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Computers are a lot like people, with buttons to push, peripheral devices that control them and the inability to think analytically on a topic. Most people just understand numbers, like a computer does, as the ultimate form of knowledge, a never ending cycle of alternating or non alternating patterns that confound their existence.
That's why I'm a different beast, I get confused by the ones and zeroes, where is the nuance? What character are the one and the zero trying to represent? What is the storyteller trying to tell me? Why is the one so straight and linear and its brother zero so round and cyclical? It boggles the mind.
Am I a zero, or a one to them? When the computer looks at me, does it feel overwhelmed? Breath short of air?
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snowman
this is such a sick text animation what. this is off-topic but man, I sure wish I could read numbers intuitively (i.e. not like a computer). if I read an equation describing a graph I find it difficult to understand the graph, though I am capable of playing around with the numbers. I wonder if it's a skill that can be learned. but different beast learn your truth you could always be a complex number in the realm of 0s and 1s. or some other thing. or some other thing.
Do you mean like parabolic curves? They are pretty easy to visualize until you start including sin, tan and cosin, you just have to draw them. I didn't own a proper graphing calculator so I usually had to draw them all by hand and I got pretty good at it, it does take a lot of time though. Knowing exactly how the basic form of mx + b also helps!
by GordieHaggs; ; Report
parabolic curves are ok! i meant literally everything else
by snowman; ; Report
stuff like sets and subsets, fields, even things like probability just screw me right over
by snowman; ; Report
oh I see what you mean, actually set and subsets confuse a lot of people for some reason, I did philosophy twice and both times over 50% of the class couldn't understand that if A is B, B is C, A is not necessarily C as well. It's been quite a while but fields is actually pretty easy even if it seems difficult to understand, some things are more difficult to grasp in concept than they are to apply. Philosophy of Math can really help because it never really gets into the nitty gritty, usually if you don't understand something the issue is that you never learnt or never understood the fundamental form.
by GordieHaggs; ; Report
that’s cool to know! didn’t know there was a philosophy of maths, seems like it’d be interesting to prod around with
by snowman; ; Report
Pythagoras was a philosopher of math, he was so good at math he theorized the Pythagorean Theorem before anyone knew how to properly measure a triangle. Most modern string instruments are still based on his theories, they typically follow some type of variation of Pythagorean tuning!
by GordieHaggs; ; Report
i know there’s some correlation between music and maths (heard of it from local maths nerds), but man, pythagoras theorem in string? that’s actually so sick what the hell that’s something to read about later. you should totally tell me about other maths knick knacks that you like because i like whatever’s brewing in your brain
by snowman; ; Report
All music is math! Open chords, even though they are differently shaped, follow the same pattern of first, third, fifth and octaves. Minor and Major chords are only different based on the third, a major scale has two semi tones from the second interval and minor only has one. Each chord represents a scale, which is seven intervals dividing between octaves, which is what modes are. Most people spend their whole lives in just major and minor, but there are 5 other scales just in diatonic standard that most musicians never even use!
by GordieHaggs; ; Report
sweet i never even noticed that bit between majors and minors. at some point i did learn about other modes, but really only ever encountered them in scales (and briefly only). i think most people call them major and minor keys. is there a difference between keys and modes?
by snowman; ; Report
If we are talking pure math, I've always wondered if Hilbert's paradox means there are no infinite sets. In philosophy, they have a concept called rhizomes which are things that exist outside hierarchy, which, when you think about it, nothing really exists that way that we have understanding of. The examples you will find of this are things like the internet and communication but realistically the internet is owned by America and communication has hierarchy based on who is currently responding and controlling the current. In this way, does Hilbert's paradox mean that infinity is an imaginary number the way Descartes described? That it's nonsense?
