So one can be chased, attacked and even eaten by a set, oneself eat a set and absorb vitamins from it, press a set and make wine out of it, and have to clean up the droppings a set leaves on a statue.
So Juventus, Barcelona and Manchester United are very expensive sets.
So sets may safely graze on the field behind my house, and grow in the springtime by the addition of new members: lambs.
Also:
For those who are heavily addicted to decorating their papers and presentations with set terminology, the process of withdrawal ought to be gradual and progressive, starting with, say, set-free Fridays or a period of abstinence during Lent. They must be prepared for a certain loss of surface dazzle because the replacement of the impressive and technical sounding set-theoretic vocabulary by plain plurals and ordinary words will lose them some of the hard gloss that can make philosophy sound more like real science. The reward for this abstinence will be greater honesty, transparency and accessibility.
It's probably said partly in jest but the last quote kind of does ring true: moving away from using the vocabulary of set theory seems kind of daunting and almost debasing, like moving away from...
It's probably said partly in jest but the last quote kind of does ring true: moving away from using the vocabulary of set theory seems kind of daunting and almost debasing, like moving away from pristine, fancy, etiquette to more basic mannerisms. It's probably for the best but It'd take some getting used to.
A very interesting read. I'm always interested in conversations about simplifying (in my eyes) unnecessarily complex statements. Set theory on its own does have a place in mathematics in my...
A very interesting read. I'm always interested in conversations about simplifying (in my eyes) unnecessarily complex statements. Set theory on its own does have a place in mathematics in my opinion, but I can understand the desire to abstain from using it if you don't need the mathematical basis it actually provides for computation.
I have a difficult relationship with the humanities specifically because a lot of discourse uses terms that make reading more challenging and heighten the bar when it comes to knowing about the subject matter. I understand that terms like this often make text more concise (especially in STEM fields), but philosophy should no try to be a part of STEM in a desperate attempt to secure funding or public attention. Complex things can be said using simple words, and in this case, you can avoid them entirely.
I really disagree here I think. There is a common sentiment that the humanities (philosophy, for example, but this applies to other humanity subjects) should be accessible or shy away from...
I have a difficult relationship with the humanities specifically because a lot of discourse uses terms that make reading more challenging and heighten the bar when it comes to knowing about the subject matter. I understand that terms like this often make text more concise (especially in STEM fields), but philosophy should no try to be a part of STEM in a desperate attempt to secure funding or public attention. Complex things can be said using simple words, and in this case, you can avoid them entirely.
I really disagree here I think. There is a common sentiment that the humanities (philosophy, for example, but this applies to other humanity subjects) should be accessible or shy away from specialized language. That is, you should be able to 'pick up' a philosophy book and engage with it quickly, and that using 'obtuse' or specialized language is an academic affect that should be avoided. Yet no one is given pause when the sciences use specialized vocabulary (indeed, even specialized vocab that has other meanings in the popular mind). When physicists talk about fields, forces, power, impulses, etc (or even more 'complex' examples such as perturbative, renormalized, one-loop, asymptotic, etc) everyone accepts that these terms probably have a precise meaning and are chosen for a reason. But when philosophical texts use specialized vocabulary, it is seen as not needed and superfluous, more a product of the author's taste than a real need for specialized language. I simply don't think this is the case.
Philosophy requires specialized language just as much as other fields do, and demanding that it be simplified so as to lower the bar to understanding is no different (in my mind) than asking physicists to not use their specialized terms or definitions for the same reason. Now, none of this is to say philosophers are not guilty of writing extremely obscure papers, but the same can be said for many scientists as well. I probably read more 'poorly written' papers than clear ones, to be honest.
Just to be clear, none of this is directed specifically towards you (I hope it didn't read that way), but yours is certainly a sentiment I have seen expressed before.
I think the sentiment just exists more around the humanities because few people are just casually going to pick up theoretical physics as a pasttime, while many people have dabbled in philosophy...
I think the sentiment just exists more around the humanities because few people are just casually going to pick up theoretical physics as a pasttime, while many people have dabbled in philosophy and attempt to read such texts, i.e. philosophy is accessed more because it is (or at least looks) more accessible. No one can just go and find a blackhole and calculate everything that an be calculated around it, but everyone can ponder on the meaning of death or how society should function.
Philosophy frequently requires specialized vocabulary and logical notation, something that goes back to Aristotle’s Analytics and more recently Frege, Russel, Wittgenstein, Quine, Putnam, Kripke,...
Philosophy frequently requires specialized vocabulary and logical notation, something that goes back to Aristotle’s Analytics and more recently Frege, Russel, Wittgenstein, Quine, Putnam, Kripke, and many others associated with that tradition. That’s a valuable pursuit, not necessarily a desire to be part of the STEM fields.
Not really in line with this document, which was a really interesting read, but as a person that is currently trying to relearn some parts of mathematics, having recently "found out" that almost...
Not really in line with this document, which was a really interesting read, but as a person that is currently trying to relearn some parts of mathematics, having recently "found out" that almost all of our up to graduate level maths used in engineering and machine learning can be reduced to sets and predicate logic, makes a lot of stuff click in my head in ways that didn't before.
mostly skimmed, but yeah, you have to be very careful when applying set constructs to reality. Especially since even their substitutions violate set theory. At least in math there's a big...
mostly skimmed, but yeah, you have to be very careful when applying set constructs to reality. Especially since even their substitutions violate set theory. At least in math there's a big difference between "nothing" and "the empty set", and if you treat U as "everything" you're going to get into trouble.
