[Edu-sig] Brainstorming about GNU Math

[kirby urner]

> Except that's another big difference in our sensiblities - as a good progressive, you are a
> relativist.  There ain't no such thing as speaking good ;)
>

I have a long thread with some guy on wittgenstein-dialognet (a Yahoo!
group) about moral relativism, whether Wittgenstein was one, etc.  He
wasn't, nor am I, seems to be the upshot of that thread.

> Synergetic geometry, as I hear it presented, is about space - but somehow exists
> outside of time. It popped into being - an otherwordly vision.

No, Fuller casts his body of work as very time/size specific, his
self-discipline, with a vocabulary that's deliberately remote and
deliberately engineered.  He even admits has central insights might
all pre-exist in other literature.

That being said, he's a born explorer and has the right to draw his
map, which is what he did.  I find it a very useful contribution, as
I've said.  He does more to interconnect the disciplines than most,
and isn't writing as a geometer, specifically.

I file it under Philosophy and/or Literature.  It's a work in the
humanities, maybe a liberal art in its own right (given how no
department wants to claim it).

> Maybe true.  But in my view of what makes the study of math
> meaningful, its math without much meaning, to the extent we are really talking math
> at all, rather than something not more like -  American Unaccountable Geniuses 101.
>
> Kay does make a good 102.
>
> It's a curriculum, yes.
>
> Art

I'll file that under "from a guy who likes to have opinions" --
whether well-informed or no.

If you ever undertake a serious study of Fuller's synergetics, maybe
let me know.  I could maybe offer a few pointers.

Kirby