Author Topic: Chess..Mathematics:My intellect has exhausted itself ..  (Read 589 times)

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Holden

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Chess..Mathematics:My intellect has exhausted itself ..
« on: November 26, 2015, 02:26:47 pm »
My intellect has exhausted itself in order to demonstrate its own limitations.
This might easily have been written by Bobby Fischer.Or by me.Mr H, I think we have tried all the possbile moves on the chess board called life,but there is no way out of here ,is there?

Chess and Mathematics. Is mathematics not an advanced version of chess??
I understand your obsession with math/programming, I really do.Not because I am emphatic.Because I am walking down the same path.
La Tristesse Durera Toujours                                  (The Sadness Lasts Forever ...)
-van Gogh.

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Nation of One

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For all the frustrations.  There are some rare moments of deep satisfaction ... rare ... with the beginner's mind ...

All day I was working on translating code for Chinese Remainder Theorem solver using extended Euclidean algorithm, from the code I had worked on at the end of the summer in Python.  It was a little daydream I had back then of getting back into C++ and even trying to finally actually try to understand how to use STL.  The daydream of "lifting" the Python code to C++ was realized.

It is a very small feat, but the way I went about it showed tenacity.  I was not so much frustrated but kind of excited and circling around little problems like a madman.  What I ended up doing was just loading the code with print-out statements that would tell me what the code was up to at each step, displaying values, telling me things like "I am in the inner_crt procedure calling gcd" ... and things like that.  I kind of hard coded a debugger right in the code. 

And I would run the IDLE Python debugger with my numeth.py functions, specifically crt which uses gcd and xgcd ... This is how I tracked down precisely where my C++ code was dropping the ball.

Anyway, it is well into the night and I have to report to kindergarten class in the morning.

I will have to try to get a print out of the code so I can sneak a look at it while in ... the fu-ck-ing Hall of Mirrors.

There is no winning in life.  I don't think it is a game to win or lose. 

We may invest our energy in exploring and investigating things that interest us and gain some authentic stimulation once in a blue moon.  You are right about there being no audience.  It may even be almost "sacred" when only we can witness our little breakthroughs in understanding ... just between ourselves and the moon.

Peace
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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I think it would not be right to call you a math/programming genius because I think you are  an all around genius who just happens to do math, which is rather different. A gort celebrity like Linus Torvalds  might be called a programming genius, but he's like an idiot savant. Outside of programming he knows nothing.

I greatly admire the aching majesty of your philosophy.. My one torment is that ,it may turn out that,I am good enough to recognise your genius, but not good enough to be one.
 By genius here I mean spitting in the eye of the gort-society-living like Winston Smith in 1984.
We shall see, I will certainly give it my best shot.
La Tristesse Durera Toujours                                  (The Sadness Lasts Forever ...)
-van Gogh.

Nation of One

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Re: exhausted intellect: WARNING: Long Winded ...
« Reply #3 on: November 27, 2015, 07:40:42 pm »
WARNING:  Long Winded Essay Style Entry
Some paragraphs were deleted for brevity's sake


I'm not comfortable with the term genius, either.  We seem to be on a completely different orbit from gort meritocracy.  I mean, we actually praise slowing down the mind so that we might find glory in fundamental theories.  We don't glorify fast thinking.

I don't like to refer to myself as a programmer or mathematician any more than I identify myself as a writer or any more than I wanted to refer to myself as a janitor or an inmate.   I may have considered myself as a philosopher for decades, but now I am most comfortable seeing myself simply as a member of an ape-like species that is most likely heading for extinction ... and it's nothing personal.  On a personal level, I am simply one of these ape-like creatures who happens to like to tinker with math and programming very much in the spirit of exploration and even intellectual adventure.  I mean, my god, there's a heroine epidemic, millions of people sit watching sports on television, more people die in car accidents in one year in the United States than in the entire Vietnam war, and it's basically a science-fiction bizarroland.  I could go on and on - and sometimes I do ... and I consider myself one of the fortunate ones.  You might be surprised to know who I consider unfortunate.  I don't want to be the president of Amerika.  I do not envy those I am expected to envy.  Again and again, like a mantra, "Nothing that is so, is so."

