This "Phlosiphy and Langwidge" category is for when what I write doesn't fit into my general pursuit of Math and Logic. It usually fits here in the closely-related Phlosafie and Langwij category. It's slightly ironic that I would have a category separating these, since there really is a lot of overlap between Math, Logic, Philosophy, and Language, for me.
The wild headline is intentional because the audience for this article will most likely arrive here by search engines, as people are trying to find "the opposite of schadenfreude," but not the obvious opposite. Of these visitors only a few will appreciate this little word adventure here, […]
I just confirmed a hunch using Wikipedia in the manner where it excels: providing well-known facts which are not controversial. My hunch was that logical positivism traces directly back to the deep insight Wittgenstein introduced as the concluding statement of his Logico-Tractatus, where he makes a […]
In studying the meaning of meaning, the will to meaning, and the meaning in how purport and import align -- these are the two meanings of every word in a sentence* -- it becomes clear: Understanding meaning is enlightening; understanding the meaning of meaning is empowering. The more we seek […]
In this video, Noam Chomsky on Jung, Wittgenstein, and Gödel (Ask Me Anything), Chomsky receives a question where he either completely misses the point of the question, or is simply not informed on Daniel Dennett's idea that memes evolve in a manner which is similar to the way genes evolve (one […]
Taking the Shortcut by W. H. Norton Moving from binary logic to ternary logic is harder than from ternary to binary. Today I suddenly realized this, and was delighted because it solves one of the deeper "why" questions on the prevalence of binary logic, which is everywhere, in everything […]
How binary looks like a unity It occurred to me the other day that one of the obstacles preventing people from understanding how binary logic penetrates into every aspect of their lives, and how this pervasiveness causes all kinds of problems they cannot see -- just like fish cannot "see" […]
The imperative is as plain as day, once you see it. And ironically well-hidden from those who consider themselves smart. I finally found a way to convey an elusive degree of intelligence which is primarily compassionate, an idea which I long contemplated, but could never put into words as well as I […]
A story I once heard, but a quick search didn't turn up details, so if others have more information, let me know in the comments: Somewhere in the 70s there was a drive to develop software for Air Traffic Controllers to use. The first iteration of the software was an abysmal failure. The second […]
I first encountered reference to Schopenhauer in "Love Can Open Prison Doors" by Starr Daily, which is a truly remarkable story, short enough you can get through it in a day or two. This slim volume provides the best insight into the mechanics of love I have yet encountered. Daily was a […]
A friend told me a story recently, and it so purely reveals a dynamic we do not often see clearly, I'm delighted to discover it. I think it is quite a profound insight. He is a member of an online group discussing a new cryptocurrency, one of many hundreds of similar groups, each of which is in a […]
What's up with the maze of red strings that somehow defines the crazy consipiracy-theorist in the movies? It's a meme that shows up often. I personally think the image is beautiful (I mean the Platonic form of the idea, not the actual screenshots from scenes in movies). Such complexity! Such […]
The best evidence I've encountered yet that the way we've learned to use binary logic is not our natural way of thinking comes out of psychology, where they have developed a trivalent way to evaluate truth values out of necessity, because people keep using logic this way, naturally: Psychological […]
My previous post was about a nice little tidbit from Salomon Maimon where I found him describing a way of reading Immanual Kant that was analogous to a way I study math (while protecting an internal intuitive coherence which I feel certain would become fragmented if I read other writers more […]
Perhaps it can be expressed in acorn form first, but there is a large and complex tree buried in this insight, which will take a lot of room to fully express. To start, we have this realization that is predicated in a sense of survival, a sense of continuity. Whether it arises in reaction to a […]
Okay, it's a pretty raw tangle of thought experiment, but here we go: You can't. There is no such thing as multiple infinities. Imagine if there were, all such multiple infinities would simply exist within a "larger" infinity that is ultimately singular. That ultimately singular one is the […]
Hebrew mysticism, in a typically non-binary manner, answers the question of Something from Nothing vs Nothing from Something with "Both, depending on your perspective." Ayin is closely associated with the Ein Sof (Hebrew ??? ???, meaning "no end", "without an end" ), […]
I confess I had no idea what Reinhold Niebuhr's position was until I was puzzled by the following citation where Obama describes him as one of his favorite philosophers during an interview with David Brooks (it might help to know this was pre-president Obama, back when he was the idealist who hadn't […]
Need to think about this one for a while, I think the author is onto something, but I need to understand entropy a little better before I can assess this: When we're working with binary states entropy isn't a 1 or a 0. Its definition is instead related to the amount of information we can hold versus […]
The guy offscreen arguing with the professor in the last couple minutes of the video is making a point I've contemplated many times. I'll paraphrase: "The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle is not a statement about the intrinsic nature of quantum mechanical things (as it is commonly presented), […]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4UMyTnlaMY