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Re: FWIW: interesting quote from Ted Kaczynski
Posted:
Jan 8, 2013 1:09 AM
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On Monday, January 7, 2013 3:58:58 PM UTC-8, Jesse F. Hughes wrote:
> david petry <david_lawrence_petry@yahoo.com> writes:
> > "Meanwhile, I was doing well in mathematics. It was fun to solve
> > mathematical problems, but in a deeper sense mathematics was boring
> > and empty because for me it had no purpose. If I had worked on applied
> > mathematics I would have contributed to the development of the
> > technological society that I hated, so I worked only on pure
> > mathematics. But pure mathematics was only a game. I did not
> > understand then, and I still do not understand, why mathematicians are
> > content to fritter away their whole lives in a mere game. I myself was
> > completely dissatisfied with such a life."
> > Ted Kaczynski, from a letter to a Turkish anarchist named Kara
> Well, to each his own, right?
Not really. Certainly pure mathematicians can play their games in a place where it is appropriate to play games.
If we accept falsifiability as part of the underlying logic of mathematics, then mathematics is definitely not merely a game; it is a science, and it has a vitally important role to play in our technologically advanced society. I wanted to study the foundations of mathematics from that point of view. It appears that the pure mathematicians don't think I should be studying that while I'm in the universities they control. So, I must say that I think those pure mathematicians don't belong in the publicly funded universities of a free society.
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