinese saying, "May you live in interesting times." turns out to be a curse.  Aha ...

Interesting times, indeed.

I didn't mind too much being a state slave. It was ok in the capacity that I served, as a "semi-skilled" manual laborer.  I have often imagined that I would make a fairly interesting teacher of mathematics/programming, but I have been out of work so long, and with my temperament, I think it would be asking for trouble were I to subject myself to the abuse most teachers endure in the public education sector, so I am resigned to living as a disciple of Schopenhauer and Cioran, following the council of the Henry Fool (one of my fictional heroes, like Ignatius Reilly of A Confederacy of Dunces).



As for the topic of studying mathematics as a way to endure time, do you think there are "state employees", whether in your neck of the woods, Holden's India, or here in Dirty Jersey, USA, who find their careers with the state government so boring and redundant (and soul-killing) that they might secretly study higher mathematics as a way to embrace their humanity and transcend identifying themselves with their position in the state machinery?

Are there prison guards who sneak in physics books to study on their night shifts?

Are their garbage men who are writing philosophical satire?

What would Schopenhauer do if he were born a galley slave?

A better question is, how many like Schopenhauer are trapped by social/economic circumstances in a life of drudgery that leaves no opportunity for leisure?

There very well could be a significant number of "bums" who are quite philosophical.

Consider the Henry Foolish attitude in Schopenhauer's letter to a banker who was going bankrupt.  Schopenhauer demanded he hand over the "monies".

"It is that, moreover, upon which my entire happiness, my freedom and my scholarly leisure depends; a good that is so seldom granted in this world to those of my kind, and it would be almost unconscionable as weak, not to defend it to the utmost end and hold to it fast with all one's might."

I guess, if one felt this strongly about scholarly leisure, a traditional life of marriage, career, and raising children for the labor force must be resisted with all one's might.  My own father, at the age of 75, is still erecting and installing walk-in refrigeration for many merchants.  Does this make me feel like a deadbeat for not doing as would be demanded in a caste system, taking my father's burden?  Maybe if I were carrying on the tribe, this would be my only option, but I am the end of the line.  I'm resigning from the species. 

This is our dead end; and so, if this stinking wretched world doesn't mind too much, I'll be hiding away completing the goddam square and looking for the fuucking eigenvalues.   :o


Please don't mind if I pull some material from the wordpress blog since the search engine there works much better than the local search engine for this message board.  Your mentioning the state's involvement in the creation of jobs for social control has got me remembering things I had posted in my drunken days.


John Taylor Gatto lists what centralized schooling should deliver:

(1)Obedient soldiers to the army
(2)Obedient workers to the factories, farms, and other workplaces
(3)Well-subordinated civil servants, trained in their function
(4)Well-subordinated clerks for industry
(5)Citizens who think alike on mass issues
(6)National uniformity in thought, law, and deed


philistine – a person who is lacking in or hostile or smugly indifferent to intellectual pursuits, aesthetic refinement, etc., or is contentedly commonplace in ideas and tastes, i.e., the phonies who fancy themselves “the middle class.”


Again:  You wrote, "We have almost 300,000 employees working for the state.This situation also implies a sort of social control."
 
The French Revolution was regarded as the work of a horde of underemployed intellectuals.

Maybe the "new unemployed masses", at least here in the United States, are not the shiftless, lazy, and uneducated, but a growing army of self-educated intellectuals who can't stand the redundant pseudo-careers available in the service sector ... a Bizarroland of shopping malls and automobiles ... No wonder half the population in the United States is on sick-leave.  They find themselves longing for the day they can call in dead.


“I cannot afford to waste my time making money.” ~ Jean Louis Agassiz

Kafka’s Metamorphosis is one of the greatest indictments against jobs ever written. Gregor’s impetus to transform reflects the illogicality of working life and the impossibility of sustaining a work ethic. It is a vitriolic condemnation of working life!

It is what it is.  Life is easier when you look at it as a detached observer, and try not to take anything too personal, realizing that, as Kafka said, it is shocking to witness how some little triviality can alter the course of one's life indefinitely.  That's why, one has to really fear Fate.  Try as one may to avoid trouble, alas, trouble may find us!

Nietzsche pointed out the similarities between the true philosopher and the hardened criminal.   ;)

I still can't shake Thomas Ligotti's comment about how the life of a prisoner in a minimum security prison seems the ideal life.  He used to dream of becoming a rock star.  Now he glorifies the life of a prisoner.

Strange days indeed.