I guess I tend to pay homage to figures like Linus Torvalds or Richard Stallman ... and now Stepanov.  My mind is kind of haywire in comparison, but as you have reminded me again and again, there are different kinds of intelligence.   If I were in a room filled with "professional programmers" and the kind of folks who go to "programming competitions" I would feel very out of place.   I'm just not into all the posturing ... all that monkey business reminds me that we are apes.  Period.

Life is easier to endure when I remind myself of this fact, since the implication is that Linus Torvalds is a special ape with a sharp mind.   We're not all going to be code-monkeys.  I know I am not a code-monkey.  In fact, the only way I become engrossed in writing code is when I can use it to better understand mathematical concepts.

Once the code is finished for a certain procedure, I enjoy returning to pencil and paper, and then just checking the answers ... or maybe applying the "code" mentally with pencil and paper.  I call it code when it is written, but the "religiously mathematical programmer" would call it "implementing an algorithm" I guess. 

My mind is sharp compared to how it has felt in the past.  It is best if we don't compare ourselves with others or compete.  I am no longer concerned with what someone else understands, unless of course I am trying to learn something from that person and I have to trust they know what they are talking about.  To clarify, though, just because I find it difficult to learn from Donald Knuth does not mean he doesn't know what he's talking about.  It just means that, as a student, I am not ready for such a teacher.  I can only handle Knuth in very small doses, like when he covers Euclid's algorithm for a few pages, then that's it.  I really have to be in a certain mood.  I'm kind of moody.

That's why I was enjoying going through the exercises in the Book of Abstract Algebra.  The mood had struck me, and I felt blessed to be in that zone.   Yesterday I was in a different mood, and I pecked away at creating the code I am using along with the exercises to clarify what I am doing in pencil.  Will I be able to recapture that mood again?  There are several things I am devoted to studying, but I want to enjoy the task at hand and not restrict myself to any schedule or grid.  I want to flow from one thing to another and back again without feeling torn or fragmented. 

Hell, I just started looking into Abstract Algebra a few months ago.  I am far from a mathematical genius, but I refuse to allow that to discourage me from appreciating mathematical concepts.  That would be like saying one has to be married or involved with a woman in order to experience a nocturnal emission!   [Actually, this is not a very good analogy for me since I think my di-ck is broken from lack of use.  And some gort somewhere is saying - "derr, too much information."]

By the way, I do understand what you mean as far as spitting in the eye of gort-society, using terms reserved for "productive geniuses" whose efforts lead to manufacturing deadly weapons and engineering sports cars.   It's clear that we are a time-binding species that is able to tinker with computers only by sheer chance. 

You are using the term genius more akin to the way Swift used the term when he wrote, "When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him."

I recall Schopenhauer using the term in this manner as well, as when he writes about how "a genius will be mistreated by half-a-dozen blockheads" or how a man of genius shares a kind of alliance with those with cognitive impairments since both are rejected by status quo.

Just to be in a state of mind where I am content to lay on the floor with book and notebook, pencil in hand, getting up off the floor to use homegrown code to assist my understanding -  I know this is as good as it gets.  You have also validated this, as has Schopenhauer repeatedly in his writings. 

It's a razor's edge, Holden.  I don't know how it is in your culture, but in this culture here, hiding away doing math problems for relaxation might be considered asocial or even pathological ... like Winston writing in his thought-pad committing mindcrime in 1984.  By "a razor's edge" I mean that this secret realm we sometimes enter is elusive.  It's not something one can strive for, and it's not something one can cling to or maintain indefinitely. 

I also sympathize with your resentment against celebrity culture.  It is a great example of gortdom, since nothing that is so, is so.  It is spitting in the face of celebrity culture when one knows he is better off with his humble delight in calmly working through a text studying something that genuinely interests him than to be a Bill Clinton or Obama Barraka ... We have no desire to be idolized or envied by the gorts. 

