Swiss Ephemeris
Deborah Swanson
python at deborahswanson.net
Tue Apr 11 21:12:44 EDT 2017
>
> Rustom Mody wrote, on Monday, April 10, 2017 11:50 PM
> >
> > On Monday, April 10, 2017 at 11:26:47 AM UTC+5:30, Deborah Swanson
> > wrote:
> > > The great ancients were no less endowed with intelligence than we
are,
> > > they simply directed it to different ends.
> >
> > And just when I was convinced by the all-knowers that my gpa
> > was a monkey you've spoilt my complacence
>
> Good! It's unhealthy the way modern folk strut around
> thinking they're the smartest humans to ever walk this earth.
> We've gone farther with technology than any other time or
> culture, but invention (and innovation) is only one aspect of
> intelligence.
>
> > > ... medical astrology...
> >
> > whether that is hooey or scepticism of it is hooey, I dont
> > know [Yeah I genuinely don't know what that term means for you]
>
> I don't know that anyone does. I use a very strict
> interpretation of the orginal rules that you won't by find
> googling "medical astrology". (I know, I've tried, in the old
> Google as well as the new.) There's no pretension to mystic
> art in my form, but mine's a lot more accurate and
> information rich, so far as I can see in the few writings
> about it. I think concentrating on the actual and valid
> relationships while ignoring all the mysticism yields more
> useful results. I know the ancient Greeks were wed to their
> gods and I forgive them for that. I just think they would
> have done better without the mythology.
>
> > However you may be interested in
> > http://blog.languager.org/2016/01/how-long.html
> > which is a > motley collection of the incredible
> > persistence of humans to erroneous ways and outlooks and
> > their damaging consequences
>
> I think you also talk about the incredible persistence of
> other concepts and perceptions, notably in music and
> mathematics (which were always linked in earlier times).
>
> I would find your other examples of erroneous thinking a bit
> skewed in lengths of time. Tofler was right in Future Shock.
> We've accelerated our intellectual development since the
> Middle Ages, though I don't think it's because we're any
> smarter. I can't remember exactly when it was that the human
> brain reached it's current size and mental capacity, but it
> was shortly before the time of the ancients. Physiologically
> we've changed very little since then, but the knowledge base
> we've built on over time was what eventually caused the
> acceleration. No single person in modern times is
> intellectually capable of buiding the concepts we now use
> from scratch. We stand on the shoulders of giants.
>
> > [Frank Admission: That list started with a discussion on this list
> > where I
> > suggested that OOP is already debunked hooey and that FP is
> > the way forward for programming. To which Steven asked that
> > since FP is at least 50 years old and has not got
> > very far, what makes one think its going anywhere...
> > To which I wondered... Is 50 years a long time? By what standard?
> > Hence that list ]
>
> 50 years isn't that long, though you must consider the
> accelerated times we're living in. LISP is likely doomed
> though. It's chief claim to fame was AI, and it's unlikely to
> reclaim its former glory, not with languages like Python
> leading the charge. My only contact with LISP was from a
> computer science professor in 1975, who literally raved about
> how superior LISP was. I dunno. I was doing AI in PL1 then
> and had several debates with this fellow. I don't remember
> much of the substance of those debates, but I know he never
> persuaded me that LISP was superior to PL1.
>
> Deborah
>
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