Quote
During an interview, when asked if he could live with the restrictions of being a professional writer, Thomas Ligotti responded, “I realized a long time ago that I could never be a professional writer for the simple reason that I am not interested in the same things that people who buy the majority of books in this world are interested in. Like Lovecraft, I’m not interested in people and their relationships. That alone counts me out as a professional writer. I also have a bad attitude toward the world. I think that life is a curse and so on.”

When young, Ligotti wanted to be a rock star.

“We have been raised by television to believe that someday we’ll be millionaires and movie stars and rock stars, but we won’t. And we’re just learning this fact,” Tyler said. “So don’t FUuCK with us.” (Fight Club)


Disillusionment can be a very desirable and empowering state of mind: Ligotti says, “At this time I’ve run out of other people that I want to be. My ideal persona these days is that of an inmate in a minimum security prison. That really seems like the good life to me.”

And now I will edit, edit, edit the typos, typos, typos in a fit of mania before I allow myself to eat my two Dostoyevskian fried eggs on toast for lunch/breakfast at high noon.

Some days I think I lose myself in mathematics so that I don't drive myself crazy thinking about my non-place in this world of ours.
« Last Edit: April 06, 2016, 07:19:33 pm by H »
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: Studying Mathematics as a Way to Endure Time
« Reply #20 on: April 06, 2016, 08:07:53 pm »
Señor Hentrich,
As usual thank you for your comments. I forgot to tell you that Paraguay has seven million inhabitants. For a small country,specially landlocked, is very difficult to deal with the population. You see, most go for jobs to Argentina, where there are one million Paraguayans, Brazil,roughly three hundred thousand, Spain,with a lot of difficulties of their own, have seventy thousand, even the US,New York, I was told in Queens, there are almost eight thousand and who knows how many in other US cities.

And why do we have this growing population? Well, Paraguayan women and men are prolific breeders specially in the countryside. I see a very bleak future for the young generations. That´s why 300.000 thousand state employees working for the state really move the economy. Also Paraguay has many multimillionaires who might even compete with the US rich men.The current president owns big tobacco companies,a very important bank, exchange house, and was often accused of money laundering, drug smuggling, offshore accounts,etc. I heard the US gave him the green light to run for president and of course corruption is part of daily life. Take care. Raul

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Re: Studying Mathematics as a Way to Endure Time
« Reply #21 on: April 06, 2016, 08:33:44 pm »
Thanks for the clarification ...

When you say that the Paraguayan women and men are prolific breeders, specially in the countryside, do you mean the indigenous population or descendants from Europe (Spain?  Italy?)?

I did a little research and found that the indigenous language, Guaraní,  is much more widely spoken in Paraguay than is Spanish, which is unique in Latin America.

I, myself, am confused about national identity, although it is clear to me that my biological/ethnic ancestors are from Scandanavia/Germania.  I'll leave it at that.  I am confused about my place in this world.  I guess I will ride it until the wheels fall off.

How is the situation for the indigenous down there?  Is there resentment toward Spain and colonization?  Is there any kind of identity crisis? 

Quote from: Raul
I see a very bleak future for the young generations.

I think this sentiment is cross-cultural.  In Japan, the government literally tries to bribe couples into breeding by giving them economic incentives.  I think the birth rate for native Germans is also in decline. 

If you follow Thomas Ligotti's way of thinking, there actually has never been a good time to be born, and never will be ...

No wonder the pleasure of orgasssmmmm is so powerful.  It has to over-power reason.

It's no wonder kids go for the drugs and alcohol.  That was my reaction as well.

Even a tough algebra or trigonometry problem could drive someone to wish for death or at least oblivion.

As I have confessed already, I am currently using mathematics as a spiritual discipline to inculcate virtues like patience, inner honesty, and humility.   A youth may take it personal when running into a challenging problem, whereas I look at it as an exercise in humility.

Of course, I would not suggest this route to a depressed teenager, as sometimes mathematical challenges might be enough to make someone extremely depressed.

Perhaps a few puffs off the good green vegetation has prevented many suicides.

Well, like Henry David Thoreau said, I am not responsible for the smooth functioning of society. 

I have a question though.  If there is no government relief for those who become too depressed to continue being compliant and obedient state employees, what does the government do when their employees have some kind of nervous breakdown or just stops functioning?
« Last Edit: April 06, 2016, 11:30:29 pm by H »
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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Re: Studying Mathematics as a Way to Endure Time
« Reply #22 on: April 06, 2016, 11:28:30 pm »
My ideal persona these days is that of an inmate in a minimum security prison. That really seems like the good life to me.

