#liebniz

[rajnikumbh]

The Calculus Affair

Calculus – A little Personal Background Calculus was introduced to us in India in Plus 1 is the CBSE curriculum (we have a 10 +2 system, where one spends 12 years in School + 3 years in Nursery, KG1/2 before getting to school). I am an engineer and have taken many courses in mathematics but unfortunately my interest started waning down quite a bit and I missed the fun in doing mathematics and it…

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[heathenstorm]

Swimming in an ever-shifting sea of symbolism, anchors are forged from the chaining of concepts. Ideas relate to ideas, and thoughtforms coalesce from abstraction. Each individual nurtures their unique interpretation of the universe from experience and education. The restraining whims and mores of society imposing structure to the unfettered chaos of possibility.

In the auspicious year of 1666, Gottfried Liebniz completed his early metaphysical paper: "De Arte Combinatoria". A Dissertation on the Art of Combinations. As was the fashion of the time, the book opens with a most logical proof of the existence of God, but then offers something very interesting and relevant to the modern age.

Firmly placing Descartes before discourse, Liebniz develops the concept of a 'Characteristica Universalis' - a logical, efficient Alphabet of Thought. Within this structured ontology, the ephemeral complexity of existence could be mapped to combinations of simpler concepts. All truths, abstract and evident, could then be philosophised, rationalised, and quantified by calculus.

Considering connexions in music, law, and classic elemental physics, subsequent centuries saw these principles applied to many disciplines. A cornerstone of both Computer Science and Chaos Magick, the legacy of 17th century Rationalism is a fundamental foundation of present-day thought.

But we are not rational beings, and the Age of Reason diminishes under the new paradigm of Post-Truth. Logos cannot provide every answer, and in uncertain times we return to Mythos and the emotive projections of creative contradiction. Propogated by the incendiary speed of Social Media.

How then can we find our anchors, as the symbolic sea boils?

What new alchemy may be derived from the conflagration of the past? What may we sift from the albedo ashes of that which was? What "Chymical Wedding" of Reason and Intuition awaits?

[10239v10d]

Mother's Finest Showcase - Leibniz / April 22 / 8pm-9pm

[prahlrus]

Looking at the climate of the retrograde Earth, one might conclude that the study falsifies the conclusion of the German philosopher Gottfried Leibniz that for all that may be wrong with Earth, humankind lives in the 'best of all possible worlds.'

https://eos.org/articles/reversing-earths-spin-moves-deserts-reshapes-ocean-currents

thank God for the elaborate climatological modeling tools to falsify early modern theodicies

[xwhy]

There was a #Science #math joke buried in here with the #Liebniz and #Newtons. Late Pi Day celebration with cookies but no pie at #lunacon

[fourhalfcents-blog]

Isaac Newton, I Hardly Knew Ye

He lived to an old age and died a virgin. My time with one of the world’s greatest minds ended rather abruptly somewhere between New York City and El Paso, Texas.

It was a peculiar place to end with Isaac Newton, traveling high above the ground in a technological beast that seemed to defy the laws of gravity he had discovered centuries earlier. What would the man who was inspired by a falling apple think of a hunk of metal floating in the sky? He is, after all, the one who originated the concept of a satellite, that if you launch an object from just the right speed at some point above the earth it will fall forever. The satellite, Newton discovered, will always fall at the same rate towards Earth due to gravity, and the Earth’s surface will continue to curve below it at a constant rate.

In my case, the plane is neither falling straight down like an apple from a tree nor falling forever like a satellite.

My guess is that he would say little and immediately turn his attention to finding a mathematical explanation. But, if he did have something to say, I wouldn’t be allowed near him to hear it anyway.

Isaac Newton preferred to work and spend his time alone, I learned, even as his discoveries brought him fame. This wasn’t because he was shy, but rather the very opposite. His ego was as “colossal as his intellect,” it’s been written. It didn’t help that Newton, a deeply religious man, thought he was specifically tapped by God to translate His creation and universe by blessing him with incredible mathematical talents. The spelling of his name in Latin, after all, is an anagram for Jeova Sanctus Unus, or “Jehovah, the Holy One.” And Newton knew this. So perhaps it’s unsurprising that, while he may have been well respected, he had little friends and made a conscientious effort to avoid sexual connections.

"The way to chastity is not to struggle with incontinent thoughts,” he is said to have written, “but to avert ye thoughts by some employment, or by reading, or meditating on other thing.”

