Off Topic "overflow" Thread, for main thread "spillage"

Just a thought, but maybe when someone goes "ping" the Off-topic discussion moves here so that main threads do not become inundated with discourse that is irrelevant to the topic at hand on a given thread?

Best,
Raphie

Dear Alphanumeric,

While I respect your knowledge as well as the time and dedication and obvious commitment to pedagogy you clearly have exhibited, the truth, for me at least, is that you and Euler are starting to come off as the Keystone Cops or Twiddly Dee and Twiddly Dum (in my world, at least, all things being RELATIVE) and I do NOT respect the way you and Euler have jointly to greater or lesser degree repeatedly attacked and/or challenged my integrity, my honesty, my knowledge-base -- which is quite extensive and interdisciplinary (though mostly social science, media and arts-based in nature) -- and much more, especially when I have repeatedly posted real life names of people you could verify with in relation to "crankhood" or whatever today's insult may be and/or the value that OTHERS may see in what I am doing even if you can't, etc. etc..

I said I was BROWSING through the Polchinski book and came across a concept. I also have noted that I was "conceptual mining." I am not going to be tested on a book I spent a half hour perusing at a cafe next to a bookstore and never even remotely implied I had been studying to any extent.

During that half hour or so, I came across Liousville, who I had quite literally just been reading about in a different context: in a book regarding the mystery of numbers, the name of which ecapes me at the moment.

I posted regarding it, because this (See: http://forum.physorg.com/index.php?showtopic=16195&st=240) is the CONTEXTUAL Mathematics thread, and part of a COLLABORATIVE enterprise because others know what I do not. Have you ever heard of Distributed Parrallel processing? What futurists, sociologists and many information scientists might call the Global Mind works not so differently.

You assume far too much. Just because Euler says I said something does not mean I said it. The absurdity of having it be suggested I am a "liar" repeatedly -- not by you, but by Euler -- for having said or implied something I never said is quite simply beyond the absurd.

In my last post to you, I said I post many things in advance of making a point. I also take many actions in advance of there being a need. The fact of this post being posted to this thread, which was created for others as well as myself, is one such example.

Best,
Raphie

In relation to:

This post has been edited by Raphie Frank on Feb 23 2008, 09:53 PM

That's a very good question Euler. When you figure it out, please do let us know. In the meantime I suggest the Glass Bead Game by Hermann Hesse.

I also suggest you read up on autism as you are displaying symptoms. Modular thinking that one can not break out of is one of the symptoms. Lack of empathy is another.

========================================================
Pioneering theatre therapy helps children with autism and Asperger's syndrome 'play to their strengths'
http://www.autismconnect.org/news.asp?sect...pe=news&id=5771
========================================================

Many people without autism, I might add, are modular thinkers. It only becomes a problem when the "loop" becomes closed, a trait you have displayed in rather troubling manner.

CONCEPT MINING, Euler. Please do try to break out of your closed loop of [lack of] understanding, okay?

Best,
Raphie

P.S. Thank you for that book recommendation which came via Alphanumeric who graciously sourced you. Another book you might benefit from reading, by the way, is "Lord of the Flies."

Dear Euler,

You are correct indeed that I will not accept your "challenge." Your description of behavior, in this instance, is spot on. Interpretation, on the other hand, is a very different issue. I suggest you read the below in relation to better understanding why I will not engage with you, because -- aside from your usage of such terms as "cretin" which implies quite poor faith -- it does not seem to matter what I "say" or write within this forum as you apparently have some kind of vendetta against me, which is rather inexplicable from my perspective, truth be told.

======================================================

Confirmation bias
from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In psychology and cognitive science, confirmation bias is a tendency to search for or interpret new information in a way that confirms one's preconceptions and avoids information and interpretations which contradict prior beliefs. It is a type of cognitive bias and represents an error of inductive inference, or as a form of selection bias toward confirmation of the hypothesis under study or disconfirmation of an alternative hypothesis.