The world- the real prison, appears more like a maximum security prison,where the following torture techniques are used:
1. Sexual Assault/Humiliation
2. Sleep Deprivation
3. Sensory Deprivation
4. Solitary Confinement/Isolation
5. Mock Executions
6. Forced Medication
7. Use of Dogs to Scare Detainees
8. Temperature Extremes
9. Sensory Bombardment (Noise)
10. Watching Others Being Tortured
11. Psychological Techniques
La Tristesse Durera Toujours                                  (The Sadness Lasts Forever ...)
-van Gogh.

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Re: Studying Mathematics as a Way to Endure Time
« Reply #23 on: April 06, 2016, 11:32:32 pm »
... and don't forget one of the most distressing similarities:  fellow prisoners working directly for the officials to do their dirty work and enforce their codes.

Quote from: Holden
Mathematics is the science of patterns.Do you agree?
What is pattern:a regular and intelligible form or sequence discernible in the way in which something happens or is done.

And if it is indeed the study of patterns,then I think,the same mathematical concept should be studied in at least two different contexts to make sense of it.

I was sneaking a look at one of the PDF books the Unconsciousness blessed me with [Mind Treasure], Fritjof Capra's The Tao of Physics, which I remember seeing on the physics instructors desk in highschool ... Brother Smokestack we called him ... "brother" because that's how a we were to address those in the "lay" order who were of a teaching order of "Christian Brothers".

Anyway, he would constantly be smoking cigarettes in the back room ...

That's not what I wanted to discuss.  I saw a quote in the beginning of the book.  It reminded me of your statement, "if it is indeed the study of patterns,then I think,the same mathematical concept should be studied in at least two different contexts to make sense of it."

Quote from: Werner Heisenberg
It is probably true quite generally that in the history of human thinking the most fruitful developments frequently take place at those points where two different lines of thought meet.  These lines may have their roots in quite different parts of
human culture, in different times or different cultural environments or different religious traditions: hence if they actually meet, that is, if they are at least so much related to each other that a real interaction can take place, then one may hope that new and interesting developments may follow.

Somewhat related to this is an example of doing similar things in totally different ways.  I had gotten a copy of Sheldon Axler's "Algebra and Trigonometry" just because I wanted to do these justice.  I wanted to kind of go over Analytic Geometry alongside my study of "where I suppose I am at" with my other obsessions [linear algebra, multivariable calculus, differential equations, physics]. 

Well, I have been pleasantly surprised that Sheldon Axler's text is not merely a review, but I must humbly admit, that on at least one occasion it is as though I am learning something for the first time.

When ever I have strayed for many years from any interest in mathematics, even in my most wretchedly drunken condition, I would still find some kind of sentimental value in certain mathematical techniques.  Completing the square was one of these techniques.

Axler not only has a different way of carrying out this technique, but, in the exercises/problems I am exposed to different uses for this technique that I never had occasion to ever learn about ...

It is humbling [not to be confused with humiliating] because I may have been subconsciously contaminated by the competitive sports/war culture mentality which has one feeling "above" learning anything new about subjects one feels one has "mastered".   Ha!  Another consequence of the Church of Reason, grades, and diplomas ... giving someone a false sense of mastery might close a student's mind to continued learning about a subject.

Experiences such as this also remind me of your statement, "if it [mathematics] is indeed the study of patterns,then I think,the same mathematical concept should be studied in at least two different contexts to make sense of it."

I remember you suggested a theory as to what drives me to keep returning to fundamental subjects again and again.  It has less to do with "intense heavy duty reviewing" and more to do with studying in different contexts, or just this sense that I may have been exposed to some things in more advanced areas which make me a better student to learn something I thought I already knew in a different context.

In humility, patience, and intellectual honesty,

PEACE
« Last Edit: April 07, 2016, 10:08:47 am by H »
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 ~