Newton didn’t care much for the arts and culture either, not for operas or sculptures, or for music or fashion. He was an intellectual stereotype who often forgot to eat, worked long hours, appeared disheveled, all because he was too consumed by his equations to even notice his hunger or appearance. But this lifestyle clearly served him well. In his early 20s Newton was turning out mathematical discoveries every couple of months, including some work in physics. Over the course of a mere 18 months, Newton proved the binomial theorem, found the method of tangents, direct method of fluxions, theory of colors, and the inverse method of fluxions. And then, quite naturally, he began pondering Earth’s gravity force on the moon. In other words, he had discovered “a great chunk of calculus” and the “nature of light,” historians write. Newton was just 23 years old, and still had at least 60 years of life left.

The boy genius, however, was not a lone genius. Newton was a part of the major mathematical and scientific revolution of the seventeenth century.

His intellectual archrival at the time was a man whose character was opposite Newton’s. Gottfried Wilhelm von Liebniz sought the limelight and the company of women, and he reveled in the ostentatious manner and appearance that went with it. He loved publicizing his own mathematical discoveries so much that, on occasion, he was caught at parties claiming a few that didn’t belong to him. Oops!

But never mind that. Liebniz was a genius, often coincidentally working on problems that Newton was also working on. When the two discovered this, it inevitably led to fierce rivalry: who discovered this first, who published that first? In public, the two were cordial and, at times, straight up liars, professing their utmost respect for each other. But in behind closed doors, they were out to destroy each other.

Newton became the kind of person his contemporaries would not debate on any intellectual matter, whereas Liebniz, it’s been written, was someone “all-too-human” who incited quarrel and ridicule, as Voltaire did in Candide. And, in the end, Newton’s body found a home at Westminster Abbey, and Liebniz’s in an unmarked grave.

But there is reason for Newton, whose name, works and discoveries live on today, to not inspire envy.

“For the price Newton had to pay for being a supreme intellect was that he was incapable of friendship, love, fatherhood,” English writer and philosopher Aldous Huxley wrote. “As a monster he was superb.” I was fortunate enough meet the monster side of this supreme intellect in a book I discovered called The Clockwork Universe, by Edward Dolnick.

Oh, and apparently, that whole apple thing may not have actually happened. At least, it didn’t happen in the way characterized by popular culture.

[deletingmyself]

untitled (by liebniz,)

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[librisottoalcuscino]

Il cortigiano e l'eretico.

Il mese di ottobre si apre con una lettura insolita, infatti il libro che mi illumina in questo periodo è un saggio, più precisamente Il Cortigiano e l'Eretico. Liebniz, Spinoza e il destino di Dio nel mondo moderno. di M.Stewart

E' il primo saggio di filosofia che leggo, ma non credo che sarà l'ultimo. Sarà che l'argomento mi attira, che non mi bastano le tre ore settimanali di filosofia a scuola, che ho letto una recensione molto positiva di Baricco riguardo a questo libro... Sta di fatto che questo saggio si sta sgualcendo sempre di più tra le mie mani, mentre leggo e rileggo i passaggi complicati o quelli più avvincenti, senza fare caso a come le mie mani stringano e pieghino il volume. Mi sta coinvolgendo intellettualmente ed emotivamente. Non solo tratta un tema interessantissimo, ma lo fa anche con una scrittura piacevole ed incalzante. L'alternarsi dei capitoli, l'uno dedicato al filosofo olandese, l'altro a quello tedesco, rende un confronto ed una riflessione più agevoli.

Qualche difetto c'è però, in questo saggio... Lo scrittore non è imparziale come dovrebbe essere chi mette razionalmente a confronto due figure. Ma il fatto che questa preferenza per Spinoza sia così marcata è riuscita a turbarmi meno di quanto avrebbe fatto se fosse stata mascherata. Cerco di spiegarmi: dopo una sessantina di pagine è ormai palese come i difetti di Liebniz vengano sottolineati mentre quelli di Spinoza sono sminuiti o giustificati. E' così evidente che qualsiasi lettore può facilmente filtrare le informazioni senza sentirsi ingannato.

Per quanto riguarda la filosofia dei due personaggi credo sia illustrata magistralmente, in modo comprensibile anche a chi non è esperto in materia. Il pensiero dei due filosofi viene contestualizzato non solo nella loro epoca e nel loro stato, ma nella loro vita, sin dalla nascita, e nella loro crescita, come uomini e pensatori che hanno cambiato il loro mondo e il modo del mondo di vedere la religione.