>Scientists define the stages of life in biological, societal, and chronological terms—but none of them quite capture what it’s like to grow up.
Because unlike the lesser animals, for a human adulthood is not a biological, societal or a chronological question but an epistemological question. The answer is that you become an adult when you learn to think for and by your self. Most people are not adults by that standard.
And besides, when I make phrases, is it really me who is speaking?
How can anyone ever say anything original, personal, unique to him, when by definition language obliges us to draw from a well of pre-existing words?
When we are influenced by so many external forces—our times, the books we read, our sociocultural determinisms, our linguistic tics so deeply ingrained that they form our identity?
The speeches we are constantly bombarded with, in every possible and imaginable form…
Who has never caught a friend, a colleague, a parent, a father-in-law, repeating an argument they have read in a newspaper or heard on television, almost word for word?
As if he were speaking for himself.
As if he had appropriated that speech.
As if he were the source of those thoughts—
rather than a sponge,
rehashing the same formulas,
the same rhetoric,
the same presuppositions,
the same indignant inflections,
the same knowing tone—
as if he were not simply the medium.
Binet, on Barthes and Foucault, and himself I suppose.
> And besides, when I make phrases, is it really me who is speaking? How can anyone ever say anything original, personal, unique to him, when by definition language obliges us to draw from a well of pre-existing words?
You need to learn the distinction between a word (the symbol) and the concept (the meaning) of language. By your standard a Frenchman could never communicate with an Englishman but we know that is not the case.
I probably could’ve/should’ve been clearer that I was quoting Laurent Binet’s _The Seventh Function of Language_ in a (likely poor) attempt at self-deprecating humor. For me, the point of the passage is that we’re all just recombining language, in the best cases cleverly to express our “own” ideas, in the worst, just attempting to pass off other’s ideas as our own.
Your earlier comment on adulthood reminded me of 7th function, and I didn’t want it to be too obvious I was quoting the book, because I thought it would ruin the joke. I’m not actually arguing that meaning can’t travel across language, and I certainly doubt that Binet would make that argument in earnest.
If your reply is a riff on Simon’s signifier/signified distinction, then I may have missed the joke and ended up reenacting the book.
As is tradition, HN has downvoted your legit comments to the twilight realm. I agree with everything you say. Onedrive should be flagged as a virus. Why do they get a pass for things any other app would be blocked for doing?
I think the real issue is that MS doesn't view Windows primarily as an OS that should be invisible, out of the way -- with minimal "innovation" geared to sell MS products. The problem is that MS views Windows as a sales/marketing channel for their ads/apps/services.
>Infinity invites resistance. Aristotle rejected the existence of the infinite entirely; to him, infinity was simply a limit that could never be reached, not a true mathematical entity.
Off to a bad start. Aristotle was not making a mathematical point but a metaphysical one. Infinities do not exist and is not a number. For example, Pi is not a number but a symbol that stands for an open-ended (infinite) process to calculate a rational number and is a perfectly valid mathematical concept that, I am sure, Aristotle would agree. On any computer, despite protestations by the mathematical platonists, Pi is ultimately a rational number in all use cases involving actual measurement or calculations.
The error is illustrated in the first image in the article.
The third set in this example is an invalid and undefined set by including Pi since Pi is indeterminent and thus cannot be an object to be counted. All of Cantor's nonsense rests on this type of error, i.e. treating a mathematical process as a number. All of these errors are implicit in Newton's calculus and Berkeley's Ghost of Departed Quantities critique still needs to be answered. Hint; there is no such thing as infinite precision and epsilon/delta needs to be defined in a consistent way, not arbitrarily as it is now.
Pi is not a number, it stands for a method (i.e. infinite series) to calculate a number. Conceptually it is the ratio of circumferance to the diameter of a circle which are incommensurate quanties, i.e. can't be represented as a rational number.
It is a subtle distinction but important. We define the exact value based on the context. If I am tiling my circular patio then 3.14 is fine to calculate how many tiles I need. If I going to the moon or mars then I need more decimals or I will miss the target.
Setting aside i, math symbols that stand for irrational numbers can be treated as numbers in theorems or derivations or proofs but one needs to be careful that a symbol such as Pi or SQRT[2] actually designates an infinite series to calculate a rational number. This distinction is important when math equations are actually used to calculate or measure something specific which is the whole point of math. All valid measurements can only result in a rational number. It is the distinction between doing math and doing physics or engineering (i.e. applied math) which has to be integrated, they are not separate fields with regards to measurement.
The imaginary number i=SQRT[-1] is the base solution to the polynomial equation -y= x^2. If you read the history it was invented to solve certain types of cubic equations, i.e. as a heuristic of method. So not only is it not a number it is a bare contradiction. While i was useful to solve some subclass of all cubics it did not lead to a general solution to cubic equations. Nevertheless the mathematicians ran with it and added complex numbers to the definition of number so that the number system could solve all possible polynomial equations.