raul

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Re: Studying Mathematics as a Way to Endure Time
« Reply #24 on: April 07, 2016, 06:55:07 pm »
Señor Hentrich,
Once again thanks for your comments. Yes, Spanish and Guarani are the official languages here but the written Guarani was established by priests in colonnial times because Guarani is oral and more graphic. In the countryside there is more population, and this goes back to our history. From 1864 to 1870 Paraguay was at war against the at that time Brazilian Empire, Argentina and Uruguay,but mainly Brazil. The war ends in 1870 with the killing of Mariscal Francisco Solano Lopez and the decimation of the male population leaving only 200,000 survivors, mostly women, children and elderly people. Then the country had revolutions,coup détats, another war with Bolivia from 1932 to 1935 where more than 50,000 Paraguayan and Bolivian soldiers died (some say they died for the fight between Rockefeller and  Royal Dutch Shell) and after that revolutions, civil war in 1947 and civil unrest until 1954 where General Alfredo Stroessner takes power and as time went by becomes the president until February, 1989. The mentality was that Paraguay in order to survive as a country needed people to populate and this goes on. Of course there is the influence of the Catholic Church and other factors such as the pressure to procreate. Paraguay has many immigrant groups such as Germans, French, Ukrainians, Japanese,South Koreans, Mennonites who came in the 1920s and newer groups from Canada and Mexico, descendents of White Russians,also Italians,etc.

Forty or fity years ago if you do not have a children, you were considered almost a pariah but now it is a little different. Paraguay does not have a lot of indigenous population, roughly 100,000 in different tribes. Many years ago there was a scientific research that said Paraguayans are ninety percent Spanish. My last name is González, a typical Spanish last name. More and more indigenous peoples are being expelled from their ancient lands because of deforestation, an increasing soy bean growers who buy all the land they can. So they come to the city and they suffer much. There is a resentment because Guarani was considered a vulgar language but now it is taught in public schools and books are published in Guarani. It is a difficult language and most speak jopará which is a mixture of Spanish and Guarani.    The Indigenous girls holding their children beg for money in the streets or in the parks are for many not a pleasant view. One of your countryman who taught physical education,Mark Textor,from Seatle in a private school here told me he was a little shocked at seeing this. I guess in Seattle things are different.

There is a lot of alcoholism here that goes with car accidents or robberies. Here there is a lot of pressure from the families,neighbors,church to "produce" so the concept of "stop functioning" would not be understood here. Some time ago they told me that my asking questions about the meaning of life was because I did not have a girlfriend or wife and children. Take care. Raúl

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Re: Studying Mathematics as a Way to Endure Time
« Reply #25 on: April 07, 2016, 07:33:07 pm »
Thank you for the details ... wow, what a horrific history ... 1870 .. the decimation of the male population leaving only 200,000 survivors, mostly women, children and elderly people ... That might explain the obsession with reproducing.

Quote
Some time ago they told me that my asking questions about the meaning of life was because I did not have a girlfriend or wife and children.

I think it might be the other way around:  Because you ask questions about the meaning of life is WHY you don't have a girlfriend or wife or children.  Nothing gets you kicked out of bed quicker than articulating your sense of the purposelessness and meaningless redundancy of the absurd comedy of reproduction.

Some people just don't get it.  They don't want to think about the big picture.  It's herd morality.

Quote
Here there is a lot of pressure from the families,neighbors,church to "produce" so the concept of "stop functioning" would not be understood here.

pariah - An outcast; one despised by society.

This is why I don't put any hope in a geographical or cultural cure.  Intelligence is so easily demonized and even criminalized.

What if someone in your culture refused to function in the capacity demanded by family, neighbors, and church?  I mean, suppose someone were, say, the son of a field laborer, and he suddenly became obsessed with book learning?  What if he or she felt so strongly about this that they would threaten suicide were they prevented from being permitted to study what interested them? 

Or, suppose that one's intellect or manner of expressing themselves made them unfit for servility?

Would they be beaten down into submission or starved?   :-\

Maybe this is why some choose to join an order of monks even if they do not believe one iota of the religious doctrines ... as a way to live a contemplative life?

Suppose we are farmed as a labor pool like farm animals on a plantation.

It is easy to get into trouble, right?   It's not too difficult to get oneself crucified, huh?

Take care Raul.  Don't let the bastards grind you down.
« Last Edit: April 07, 2016, 11:03:38 pm by H »
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 ~

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Studying Mathematics on the Dole
« Reply #26 on: April 08, 2016, 10:01:25 am »
DISCLAIMER:  There is a reason I do not update a blog.  I have a very small audience in mind.  May Holden read the following, keeping in mind, much life Dostoyevsky's UNDERGROUND MAN, I am working on my writing style in a kind of stream of consciousness ...

Consider this a kind of replacement of my old style diaries.  When a thought feels "forbidden" as I try to articulate it, then I think I am touching upon an important truth.
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Do you think "Studying Mathematics on the Dole" is a little more provocative than "Studying Mathematics as a Way to Endure Time" ?

I think "Studying Mathematics on the Dole" is more satirical sounding.