by GordieHaggs; ; Report
A key is the set of notes, usually seven if you are using traditional heptatonic and diatonic theory. Mode is essentially the order in which the notes of a key fall in relation to how you are playing, which is called the root. So if you're playing the third mode in the key of C, you play a C scale, skipping the first two notes and starting from the third note (E), which will follow the key notes, all the way back to E, giving you a seven note scale. Most songs only use major or minor roots!
by GordieHaggs; ; Report
ohh nice explanation! thanks gord. i fear i dont know how to respond to your rhizome response since i have not known it before. im stabbing all these things onto a cork board
by snowman; ; Report
It's difficult to grasp the vastness of what exactly I'm talking about, here is a great example though. If sets cannot be infinite, it implies the universe does end somewhere, and that if we WERE to find the edge of it, we can measure it and know everything about the universe physically. However, if infinite sets DO exist, trying to achieve this is impossible, because if the universe contains infinite sets then it must go on infinitely, it simply can never be measured.
It's the same with hierarchies, is the idea of rhizomatic things imaginary? What exists outside of hierarchy? The best example of a rhizome IMO is what the deepweb and TOR browser claims to be, where your computer(node) connects to other nodes, using other other nodes as relays in and other(x3) nodes as relays out to access the internet. It doesn't actually do that because it exists within the hierarchy of the web already, but if we take it as a subset it does seem to be like that, which is what I argue is more likely!
I might just be a little insane though, philosophers all have a bit of that too! Pythagoras eventually started a cult and they drowned a guy for even talking about imaginary numbers!
by GordieHaggs; ; Report
I have to ask how the finiteness of sets imply the finiteness of the universe? I don't think I can go on unless I get what you're saying here. or do you mean that the finiteness of sets is determined by the finiteness of the universe? or do you mean that they are of a rhizome? by sets are you talking about the mathematical concept of sets or of some other thing?
so the internet if it is an independent identity may be considered a rhizome, but I don't think I understand completely what you mean by a hierarchy within it. is there a singular entity controlling the larger internet? I don't have reason to believe that this is so, but there's no reason for me to not believe so either. but if rhizomes cannot exist (in what sense? I'm thinking that it sounds like it'd make sense for the mind to be a rhizome), how does that mean that infinity is imaginary?
I'd more than love to gnaw on your thoughts, but I'll probably need an explanation that is dead-snail-slow.
on a completely unrelated note, all this talk of rhizomes and minds has me vaguely thinking of SCP-6699. I'm going to find a copy of "A Thousand Plateuas" because insofar everything else I've read on rhizomes has been frustrating and I don't feel like I'm understanding this properly
and hey, I'm not surprised half the philosophers are mad. at some point your brain has to start frying in ways previously unseen, and that's just what comes with thinking methinks
by snowman; ; Report
clarification: so the (deep) internet if it is an independent identity may be considered a rhizome, but I don't think I understand completely what you mean by a hierarchy within it (larger internet/ web?)
by snowman; ; Report
Hierarchy in this case is describing how thing exist in accordance with other things. So the deep web in theory is non hierarchical but in reality it exists within the context of the greater Internet, its not an independant entity. So if the internet ceases, so does the the deep web.
It's a strange idea that everything exists dependant on something else, it isn't necessarily a concept that can be used to create something, but allows us to make assumptions about the world. When people are making claims about how free something is, we can look at the hierarchy it exists within and see what the likely outcomes more clearly!
A good example is a cube being dependant on a square, which is dependent upon straight lines, straight lines are dependant upon two points which the begin and reside, so if you affect the points, you affect the lines, you affect the square and you affect the cube!
by GordieHaggs; ; Report
Oh I missed your other comment. The inexistence of infinite sets implies an end to the universe because if everything is finite, inevitably we have to hit the end of the available things, it might be extremely vast but its merely our lack of understanding that makes it appear infinite, and better methodology and tools will eventually allow us to make at least estimated measurements.
If infinity is real, it would be impossible to create a ruler that stretched on for infinity in order to measure it.
by GordieHaggs; ; Report