In my opinion imaginary numbers are a kludge and deadend and it is masking the real issues in math, i.e. the ghosts of departed quantities. In math some symbols stand for an infinite series but you can't just choose any arbitrary series for Pi or e or SQRT[2], they all have to be defined as part of a system of measurement with clearly defined and globally defined epsilon/delta (i.e. precision) of measurement to get valid results.
Yes, you can call it "finitist" if you like but that is an error too. Define "exist".
Not "most" but all real numbers are similar to Pi, i.e. they are symbols that stand for an infinite process to calculate a rational number. Both irrational numbers like Pi, e, etc. and reals exists and are legit and useful math concepts but infinite precision does not exist "in the wild" only in your mind as an abstraction. In any actual calculation or measurement your infinite series must stop and the dedekind cut must be made.
The ghost of departed quantities still haunts math. Is Pi 3.14 or 3.1416? Mathematically, it is neither and both because math intentionally abstracts from the precision of the ratio of the circumference to the diameter of a circle. These open-ended (infinite) processes are ultimately used to define a rational number, a ratio of integers.The finitist -vs- infinitist is a false binary which ignore that actual measurement must use rational numbers.
Most natural numbers don't exist, for any useful definition of exist.
When you prove, say, by induction, that p(n) holds for any natural number n, and hear you teacher say that p(n) holds for all natural numbers, you start forming the idea that "all natural numbers" is a thing that exists. The set N, you think, surely by writing it, all natural numbers are called into existance.
And then, much later, you come upon problem, where actual existence of the number becomes better defined. Say, like finding a large prime. And suddenly "all numbers" becomes a confusing mental burden.
Check out Zorin OS. As Win10 was approaching its event horizon back in Oct I was thinking of jumping to ZOS. It is similar enough to Windows to be usable. I never made the jump and still running Win10 but soon it will be Linux's day in the sun.
Subreddits have dropped off too. I assumed the migration was to discord or tiktok or other plublic squares.
Specialized forum content, discussion and community suffered with the VerticalScope rollup that borged them all a few years back. They immediately upgraded the forum software to be phone app compatible (more eyeballs) and forum quality died soon after. No one is have good discussion, arguments, stories or history while phone posting on the can or in line at the DMV. It is all repetitive drive-by comments or questions that could be answered by a quick search of the forum so it is short attention span theatre now. I saw this across multiple forums that got rolled up by VS.
Interesting post. I noticed that your Optimal: L=2997mm is the same four leading digits as the speed of light 299792458 m/s.
I always thought there was a connection between geometry and the math and physical constants. Once I was thinking about Einstein's equivalence principle between gravity and acceleration and his elevator-in-space argument. He claimed that there is no experiment that the man in the elevator could do to determine if he was in a gravity field or accelerating rocket. It occurred to me that all he had to do was wait because the rocket could not accelerate at 9.81 m/s forever. So I did the math lightspeed/acceleration of gravity = 30559883.59 sec = 353.7023 days for 86,400 sec/day or 96.9% of a year to get to c. Just a coincidence, they say.
Holy... i hadn't noticed the speed of light thing!...collab with me if you like. i'm super stoked for engagement , even if someone disproves it all. :)
TY!
I think that now that IPV6 has 2^128 addresses that some of these can be assigned to individuals as a unique ID, maybe at birth like SSN. It could serve as the base of a public key and secret private key blockchain system controlled by the individual or his trusted agent in some kind of identifier/authenticator system. If properly implemented it could serve as an anonymous ID and age verification system on the internet which seems to be coming soon in a not-so anonymous form to a fascist, commie or authoritarian govt near you, i.e. all of them as current events now show.
I don't know if that would work but it is an interesting idea to me. However, it also illustrates that authentication and protecting user identity on the web without sacrificing anonymity is a _political_ problem not a technical problem. I have always been told that when thinking about security you have to define what threat are you trying to protect yourself from. I see discussions on security and virtually all of them ignore that the govt or govt controlled corps (i.e. fascism) is a much bigger threat to individuals and freedom than so called "hackers" or "terrorists" and other boogie men, etc.
The best advice I got on breaking a bad habit is that you can't do it by ordering yourself "don't do X" which takes will power and teeth-gritting effort. Any success with this method will fail over time. The problem is that it is like telling yourself to not think about pink elephants which makes you think about pink elephants.
So the trick is to set the rule [don't do X, do Y instead] and immediately stop thinking about X and move on to Y. Just shut down the "do X" thought and shift to Y. "Y" can be anything even the absurd like patting the top of your head 5 times because it breaks your subconscious programming. In fact, the absurd Y's seem to be more effective BECAUSE they a silly or ridiculous. Of course, as you gain skill at this method you can start using more productive Y's like doing 10 pushups or do a quick household chore, do a small task on your to-do list, etc. Once the subconscious program is broken then thoughts to do X will fade and you can move on to X2 that you want to change.
You don't actually own your phone if ownership implies control over your property. You just get to pay for it. This was always the goal of our corporate/government "partnership" AKA fascism.
Can't wait for Windows 12 to have a mandatory S-Mode and a Microsoft account tied to your PII, for your protection. No anonymous writer can publish the 21st Century equivalent of the Federalist Papers and our tyranny is safe.
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