>>>>>>PS -- Did Plato really live in a cave?
>>>>>
>>>>>Joking, right? Shadows on the wall ... ?
>>>>
>>>>Actually I wasn't. I took it literally and didn't get the reference to caves in Plato's writing.
>>>
>>>http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~wldciv/world_civ_reader/world_civ_reader_1/plato.html
>>
>>
>>Charles.
>>
>>Your posts are always a joy, yet have a bitter side for me.
>
>I am truly sorry if that is the case. I really don't mean to be belittling. I guess I am projecting my own feelings about myself at your age - perhaps inappropriately.

You're not belittling at all.

The reason for the dark side is that I know you're uniquely qualified to pick this up and run with it, and that hasn't happened yet.


>>You are extremely knowledgeable, and more than severely qualified, intellectually.
>>
>>But I understand why you have the attitude you do.
>>
>>I do.
>
>Not sure what you understand that to be.

Well, if I had to go out on a limb.

I understand that you're Enlightened to a high degree.

With that comes a feeling of inner peace.

You're calm and at rest, and thus, rightfully content in your current space.

So instead of expecting new truths and knowledge to emerge, you're out enjoying the view.

If that's the case, I understand.



>>In your words, what would it take to sway you?
>
>To a positive attitude toward you?

Hehe, not quite.

I think I've changed the game as far as how Enlightenment ideas and mathematics are related.

The abilities of information technology allow for something new.

Newton, Einstein, they all knew it worked like this:

absolute reality -> mind -> relative reality

That's the basic picture from the pre-Socratics and the European rationalists.

Because of relativity and the Copenhagen Interpretation of QM, our mathematics only expresses "relative reality".

We do that because we used to work on paper by pencil.

We need to get right to the good stuff.

So our mathematics expresses:

relative reality

(eg, v = d/t, relative velocity is distance in relative space over duration of relative time.)

It's immediate. Sort of like mapping out the shadows on the cave wall. It treats the direct measurable world as the only one.

I don't think that's bad. I think it was unavoidable.

Until now.

We'll come up with a new mathematical expression, that doesn't just focus on just the relative part of:

absolute reality -> mind -> relative reality

But it expresses the entire thing, mind and all.

Which is how all the philosophers that influenced the birth of science saw it.

The next great revolution in science will be a reconnection to its roots.