It flies in the face of all the talk (usually nationalistic or patriotic) about preparing the youth for the future labor force, to fill all these positions that require mathematical and scientific training. 

Do the gorts really believe that the strongest motivation for learning mathematics is so as to become a servile scientist for the corporate state or some renegade billionaire's whims?

I don't trust most people.  Let's put it this way, I don't trust most people's level of honesty ... I don't trust degrees or professional titles.  Going back through a textbook, one may realize that a great deal is not retained.  Society is a goddam farce, and still we drive over bridges and depend on powerful machinery.  Science fiction Bizarroland.

Some may study meditation and ancient religious texts once they come to the conclusion that their very existence is a burden to themselves ... the greatest burden is one's own life and "what to do" in this absurd situation.

I guess studying mathematics, since it is such a slow, lifelong process, is just a way to exercise the brain.  As soon as one attaches some kind of application towards some kind of career, one forgets the servile and obedient natures drawn to careers with corporations and universities and government agencies, etc.

Can we live with great contradictions?  Do we have a choice?

I don't want to learn how to "build apps for smart phones" - really.  I don't want to be a code-monkey.   :-\

There is the slight possibility that I may be one of the more honest intellects on the planet, and what I am doing is going back over some fundamental mathematics in preparation to spend the rest of my life just solving basic physics problems, and that's it.  No drama, no genius/madman scenarios.   Just an honest man tired of living in a world of lies and bullshiit.

I'll spend the entire day working on a few math problems rather than trying to seek "gainful employment".   Maybe it is just a way to rebel against the demands to be a productive member of society.   

Report to your supervisor so he or she can tell you to stock diapers on the shelf ...

Houston, we have a problem here ...

The entire class in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, of 2002, still unemployed, even to this day ...

Fuuck it.  I'm going to relearn the core mathematics as a way to endure [enjoy] a life on the dole for biploar disorder.  And why not?  It is better than the alternative, drinking myself into oblivion and getting corralled into the "treatment industry" as a mental-health consumer so as to justify the careers of touchy-feely psychology majors or, even worse, 12 Step Recovery Movement zealots who have discovered a career in "carrying the message".

PUUUUUUUUUUUUUUKE!

Rather than make statements such as, "The fact is, there is no shortage of US students studying math, science, and engineering. One of the reasons for the collapse of the US economy is precisely that US math, science, and engineering talent, particularly, the talent coming out of the universities in the past decade, hasn't been allowed into the workforce," I will simply face the situation squarely ... and lose myself in a mountain of textbooks ... which, of course, can only be approached one exercise at a time.

Maybe, just maybe, I can simply enjoy the day being me.

Poetic justice and sweet revenge against a world that threw me overboard and tried to flush me down the the toilet 30 fuucking years ago.

Keep studying mathematics.  Keep returning to the fundamentals over and over again, not for a job, not for a career, but ... and there are many who never thought it would come to this ... for sheer revenge.

Think about it, there are those with positions in government agencies who try to encourage one to enroll in programs that will certify them as being proficient in some technical capacity.  This is for what?  What is the latest gadget the gorts are going ga-ga over? 

The reality is you could spend the good part of a lifetime or a long prison sentence just working through a big fat physics textbook (calculus-based and including "modern" physics).  Some kinds of knowledge remains fairly consistent over the years ...

So, if we are in some kind of Open Air Prison, I can't see the zookeepers being too concerned if one of their disgruntled, nonbreeding creatures chooses to bone up on the fundamentals and work through mathematics textbooks rather than drinking himself to death or attending stupid AA meetings.

The fundamental ideas do not change, and I have reached a point where I am not impressed with ultra complicated explanations.  I want to just be able to work through basic problems in the core subjects.  Believe it or not, this would be a challenge to most of those who presume to represent our governments.

Am I expressing myself clearly or am I ranting or raving?

The revenge I am talking about is to simply go back and study fundamentals all over again from scratch as a way to keep myself grounded in reality, whatever that happens to be.

You can surely appreciate the difference in how I am approaching my education at this time, and how I approached it at age 17 or again at age 30.  I was an enthusiastic student at age 30.  I did well ... but I want to relearn things ... for NO REASON this time.

Now that I am free of delusions about "becoming a scientist" [HA!], now that I am content just being a mad philosopher who likes to witness how it takes a full day just to do justice to a few pages in a textbook, I am using these texts in ways that might warm the hearts of the authors of such texts, for I am actually reading them and doing the exercises so as to learn, and not just so as to (1) ace the exam, (2) get a degree so as to (3) get hired by a large corporation so as to (4) be able to purchase a Volkswagen Passat.

