Syrah's corner

Doxiadis, Papadimitriou, Papadatos, di Donna (2009), Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth

Logic and insanity... strange bedfellows. ... Yet quite frequent.

[...]

- "Number is at the core of every branch of Mathematics, and thus arithmetic is the rock upon which all our Truths must ultimately be based! So to make Mathematics impregnable to doubt, we must first build arithmetic on a ground of total certainity! Our profound conviction that all these great problems are solvable rests on the principle that the world is totally understandable by Reason... ... that if a question can be rigorously stated, it can be logically answered!

It is in this spirit that we face the new century of progress, Science and hope! We hear within as the call: "There is the problem, seek its solutions, for it can be found!" for in our Science there is no "It shall not be known!". ...In Mathematics there is no "Ignorabimus"!"

 

David Gandy

 

 

 

Doxiadis, Papadimitriou, Papadatos, di Donna (2009), Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth

[...] For example, a set can contain other sets or... even itself!
[...] The set of all ideas is and idea, therefore, it contains itself as an element.

[...]

I say... that's an interesting dichotomy: the set of sets which contain themselves and the set of sets which don't.

[...]

Does the set of sets which do not contain themselves contain itself?

 

Doxiadis, Papadimitriou, Papadatos, di Donna (2009), Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth

- You mean if they weren't neurotic, or whatever, they wouldn't have the necessary passion and persistence to create Logic? ... Or that the ideas themselves were inspired by neurosis?
- Remember Bertie to Eric on "1+1=2 in 362 pages?"?
- Yep! He said something like "The price you pay for absolute certainty".
- I guess my point is that less tortured characters would not have found this price worth paying.

 

Doxiadis, Papadimitriou, Papadatos, di Donna (2009), Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth

"We only learn through suffering."

Logicians hate contradictions. But what is life view which you espouse, if not a bundle of contradictions?

 

Doxiadis, Papadimitriou, Papadatos, di Donna (2009), Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth

- But, we can only know for sure the results of the logical operations!
- Surely, we also have access to empirical observation!
- No.
- What about the information given by the senses?
- NO! That which is merely empirical has not place in the discourse of Truth!
- Come now... I'm sure you 'll agree to the reality of some empirical facts! Won't you accept as true, for example, the statement: "There is no rhinoceros in this rooms"?
- No, i will NOT!

My new student's name was Ludwig Wittgenstein.

 

Doxiadis, Papadimitriou, Papadatos, di Donna (2009), Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth

Like me, he was constantly analyzing everything, a habit deadening to the emotions.

 

David Gandy

 

 

 

Namio Harukawa

 

 

Doxiadis, Papadimitriou, Papadatos, di Donna (2009), Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth

So, each part of the reality is represented by a symbol! ...And these recombine, in accordance with their real relations as mediated by language! Wich in fact means that...

Language is but a model, it's a picture of reality!

 

Doxiadis, Papadimitriou, Papadatos, di Donna (2009), Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth

Face to face with death, Witttgenstein arrived at his fundamental insight: The meaning of the world does not reside in the world.

Put a man on the brink of the abyss and - in the unlikely event that he doesn't fall into it - he will become either a mystic or a madman, which is probably the same thing.