Why are you picking on Torvalds?  I thought he was one of our modern day heroes.   I may have a smidgeon of religious feeling towards the world of Unix and C ... I guess I too have a few idols ... but maybe none of us is immune to this tendency.  Writing operating systems or compilers is just beyond me.  It's not false modesty.  Just an honest appraisal of the limitations of my abilities.  I can handle writing the code for basic but fundamental mathematical procedures and then making them "show their work."   :P   That's what makes me tick.  When there is no solution, rather than just returning no answer whatsoever, I make the code politely explain that no solution exists, and the output of the work done in proving this is displayed.   I can make versions that just spit out the result or shoot the result to another procedure.
____________________________________________________________________________

IDIOT SAVANT:  a mentally defective person with an exceptional skill or talent in a special field, as a highly developed ability to play music or to solve complex mathematical problems mentally at great speed.

Think of the origin of the term "geek."  [SEE FOOTNOTE]
_________________________________________________________________________

geek

    "sideshow freak," 1916, U.S. carnival and circus slang, perhaps a variant of geck "a fool, dupe, simpleton" (1510s), apparently from Dutch gek or Low German geck, from an imitative verb found in North Sea Germanic and Scandinavian meaning "to croak, cackle," and also "to mock, cheat" (Dutch gekken, German gecken, Danish gjække, Swedish gäcka). The modern form and the popular use with reference to circus sideshow "wild men" is from 1946, in William Lindsay Gresham's novel "Nightmare Alley" (made into a film in 1947 starring Tyrone Power).

        "An ordinary geek doesn't actually eat snakes, just bites off chunks of 'em, chicken heads and rats." [Arthur H. Lewis, "Carnival," 1970]

    By c. 1983, used in teenager slang in reference to peers who lacked social graces but were obsessed with new technology and computers (such as the Anthony Michael Hall character in 1984's "Sixteen Candles").
____________________________________________________________________________
[END FOOTNOTE]


In our era, this is a kind of buzz-word that has some redeeming qualities, implying some kind of obsessive personality that is well-suited to putting the effort into learning things that "more well-balanced and healthy" individuals aren't interested in.  They may feel they have much more exciting things to do than read through manuals and tutorials.

I often like to imagine that the computer I use "appreciates" the kinds of things I make it do.  It's just my imagination, of course, but I do imagine a machine "prefers" running compilers and debuggers than being used as a deck of cards or a slot machine or just a por-nographic magazine.  I'm only kidding, but I feel great peace having two terminals open running similar programs that I made specifically for helping me understand mathematical operations on the fly.  The "debugging statements" actually end up being a great help when going through different exercises.  I'll let you in on a secret:  this was my original intention in studying computer science way back in 1995.   I just wanted to be able to write my own little programs to tinker with my own little mathematical interests if I happened to live much longer than one anticipates.

I guess "programming" is not something one learns in a university.  To me, it is a very personal affair.  In other words, to each his own.  It's an activity that harmonizes well with an amateur math junkie.  I am permitted to diverge from even those I pay deference to.  Alexander Stepanov wants to see programming as a mathematical discipline where one studies Knuth and other fundamental canonical texts.   So much of this has to do with classism, but people tend not to acknowledge this fact.

The gorts equate high education with high intelligence.  Enter industrial civilization, mass society, and celebrity culture, and the next thing you know, people are measuring one's intelligence by their bank accounts, their clothes, their car, their "mannerisms". 

There is an incredible amount of anti-intellectualism in the world, at least in this part of the world.  And yet, as you have implied, technical expertise does not mean one has psychological depth or philosophical insight.  Still, I don't see these qualities as mutually exclusive.

Anyway ... back to the floor I go ...

Enjoy that brain of yours.  At times we feel consciousness is a curse, and perhaps it is, but every now and then, if we can block out the madness, we might enjoy some evenings a million miles from the corporate mindfu-k.    :-\

The main thing about gort society is that the gort, by definition, believes that that which is so, is so, when the truth is that perception is not reality.