Did I think I was going to be able to drive a Volkswagen Passat when I gradated from the university in 2002?  Would I have become a happy, gainfully employed gort?  Would I have invested in dental implants?

Ah, my failure to find a place in this world may have been a great blessing.  Now, instead of wasting my life jumping through hoops and being "productive" or "put to use," I can return to the books and actually try to enjoy the learning process ... now that I no longer have any delusions about "working toward some kind of goal."

My only goal now is to understand the little bit I will be able to cover while detached from society.

In a way, I am living some kind of depressing existential novel.  It would be a depressing book to read, but it's not a depressing life to live.  I mean, there is some level of paradox here. 

I am in a position where I can honestly face the fact that those textbooks are challenging and demand a student's attention and concentration.   

Let me also suggest that I am not such a strange phenomenon.  What I mean is, there is most likely an army of me.



Please tell me the truth.  I have gone mad, haven't I?

I am acclimating myself to the idea of accepting my status as a lifelong student ... and developing some virtues to prevent me from becoming too bitter and ... ugly.

The only complication seems to be in staying focused on a particular subject since they all seem to overlap.  That's why I am trying to focus on particular textbooks and disciplining myself to work through them diligently.  I would be a mental wreck without coffee and tobacco.

This is where the existential angst comes into play ...

You see, like anyone else, my own existence is my biggest dilemma. 

What I live for is not the stuff novels or Hollywood films are made of. 

Today I will be satisfied after making a few matrices orthogonally diagonalizable ... and, with no one to discuss these things with, I will romance my own private madness.

Out of respect for the couple people who care to keep track of where my head is at, I will try to correct all my typos in between banging my head against the wall.

Let's not forget the strong dose of madness.  This obsession began with a Linear Algebra textbook I had purchased back on December 31st, 2015.  I am almost to chapter 6 of 7 heavy duty chapters.  Over the past few months I have collected textbooks in other subjects of interest, and I have been spreading myself fairly thin.  I think it is best if I cool my jets and focus on getting through the one text ... but I can't help but peck away at others.  There is a lot going on in my own little world, and I would not be able to follow my bliss if things would have panned out differently for me.  This is what may irk those who would like to see me dragged through the mud. 

The best I can hope to achieve is some kind of space cadet calm, the calm a mental patient might feel while coloring in a pad with crayons during quiet time.

All I want to do is remain honest about what I am doing to get through a day ... and I have to remember what a basket case I could be when binge drinking.  Life is real.

I suspect that there are those whose sons may have been through US military service who would get a sick pleasure if they could just sick their dogs on me for having been granted a university education only to end up a statistic, the long-term unemployed, the unemployable personality, the freeloader, the intellectual deadbeat, the unpatriotic antinatalist, the retarded genius, the little useless runt who ought to be punched in the face repeatedly by good God-fearing tax-paying child-breeding citizens.

I know only too well that there are those who would take great pleasure seeing my kind dragged through the mud and publicly humiliated.  No wonder I take such great delight in laying on the floor with my pencil and math book.  I can't help but get sudden flashes of those who would like to bash in my skull and watch me bleed onto the notebook ... or perhaps they could blind me or break off my fingers so I couldn't hold a pencil.

Maybe it is better not to try to explain my strategy for enduring time.

There seems to be a tendency for "students" and people in general to feel that if something does not come easy to them that they are "mentally deficient", and so they do not want to attempt anything that will make them feel "stupid".

I want to resist this reaction.  When something feels difficult for me, I do not want to just throw in the towel.  So what if it takes me all day to understand something.  I think that psychology plays an important part in the learning process, but I don't think the idea of "genius" is any help at all.

Learning can be a frustrating process.  It's better to see ourselves as the struggling chimpanzees that we actually are.  Then we might appreciate the little progress we actually do make.

For this kind "experiment in self-education", knowing the kind of honest appraisal I am after, it may be best to document the process in private diaries to eliminate any chance of posturing or holding back both fears and delights.

The key for me is allowing myself to think slowly and carefully, and I could never study this way in a formal "university" scenario.  There was too much pressure, too much stress, too much cramming, too much anxiety. 

If for no other reason, studying slowly just for personal satisfaction is like a key to a secret realm ... It is a solitary path.
« Last Edit: April 08, 2016, 06:52:09 pm by H »
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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Re: Studying Mathematics as a Way to Endure Time
« Reply #27 on: April 08, 2016, 11:38:13 pm »
Poetic justice and sweet revenge against a world that threw me overboard and tried to flush me down the the toilet 30 fuucking years ago.