Confirmation bias is of interest in the teaching of critical thinking, as the skill is misused if rigorous critical scrutiny is applied only to evidence challenging a preconceived idea but not to evidence supporting it.[1]

Naming

The effect is also known as belief bias, belief preservation, belief overkill, hypothesis locking, polarization effect, positive bias, the Tolstoy syndrome, selective thinking, myside bias, Plate pick-up and Morton's demon.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias
======================================================

I might add: I have asked you before and I will ask you again. Please do cease and desist in the name-calling department.

Best,
Raphie

P.S. Alphanumeric, thank you for the explanation re: Polchinski.

This post has been edited by Raphie Frank on Feb 29 2008, 04:27 AM

Euler's Response, on the wrong thread, of course...

Incidentally. as a factual point of correction, Euler. I spend a very small proportion of each day online, although this might change in the coming days.

Best,
Raphie

This post has been edited by Raphie Frank on Mar 1 2008, 09:54 AM

First of all Alphanumeric, you are already making yourself known to history, in a manner of speaking, simply by posting to this forum. As my friend Sal Deluca, a very talented IT professional pointed out, words put online never entirely go away. They stay out there. What we know as "history" is simply a continuum, meaning a matter of degree.

Secondly, in case you had not noticed -- because while very "bright" you are not so sharp at times -- I am a WRITER, a not half bad writer at that, who wishes to study SOCIOLOGY through the conceptual lens of CONSILIENCE, and in the Social Sciences there is an increasing trend toward CASE HISTORIES and PERSONAL NARRATIVES.

I happen to be not so bad at narration either. In the words of Leslie Hawke, outstanding U.S. citizen, who I interviewed:

=====================================================
I have such fond memories of that interview you wrote in Gothamist, in fact I still get letters occasionally from people who have run across it online and want to know more about what we're doing. My experience with the media re: myself and even more with Ethan is that most of what comes out is pretty unrecognizable -- so thank you!
- Leslie Hawke
quote used by permission

Leslie Hawke, Outstanding U.S. Citizen
http://gothamist.com/2005/05/04/leslie_haw..._us_citizen.php

All Alone is All We Will One Day Once Have Been: A Generation X Response to Thomas Friedman’s “Generation Q”
http://raphie.wordpress.com/2007/12/12/gen...once-have-been/
=====================================================

The point is, Alphanumeric, that whether or not you desire to be, you are part of a social experiment, and if I am fortunate enough to gain entry into a top tier graduate school, Princeton and Columbia are the ones I am currently favoring, but I am also thinking about Yale, Berkeley and Johns Hopkins, I will likely write papers about this experience, using it as a MICROCOSM -- a concept at heart of the functionalist school of thought, which is based on the MOVING EQUILIBRIUM -- for what goes on at the top levels of Academia, because in Academia, folks are often just as five year old babyish as some of the posters on this board. I will also use it to highlight the mythico-religious attitude of many of those in the sciences, no less so dogmatic and cultish as the religious leaders who persecuted well known figures throughout history from Jesus Christ (the man) to Gaileo.

Furthermore, I can also use this experience to highlight in tangible form some of the issues facing the gifted who think in "tantextual" (i.e a contextual tangent) manner, because there are many, many, many of them out there. I know this because I know many of them on a first name basis and they constitute a vast HIDDEN POPULATION, and hidden populations are in the process of becoming all the rage in Sociology (keep your eye on Matthew Salganik of Princeton)

Now, of course, I might not get into grad school, being the "not so bright" "cretin" that I am, according to Euler, but I've learned a thing or two along the way because I have been very fortunate to have some pretty great teachers along the way, including a) a "not so bright" mother who graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Michigan and was part of the FIRST CLASS of women graduate students at Princeton University after being told - on the basis of her test scores -- that she would be lucky to graduate; and a discernibly "bright" father who became in 1968 or 1969 the youngest tenured Princeton Professor in history (at the time).