You have mentioned that you defy the dichotomy between elementary and advanced, and I would like to do the same as far as low-level and high-level programming.   Tonight I found my bliss studying an inexpensive Book of Abstract Algebra ... doing the exercises in pencil after working on the code in C++ lifted from the Python code from September.

Once again I have managed to depress myself through writing my stream of consciousness.
« Last Edit: November 28, 2015, 06:46:14 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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Thanks for your elaborate response.Its sheer pleasure for me to read your thoughts!It uncanny, we are so alike,probably we both belong to the same grade of the WILL.

Why are you picking on Torvalds?
In a word? He's a breeder.
(http://www.wired.com/2012/03/mr-linux/)
THE LICENSE PLATE on Linus Torvalds’ Mercedes SLK convertible says it all. The frame running around the outside of the plate reads “Mr. Linux. King of Geeks.” But the plate itself says “Dad of 3.”

 He lives with his wife Tove, three kids, a cat, a dog, a snake, a goldfish, a bunny and a pet rat in a comfortable 6,000 square foot home just north of Portland’s tony Lake Oswego neighborhood. The house is yellow — his favorite color — and so’s the Mercedes.

But he’s not really like any of his neighbors. He drives his Mercedes fast.


Pass me the sick bucket please! I mean Dad of 3! Fast Mercedes! 6,000 Sq Foot home!I don't care how good a programmer he maybe,he is just your garden variety gort and you know it.
Without an exception all my heros are child-free and thrifty-Jesus,Schopenhauer,you,Lovecraft,van Gogh.
I just cannot bring myself to like someone who has contributed towards the continuation of human life on this hell of a planet.
Just like in the US,here too one is expected to socialise a lot.And i don't like it one bit.
When I was younger I used to think that stuff like 1984 happens only in the movies, not in real life.
God,I was SO WRONG!

Thanks again for your response.
« Last Edit: November 28, 2015, 04:39:05 pm by Holden »
La Tristesse Durera Toujours                                  (The Sadness Lasts Forever ...)
-van Gogh.

Nation of One

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mindcrime: a case against big money
« Reply #5 on: November 28, 2015, 07:13:23 pm »
You live and breathe the attitude of Catcher in the Rye, Mr. Holden Caulfield.

Your feelings about Linus Torvalds’ lifestyle is reminiscent of the supposed effect reading said novel on the attitude of one Mark David Chapman toward an icon of pop culture.  It's a tricky thing to comment on.  I don't really know too much about Torvalds.   I only know that Linux is Unix to me, and that it has been at the hub of the global Open Source movement.  His fortune is minimal in comparison to the empire of Bill Gates.   I won't defend him though, since I really don't know him at all.  I guess I just feel indebted since I associate him with having access to a Unix-like environment where I can get engrossed in the art and craft without being sidetracked by all the .DLL Windows annoyances.
 
Your dislike of luxurious lifestyles reminds me of a film about Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa, when the rich landlord asked how much he ought to "give to the poor", and Poncho Villa answered, "until you are as poor as they are."

It can't be just a coincidence that "the Lord Jesus Christ" went ballistic on the money-changers (the equivalent of today's big money industries (music, film, publishing, military, city hall and judicial system)) and that Siddhartha Gautama, the son of a king, left a life of luxury at age 30 to devote himself to years of contemplation and self-denial.   I am not at all a pious follower of any creeds, but there may be something to your disgust with ostentatious consumption.

So, when I praise the Linux community, I will be sure not to worship the creator.

I did a little research and found this redeeming quality on his behalf:

Quote
In an interview with Wired, Linus Torvalds said that around 2000, Steve Jobs offered him a place at Apple working on its Unix-based kernel. "Unix for the biggest user base: that was the pitch," Torvalds says. However, he was no fan of Mac OS’s Mach kernel, and Jobs insisted that he drop working on Linux, something Torvalds refused to do. Instead, he continued his work with the open-source platform and now helps manage it on behalf of the Linux Foundation.