They threw me overboard too.But maybe you know,our lack of material success is a blessing in disguise.I think,as Schopenhauer ,also says-denial of the Will-to-Live is not so much a result of a brilliant of mind as that of "grace". The said grace is available to very few people .

Think about it,when you are about 20,if you would have studied at some Ivy Leave School,& sailed through it smoothly,which I think was a real possibility,at least for you,you may have landed with a plush job, & if then,you'd have had a couple of kids,then you would have been forced to be a sort of gort,even if ,in your 30s or 40s ,you would have realised that you have been duped.

You,perhaps,would have been in much worse condition,just another victiom of Maya-the Illusion.
As things as things are today-I think you have been fortunate,you have been baptised by the "Denial of the Will to Live."

An honest question,for its bugging my mind:Why do you think Schopenhauer never appreciated Mathematics as much as Art?
La Tristesse Durera Toujours                                  (The Sadness Lasts Forever ...)
-van Gogh.

Nation of One

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Re: Studying Mathematics as a Way to Endure Time
« Reply #28 on: April 09, 2016, 01:00:23 am »
Great points Holden.  Failure may be our greatest success.

I am not going to venture to guess.  You know, Schopenhauer may have had a bad temperament.  You know how frustrating mathematics can be at times.  Hell, just today I made one little error that was early on in a problem, so every time I checked my work, even with the assistance of a computer, the math was correct.  It was driving me crazy.  When I would let the computer algebra system do the entire calculation with a built in procedure, it came up with different results.  This let me know that my error was before I was making the calculations ...

I eventually found it and was relieved.  I refused to move on until I tracked it down.

That might anger Schopenhauer.  The thing is, one only tends to go crazy tracking down such errors when one is getting a feel for what's going on ... otherwise, you wouldn't know that your error was some little mistake somewhere.

Basically, it is a tedious and annoying activity sometimes.  Schopenhauer wanted to think of problems that transcended time and place ... matters of the heart, actually, as strange as that seems to say about someone as cerebral as Schopenhauer.

He seemed to have great insight into human emotions and how miserable and anxious we can become. 

Man, I am thankful for my eyesight, but I think I will have to invest in a magnifying glass.  A few of the fat textbooks I got (used editions) have such small print.  I don't want that to discourage me.

Yes, so , I think mathematics may have been kind of technical to him.

I enjoy calculating and computing ... Schopenhauer liked to contemplate very deep things, you know, like the fact that the world is in our head, and our head is in the world.

Mathematics can make us feel dumb.  Well, sometimes we are dumb.  We make dumb mistakes.

Maybe Schopenhauer was not comfortable with feeling dumb, and you know, that is a common experience when you are solving math problems.  You really need a sense of humor ... to be able to laugh at yourself, to find yourself ridiculous.  Maybe this was against his nature.

I have no talent for drawing.  I can only handle very childlike cartoons.  I am delighted with myself if I can draw a circle!  When I try to draw three-dimensional graphs, it's all fuucked up.

I guess, as individuals, we are all wired a little differently.  The young woman I lived with back in the 90's, her brother was a great artist, but he could not make heads or tails out of the most elementary algebra.  The paintings he painted were just awe inspiring.  He had great talent ... he tried to get by with landscaping, building the upper middle class gardens with fish ponds and all that ... He ended up shooting himself in the heart. 

Life is tragic. I try not to think about it too much.  I try not to let things get to me.

I guess I am fairly blessed.  I even have some insight into why I do what I do.  For instance, I was so excited to have had the opportunity to attend the university at age 30 after spending so many years cleaning toilets and cutting grass, and I feel the whole process was far too rushed.  I would have been happier moving at a slower pace and letting the process take years.

Now that I have momentarily snapped out of my suicidal binge drinking, I am honoring that part of me that would have rather moved more slowly, for the sake of comprehension.

As for Schopenhauer, I think he had respect for mathematics and physics.  I love when he mentions things like the sine and cosine ... or when he criticizes Euclid's methods ...

I'm just glad he was able to pull off what he did.  His bold honesty is so rare.  He wrote for us, Holden.  He even stated this point blank, no beating around the bush:  he wrote for the few, not for the many.  He wrote to humanity, not just to Germany.  His contemporaries may have resented him, taking this as a criticism against them; but, really, who would want to be remembered as someone who thinks their country or time was the center of their identity?

