The Philosophy of Punk Rock Mathematics (interview)

http://technoccult.net/archives/2010/02/25/the-punk-rock-philosophy-of-mathematics-technoccult-interviews-tom-henderson/

by MaysonL • 16 years ago

51 11 16 years ago

technoccult.net

sarosh• 16 years ago

Wow, this link was awesome for introducing me to http://www.mathforprimates.com/ which was a fun set of podcasts! Thanks!

mnemonicsloth• 16 years ago

Startup hackers should know more game theory. You can explain a lot of human behavior as evolutionary adaptations to compete in partially-cooperative sex-selected games of incomplete information in groups of around 100 players.

For example, why we care about karma on social networking sites, why some employers require you to wear a suit even though everyone concerned thinks suits are stupid, why religions are tenacious, why nobody trusts atheists, why virtually every mid-sized American city has at least one completely uneconomical skyscraper in what passes for "downtown" and why it's always owned by a bank or insurance company... the list goes on and on.

J3L2404• 16 years ago

1) People use the average Joe’s poor mathematics as a way to control, exploit, and numerically fuck him over.

2) Mathematics is the subject in which, regardless of what the authorities tell you is true, you can verify every last iota of truth, with a minimum of equipment.

Although seldom noticed, mathematics is one of the few, maybe the only, subject not open to interpretation.

imok20• 16 years ago

Ah, don't we wish. There's this thing called an "Axiom" that is, ruefully, generally, arbitrary. Definitions, too.

e.g. Some say the set of natural numbers contain 0, some say it doesn't.

Granted, the kind of math being discussed here isn't open to much interpretation, but I thought I'd note it.

hexis2• 16 years ago

Rarely is a person screwed by a controversial axiom.

camccann• 16 years ago

Definitions have nothing to do with truth, they serve only to clarify communication by establishing a common language; and mathematics as a whole makes no claim regarding the truth of axioms, only what a set of axioms do and do not entail.

There may be disagreements in matters of taste as to what Choice of axioms (har har, little joke there) one makes, but given a basis of axioms to work from--rarely more than a handful--the rest is, for most purposes, not at all open to interpretation.

scotty79• 16 years ago

I checked another project of that guy mentioned in the interview: http://www.superstructgame.org/ and I noticed that one of the movies he uses ("Outlaw Planet") has been pulled down by youtube due to copyright complaint from Stanford University. I didn't know universities are so evil that they sabotage projects of their graduates on basis of copyright.

The Philosophy of Punk Rock Mathematics (interview)

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