Torvald's business ventures haven't netted him the kind of wealth or fame that Jobs received, but he says he's glad he concentrated on the technical aspects of Linux. "I’m very happy with feeling that I’ve done the right thing."

Quote from: Holden
When I was younger I used to think that stuff like 1984 happens only in the movies, not in real life.

God,I was SO WRONG!

Thanks again for your response.

It's been one hell of an awakening.  Some people just don't get it when we say, "Welcome to the nightmare."

They don't see how the parades, the fanfare, the hype, all of that empty flag-waving bullshiiittt and ceremonial theatrics is not reason to relax, but a big contribution to the nightmarish ambience. 

I mean, here, to celebrate the invasion of North America by Christian weaponry, not only are giant symbols of corporate Amerika paraded down the center of the New Rome (Manhattan), but the grotesque faces of 4 presidents (what the natives called "town destroyers") of Mount Rushmore ... And I don't like to think about how outrageously bizarre the whole scene is.  One would have to see the situation from a much broader perspective to grasp the true horror of such a sight.

The people argue over stupid sporting events, have conversations about celebrities, squeal over terroristc attacks on Oceania (*** add footnotes ***), the price of beer, or what a boost to the corporate state's revenue the legalization of marijuana would be.  Some of the more thoroughly indoctrinated gorts complain a great deal about those who do not help to pull the cart of civilization ... and everyone is suspect, especially those diagnosed as ... MENTALLY ILL.   [BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRFFFF!!!!]

Where's that barf bag?

So much of our world is a big set-up.  Entrapment.  The youth are encouraged to be creative and to express themselves, and yet who could possibly be too vocal about their honest appraisal of current affairs when we are at the mercy of an establishment that sees mental illness in every disgruntled outburst?

Psychiatry seems to be an agency of the State for suppressing dissent.

Oh no, we've gone off topic again.  We're out of control.   :-[

_____________________________________________________________________________
[FOOTNOTE: OCEANIA] -  reference to Orwell's dystopian corporate horror version of Zamyatin's We (similar works include Huxley's Brave New World, Vonnegut's Player-Piano, and others]):
 
• Oceania covers the entire continents of America and Oceania and the British Isles, the main location for the novel, in which they are referred to as ‘Airstrip One’.

• Eurasia covers Europe and (more or less) the entire Soviet Union.

• Eastasia covers Japan, Korea, China and northern India.


[FOOTNOTE 2]: Innocence tends to be massacred throughout history.  While reading a book on abstract algebra, of all places, in a little sidenote about the turbulent life of Tartaglia, the guy who discovered the general solution of the cubic equation, I stumbled over something that reminded me that France was once the big bully of Europe.  I mention this not to justify violence, but only to broaden our perspective. For some reason gorts are more horrified by fringe sociopaths than those who commit such acts in a civilized manner - that is, with multimillion dollar bomber jets and robotic drones.

Born with the name Niccolo Fontana around 1500, he was present at the occupation of Brescia by the French in 1512.  He and his father fled with many others into a cathedral for sanctuary, but in the heat of battle the soldiers massacred the hapless citizens even in the cathedral.  The father was killed, and the boy, with a split skull and a deep saber cut across his jaws and palate, was left for dead.  The horror of what he had witnessed caused him to stammer for the rest of his life, earning him the nickname Tartaglia the Stammerer. 
 

_____________________________________________________________________________

I'm sure there must have been many religious monks and what not who chose the monastic lifestyle for the studious lifestyle.  The vow of poverty may have granted a wealth of leisure for intellectual pursuits. 

I keep thinking of Pirsig's assessment of "insanity".   He said when many agree with your views, it is called a religion, whereas when you have a religion of one, it is called insanity.

The sane are playing roles attempting to convert one's views.  Sanity is defined by the culture and can't really be decided upon by any criteria except for what the representatives of a particular culture choose.