Writing is an odd technology, where our words may reach some mind in the future, if there even is a future.   Even now, with the Internet, I would think people would play down nationality or ethnicity, considering that our potential audience is humanity, and not merely the local thought police.

No, Schopenhauer is one of the great teachers of humanity.  He tried to warn us ... about being duped by nature ... I'll never forget when I first read his warning about how Nature doesn't care one bit about our happiness ... JUST REPRODUCE AND EAT FOOD OR DIE.

I can see how some folks came to identify Nature as evil.  There is that indifference to suffering that leaves one freezing to death in the ice, naked as they day we were born.  Not nice.

Anyway, stay safe.  I think we have learned not to want life, and maybe, with a little grace, we won't have to become too evil ourselves. 

It's almost 2AM ... time to do a little non-math reading ... That biography you suggested is making me kind of sad for Schopenhauer.  I feel so fortunate that my mother actually likes me.   I always knew his relation to his mother was tragic, but, man, it seems like she disliked him tremendously.  I don't think she cared too much for his suicided father either.

Yep, I'm catching some feelings over it.  Life is not pleasant.  I can just imagine his sister concerned about "what others might think" about his offensive disdain for the church-goers.  Imagine, back then, Schopenhauer referred to the United Sates of America as "the Slave States," and he pointed out the wretched behavior of those who attend mass every Sabbath.   He called the slave owning society "devils in human form."   

England put Bertrand Russell in jail for criticizing the United States entering the World War, but I guess as Schopenhauer bit his tongue when it came to local politics, he was safe.   I didn't realize professors were being watched closely for subversive rhetoric.  The state, no matter which country or nation, seems to be hostile to anyone who strongly opposes the status quo.  Heaven forbid someone is a wilderness survivalist who might want to live underground during a nuclear holocaust ... must be sum kaand 'o terrist.

Anyway, I feel spiritually closer to Schopenhauer than I did to either of my biological grandfathers.  Is that sad?  Not really.  They would have liked me better if I had been some kind of Volkswagen engineer, but I became a pot-smoking Native sympathizer ... a philosopher ? - a big disappointment, I'm sure.   

I have great respect for my own father, and he has always, in his own way, discouraged me from being a dupe ... never pressured me to marry or reproduce ... and he had even suggested at one point that he suspected I had been blacklisted long ago by Smalltown USA ... just for being me.  Well ... and the things I have shouted while drunk.  It felt like I was possessed by the Devil ... at least how it is portrayed in the Exorcist film.  Yikes. 

I wonder what it is about alcohol that unleashes those demons.

Still,between my father and I there is some kind of disconnect, a gulf that may perplex him ... I am not impressed with things he is impressed with [athletes?], and he doesn't seem too interested in the things that interest me.  I don't know what he thinks of my interest in mathematics or philosophy.  He knows that I do a great deal of thinking, but I suppose he may secretly see this as having done me no good whatsoever.   :P  He cares about me though, and you can't ask for more than that.  He accepts me for who I am and senses that I could be a tiny little thorn in the side of the knuckle draggers in charge.

Schopenhauer has been my guide through this nightmare.  While it may be kind of pleasant now, and I do treasure this time I can really hit the books, you know as well as I do, that this is a cool spot on the hot coals of life.

I am glad we have kept up this correspondence.  You are a true spiritual brother to me.

Peace.
« Last Edit: April 09, 2016, 02:49:57 am by H »
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 ~

raul

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Re: Studying Mathematics as a Way to Endure Time
« Reply #29 on: April 09, 2016, 03:06:12 pm »
Señor Hentrich,
You say you are not an original thinker. However you think and that´s already an accomplishment or curse in a world where we are brainwashed to think alike with no questioning.I tell you because I also took as great truths the lies I was taught or hammered by family,school,neighbors,friends and so on. Although I am not inclined to violence I wanted to do something spiteful when I realized the nightmare I was brought to, but what is the purpose of doing spiteful things in an already spiteful world? You write about identity. You are from German/Scandinavian ancestry. Here in school they told us that when the conquistadors came there was almost no resistance to them but later I found out that the indigenous rose up against the Spaniards in a bloody way twenty-seven times.

In Paraguay soccer is the popular sport (our sedative and tranquilizer) and the sport commentators say "the Guarani team" about the national soccer team, and there are love songs in Guarani but our attitude towards them is of indifference and lack of consideration. After all our ancestors plundered and took their lands with the sword and the bible. Take care. Raúl