I also like the idea of how you'd end up phrasing some equations. Even demorgan's would end up being something like
"everything except things which are A or B = everything that is both everything except A and everything except B"
Well if you're thinking in terms of A and B, without knowing what A and B are, you've already lost the ability to sanity-check based on any additional knowledge you might have of A and B. The...
Well if you're thinking in terms of A and B, without knowing what A and B are, you've already lost the ability to sanity-check based on any additional knowledge you might have of A and B.
The abstraction from logic is both powerful and limiting, because it encourages you to make shallow judgements based on form alone, pattern-matching instead of studying deeply.
I mean, you can say that about any signifier. The advantage of symbolic logic is you can draw connections between matching some set of constraints and having a certain trait. Checking in with...
I mean, you can say that about any signifier. The advantage of symbolic logic is you can draw connections between matching some set of constraints and having a certain trait. Checking in with reality is necessary, but that's true of many other signifiers, like... words.
Posted because I'm amused by the footnotes:
Also:
It's probably said partly in jest but the last quote kind of does ring true: moving away from using the vocabulary of set theory seems kind of daunting and almost debasing, like moving away from pristine, fancy, etiquette to more basic mannerisms. It's probably for the best but It'd take some getting used to.
A very interesting read. I'm always interested in conversations about simplifying (in my eyes) unnecessarily complex statements. Set theory on its own does have a place in mathematics in my opinion, but I can understand the desire to abstain from using it if you don't need the mathematical basis it actually provides for computation.
I have a difficult relationship with the humanities specifically because a lot of discourse uses terms that make reading more challenging and heighten the bar when it comes to knowing about the subject matter. I understand that terms like this often make text more concise (especially in STEM fields), but philosophy should no try to be a part of STEM in a desperate attempt to secure funding or public attention. Complex things can be said using simple words, and in this case, you can avoid them entirely.
I really disagree here I think. There is a common sentiment that the humanities (philosophy, for example, but this applies to other humanity subjects) should be accessible or shy away from specialized language. That is, you should be able to 'pick up' a philosophy book and engage with it quickly, and that using 'obtuse' or specialized language is an academic affect that should be avoided. Yet no one is given pause when the sciences use specialized vocabulary (indeed, even specialized vocab that has other meanings in the popular mind). When physicists talk about fields, forces, power, impulses, etc (or even more 'complex' examples such as perturbative, renormalized, one-loop, asymptotic, etc) everyone accepts that these terms probably have a precise meaning and are chosen for a reason. But when philosophical texts use specialized vocabulary, it is seen as not needed and superfluous, more a product of the author's taste than a real need for specialized language. I simply don't think this is the case.
Philosophy requires specialized language just as much as other fields do, and demanding that it be simplified so as to lower the bar to understanding is no different (in my mind) than asking physicists to not use their specialized terms or definitions for the same reason. Now, none of this is to say philosophers are not guilty of writing extremely obscure papers, but the same can be said for many scientists as well. I probably read more 'poorly written' papers than clear ones, to be honest.
Just to be clear, none of this is directed specifically towards you (I hope it didn't read that way), but yours is certainly a sentiment I have seen expressed before.
I think the sentiment just exists more around the humanities because few people are just casually going to pick up theoretical physics as a pasttime, while many people have dabbled in philosophy and attempt to read such texts, i.e. philosophy is accessed more because it is (or at least looks) more accessible. No one can just go and find a blackhole and calculate everything that an be calculated around it, but everyone can ponder on the meaning of death or how society should function.
Philosophy frequently requires specialized vocabulary and logical notation, something that goes back to Aristotle’s Analytics and more recently Frege, Russel, Wittgenstein, Quine, Putnam, Kripke, and many others associated with that tradition. That’s a valuable pursuit, not necessarily a desire to be part of the STEM fields.
Not really in line with this document, which was a really interesting read, but as a person that is currently trying to relearn some parts of mathematics, having recently "found out" that almost all of our up to graduate level maths used in engineering and machine learning can be reduced to sets and predicate logic, makes a lot of stuff click in my head in ways that didn't before.
mostly skimmed, but yeah, you have to be very careful when applying set constructs to reality. Especially since even their substitutions violate set theory. At least in math there's a big difference between "nothing" and "the empty set", and if you treat U as "everything" you're going to get into trouble.
I also like the idea of how you'd end up phrasing some equations. Even demorgan's would end up being something like
"everything except things which are A or B = everything that is both everything except A and everything except B"
Well if you're thinking in terms of A and B, without knowing what A and B are, you've already lost the ability to sanity-check based on any additional knowledge you might have of A and B.
The abstraction from logic is both powerful and limiting, because it encourages you to make shallow judgements based on form alone, pattern-matching instead of studying deeply.
I mean, you can say that about any signifier. The advantage of symbolic logic is you can draw connections between matching some set of constraints and having a certain trait. Checking in with reality is necessary, but that's true of many other signifiers, like... words.
Good timing on today's existential comics: https://existentialcomics.com/comic/342
Neat! I liked this one too. (Along with explanation.)
Scooby Do and the Case of the Missing Landlords.