I can only think so much about certain things, and then I have to detach.  I've been relaxing while solving congruence equations all day.  I was in a rare mood where I could actually appreciate the method to my madness.  While going through exercises with pencil and paper, I was able to catch some errors by checking with my programs.   Some problems were beyond any procedures I have made (I'm just getting warmed up), but using some slow-motion thinking, I was able to combine the use of procedures and figure how to go about solving those piece meal.   When I was going through all those books in pdf format, I would only do a couple exercises, and I was basically racing through them.  As I mentioned, I was very selective of which texts I invested funds in, and dynamite surely comes in small packages.  I mean, the exercises in "A Book of Abstract Algebra" as well as "C++ For Mathematicians" are a delight to go through, for some reason, I don't know.   You know what a rare thing it is to have exercises that are worth paying attention to.   I would say that I got lucky, but you know how carefully I scanned our universe for these.  Even still, I feel very fortunate, especially since I found one of the last couple inexpensive copies used.  They are worth more to me than what I paid for them.   I have the Internet to thank for allowing me to do such an exhaustive search.   I struck gold with these - just what the doctor ordered.   :)


____________________________________________________________________________

By the way, I removed the link to A Book of Abstract Algebra because it kept getting highjacked by Walmart.  That's some corporate aggression.  Holy ****.  It's so goddamn rude.  It's the one by Charles C Pinter.  You know, some textbooks are close to $100, but this little gem is sufficient and selling for little more than 10 frogskins.  I was pleasantly surprised with how much is packed into such a small paperback book.
____________________________________________________________________________
 

Now I may force myself to look at some assembly code since it is on my list of things I want to peck away at.  I am not as devoted to this as the other material, but I want to do what I can just in case some of it sinks into my subconscious mind.  It might help my intuition.  It also might give me a greater appreciation for what's going on in that long array we call computer memory.

If I can become engrossed in casual learning projects such as this, I may be able to find some secret realm within this Orwellian Nightmare where I am in peace.  Also, forcing my neural wetware to fire neurons might also release some kind of endorphines ... or whatever they're called, where the brain may even experience that elusive sensation we refer to as pleasure.

It's an intellectual and spiritual adventure.  Isn't living a heroic life one of the few ways to transcend the otherwise futile and tragic vanity of our existence?   The thing is, in this Orwellian Nightmare, what we see as heroic, the gorts view as laziness and unpatriotic mental mast-ur-bation.  Standing up to and facing down the herd is considered "not being a team player." 

Refusing to truckle is viewed as "having a problem with authority figures."


Staying out of handcuffs is of vital importance to me these days, and I figure I am not disturbing gortville when I am buried in my studies. May you find some peace of mind.







A confession:  I don't like assembly programming.  I can't even explain why I am once again looking into it.  The ebe IDE that Ray Seyfarth created is all sorts of fuc-ked up.  It is very aggravating.  I can only put a couple hours a day looking at it.  It's not at all enjoyable.

I definitely prefer thinking about abstract algebra ...  :-\

I have to be patient and cannot totally rely on Dr. Seyfarth's "Easy Beginner's Environment" "Integrated Development Environment".   I can follow along in his book using gdb with gdb-dashboard to look at the assembly code until I figure out how to get around the little quirks in ebe.  This is not my priority.  My understanding is lacking in this particular area, so anything I learn will be a help.  If I work through his book a little at a time, when I have the patience - like when I can stay up all night, I will learn what I can. 

It's not "rocket science" but just a bit alien to me.  I just want to feel the edges on the threshold of the machine language (0s and 1s) ... Not that it's enjoyable.  It surely is not fun for me.  I'm pretty sure gdb will be my most useful tool in following along with "Dr. Ray".

I checked out his videos on ZooTube.  He's a trip ... I am not going to judge anyone too harshly.  He is quite human.  Maybe he got kidnapped by UFO's when he was a child playing in the cornfields, and they implanted this familiarity with computer architecture ...  :-X

« Last Edit: November 30, 2015, 08:44:01 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 ~