My father taught me many lessons, first and foremost KEEP YOUR OPTIONS OPEN, and that's exactly what I am doing.

Grad school, an educational company or publishing books are all possibilities, but they are all based on the same fundamental principle, "pars pro toto" as Ernst Cassirer might put it in relation to the power of metaphor, or "E Pluribus Unum" as one of patriotic stripe might choose to frame it.

Thankfully for YOU, not me, I consider you a trivial nuisance more than anything. Much like a gnat, truth be told, so, let me retract partially. I will not "make sure" you go down in history, I will only do my best to ensure the likelihood of it. In an ideal world it will be a favorable narration about a prideful, egoistic grad school student who came to see the value and tangency of character and heart as constructs worthy of study, but that's in your hands, not mine.

In any case, I have far bigger fish to fry than cultish Lubos Motl wannabee "number mechanics" with pre-Copernican mentalities, thinking themselves the center of the world and believing they know diddly.

And, I might add, I also have Conceptual paradigms to develop of far more import than your rather trivial pedantic notions of what constitutes "knowledge."

e.g.
Business Artivism
Contextual Education
Trickle Up Economics
Node & Network Math

Cheers,
Raphie

P.S. An excerpt from...

Riven Hearts (aka “Why I Write and Why I Fight”)
(Posted June 7, 2006)
http://raphie.wordpress.com/2007/10/25/riv...nd-why-i-fight/

Know that I am the child of a Professor of Economics
The grandson of another Professor of Economics.
Know that I know how to play the game.
And know that I failed
Because I rejected the game all together
I tuned out for a long time
Then I gave up for a long time
And then I gave up for a long time
And woe is me’ed the world
And in so doing ceded power to those who will take it.
Because someone always will if we don’t.

Let me repeat…
Because someone always will if we don’t.

Know these things and you will know why I write
You will know why I fight.
Because
I KNOW
We can do better than that.
If we believe
And if we do it together.
All of us.
The Fallen and the Forgiven
The Lawyer and the Ditch Digger
The Boho and the Soho
Atheists and Christians and Jews and Muslims
Red and Blue
Purple and White
Yellow and Black
The fight is not with each other
But in our riven hearts.
Those riven hearts
We can’t bear to look inside.

This post has been edited by Raphie Frank on Mar 3 2008, 09:59 PM

post moved from the main thread...
'contextual' Mathematics/number Theory

in response to...
http://www.physforum.com/index.php?showtop...ndpost&p=320989

AN, your poor faith hectoring and name calling will not be responded to. It is as simple as that.

Additionally...

a ) I have little desire to "prove" anything to someone who advocates that Internet forums should not allow for free speech. As I said, Prague yet still stands while Dresden fell and if any free speech should not be tolerated, it is the type of "speech" you contribute time and again to this forum; speech that is destructive and harmful, not constructive in any manner whatsoever on a human level. (There is a reason they passed laws in Germany after WWII that outlaw certain types of speech, incidentally. As someone from that little Island off the Continent I am sure I need not tell you this...)

b ) In case you missed it, I have already quoted Brian Greene's "The Elegant Universe" in at least one post; and I have offered metaphor after metaphor, but perhaps you are simply too much of a "crank" to do the homework to recognize that.

c ) I will yet attempt to respond to RPenner's post, and may or may not address issues you have brought up, but please do consider your future posts directed at me -- at least for the foreseeable future and at such time as you can cease and desist in your name-calling -- essentially as so much spent hot air.

Please do read up on Copernicus and try to translate the concept of the Copernican principle metaphorically into human terms. I know this may be difficult to comprehend, but the Universe does not revolve solely around the issues that are important to you, as much as it may seem it does. This is not a board that belongs to you, nor even just to those who operate it. It belongs to ALL of us -- at least in a manner of speaking -- for it is only as good or as bad as we make it.

Best,
Raphie

P.S. And all this from one who yet maintains Newton broke no rules inventing Calculus....

This post has been edited by Raphie Frank on Mar 12 2008, 12:44 AM