Philosophy Now Forum

Skip wrote: ↑Mon Jun 18, 2018 10:03 pm
Or maybe math is cheaper to teach than physics or chemistry, so it's more accessible, so more kids in poor countries can achieve success in that discipline. There is also a cultural influence to encourage some kinds of accomplishment rather than others.

Myself, I am a total mathophobe and can't sing or dance to save my life.

Of course, such things as national accomplishments change over time, as well, even though the language remains the same. Like, they haven't been able to qualify for FIFA in donkey's years. And I'm pretty sure the kids' legs didn't grow any shorter.

Well, the Martians were all Hungarians, and that's to do with physics and perhaps with chemistry as well.

And in the eighties 53 percent of all commercial computer programs were developed in Hungary.

The reason we don't hear about math geniuses any more is that it's tired news. But Palko Erdos and Endre Szemeredi are both contemporaries of ours.

You're right in that cutting-edge physics can't be achieved in poor countries. To conduct a reasonably cutting-edge experiment costs trillions of dollars. Hungary's economy is not strong enough for that-- heck, they couldn't even feed drive-through immigrants form Syria en route to Sweden. Heck, they can't even feed their own population properly.

-1- wrote: ↑Mon Jun 18, 2018 10:38 pm The reason we don't hear about math geniuses any more is that it's tired news. But Palko Erdos and Endre Szemeredi are both contemporaries of ours.

Yea, but they have to contend with some pretty bright Indians and Koreans.
(I wouldn't brag about those Martians.)
Anyway, what is there to achieve in mathematics? What can clever guys do that computers can't do faster, to a lot more decimals? How much cosmological speculation do we really need?

Hungary's economy is not strong enough for that-- heck, they couldn't even feed drive-through immigrants form Syria en route to Sweden. Heck, they can't even feed their own population properly.

You wouldn't normally expect an agrarian nation of clever people to have such a problem. Or a victator.

Skip wrote: ↑Mon Jun 18, 2018 11:09 pm Yea, but they have to contend with some pretty bright Indians and Koreans.

Well, Koreans are basically Hungarians (some argue they share a language family... heard it from a Laosian), South Asians are basically Hungarian Gypsies, and Native North Americans (if that's what you meant by Indians) are none else but Hungarian Jews.

And so strike me if it's not true.

And it's true that computers can add numbers faster than any human, but math is no longer about computation or calculation. It is about something I don't myself understand, and I have a degree in math.

Skip wrote: ↑Mon Jun 18, 2018 11:09 pm You wouldn't normally expect an agrarian nation of clever people to have such a problem. Or a victator.

Oh, irgalom atyja, ne hagyj el! If only Orrban Victor was a victator! Unfortunately he is nothing but a dick tater.

-1- wrote: ↑Tue Jun 19, 2018 1:21 am
And so strike me if it's not true.

BONGGG!

-1- wrote: ↑Mon Jun 18, 2018 7:10 pm
Duszek, I invite you to join me and form a special subculture of a secret club on this website. We'll call ourselves "the Immigrati". Others will call us "the assholes".

This will be harder to rationalize than unifying the field theory.

A secret club sounds good but what are going to be its aims ?

I don´t wish to annoy our dear chief Rick Lewis by flying in the face of public opinion here.

duszek wrote: ↑Thu Jun 21, 2018 4:54 pm

-1- wrote: ↑Mon Jun 18, 2018 7:10 pm
Duszek, I invite you to join me and form a special subculture of a secret club on this website. We'll call ourselves "the Immigrati". Others will call us "the assholes".

This will be harder to rationalize than unifying the field theory.

A secret club sounds good but what are going to be its aims ?

I don´t wish to annoy our dear chief Rick Lewis by flying in the face of public opinion here.

The aim of our secret club is the same as that of other secret societies: to stay secret.

And with those famous last words I think I just finished our budding club in its infancy by nipping it in the bud.

But wait! I saw a documentary on the Secret Police, a special task unit that is mandated to save the life of the president.

So after all, our society (which is yours and mine alone) can stay in business, since the secret police established new standards for what qualifies a club as "secret".

duszek wrote: ↑Thu Jun 21, 2018 4:54 pm
I don´t wish to annoy our dear chief Rick Lewis by flying in the face of public opinion here.

That'd be awful. Worst-case scenario. You described the thing hitting the fan, then debris flying right in our face.

Sends shivers down my spine just thinking of this.