"If he merely puts his savings in a stocking, like the proverbial French peasant, it is obvious that they do not give employment." What is "obvious" to Bertrand Russell is bad economics. When the peasant puts his money in a stocking, he causes a slight deflation, so prices decrease, which increases the value of everyone else's money. So everyone else effectively has more to spend, if they want to. However, everyone e…
Which is quite significant I would say. Suddenly we can no longer talk about what is objectively true and false, only what is subjectively useful. That last sentence is of course also neither objectively true nor false, just like this one. See it's a mess :)
Gödel's incompleteness theorem does not imply that NOTHING can be objectively true or false.
It really depends on what is meant by "objectively true or false".
You're right that some statements within a formal system are true or false.
However, the theorem does imply that the behavior of the "world out there" (and any explanation of it) is either contradictory or not following a fixed set of rules.
So yes, we can state something to be "objectively" true or false but only if we're willing to use a contradictory explanation - which we usually are in the name of usefulness, not in the name of "absolute objective truth".
It is rather strange. More and more things of everyday life are automated and computerized. Nevertheless, I have the impression to have less and less time to do all the things I want/need to do.
The book The Harried Leisure Class ( http://www.amazon.com/Harried-Leisure-Staffan-Burenstam-Lind... ) suggests an interesting explanation for this.
thanks, I just found it in a library. Yes, a real library!
Yes, Russell definitely did that and was evasive about it afterward. In the late 1940s this insanity was widespread: an entire movement of politically influential players dedicated itself to nuking the Soviet Union before it achieved the bomb and (so the argument went) inevitably used it on us. Von Neumann was another prominent advocate ("If you say bomb them tomorrow, I say why not today? If you say do it at five o'…
> reputation as a moral authority His treatment of his first wife should have ruled out any idea he was a moral authority.
Well, maybe. It's a bit hard to tell from that one-liner whether you're being serious or glib, but the question of how the great man or woman treats the people closest to him or her is a tricky one. I agree that it's relevant, but it hasn't traditionally been considered to be. And we never have access to the full story. Everyone knows from their own personal life how utterly different things can look up close than they do from afar.
It wouldn't be a surprise if Russell were the classic intellectual type with strong affections for humanity in the abstract and the people around him not so much. Champions of causes are often this way. There are incredibly striking and tragic cases of this, such as what happened between Gandhi and his oldest son. But one should especially hesitate to condemn in matters of the heart.
There are a number of beautiful places in the United States where it is possible for a person to subsist quite luxuriously on $1200/mo and preserve the ability to throw parties for friends, buy books and tools, etc. As of January a person with such income will have free Medicare in Oregon. "Fuck You" money is an illusion that keeps you working. The mind loves to believe that having enough of some external thing will…
yea, but you still need $360k or so to be able to withdraw $1200/month forever without worry. That's still a decent chunk of change. I guess you can save it in 5 years, but if you don't like working those 5 years will be hellaciously long
As wikipedia notes on Bertrand Russell: > His work has had a considerable influence on logic, mathematics, set theory, linguistics, artificial intelligence, computer science (see type theory and type system), and philosophy, especially philosophy of language, epistemology, and metaphysics. Plus he won the Nobel Prize in Literature ! For a very approachable overview of Russell's complex life, I highly recommend the gr…
For a very approachable view of Russel's thoughts and work, you can try reading his own writing: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/355 My personal favourite so far has been 'Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays' with 'Analysis of Mind' currently at the top of my reading queue. Not everything he did was like reading 'Principia Mathematica' and his writing is very open, readable and eloquent.
I liked a bunch of the essays I read by him, and loved "A History of Western Philosophy". I'm well aware (and felt his writing made it obvious enough) that it is not necessarily a 'accurate' history of philosophy, but it was a great book with a great approach.
Something happened to me yesterday that I haven't quite had the time to figure out. I'm normally the introverted "stay at home and relax" type, at least during the week. I frequently want to get home from work as early as possible to play video games, play music, or read. The only problem I've had lately is I've had little motivation to do the creative parts (e.g. creating music or programming something). But last ni…
I think momentum plays a big part. That goes both ways in creative pursuits of getting things "done" or at least moving forward on projects, as well as stagnating. The more time you "I'll do it later" on something, the easier it becomes, etc. The book "Art of War" while some "hippie'esque"'ness breaks down "resistance" to getting to creative pursuits.
I think it is especially this. There's a reason for the thought that the best person to ask for help or a favor is a busy person, as they are more likely to reliably do it if they say yes (and often they do, just as much as less busy people).
I've experienced this quite often myself. I remember a period when I was particularly productive and creative, but also very busy two bachelors and three side-jobs.
I have to say there's a good chance that society is already moving toward Russell's ideal. If you just look at accelerators like YCombinator, you'll see that two successful startups (Dropbox and AirBnb) are by-and-large paying for the investment of the other several hundred startups several times over. So when will we see it going to the next level? Gather a bunch of people together, using whatever criteria you see f…
Surely YCombinator and startup culture is the antithesis of what Russell is talking about as being desirable? The legions of burned out coders would probably not equate crunch time with leisure time.
Well, having a good bash at that particular problem. Not sure if Russell and Whitehead actually succeeded . " Work is of two kinds: first, altering the position of matter at or near the earth's surface relatively to other such matter; second, telling other people to do so. The first kind is unpleasant and ill paid; the second is pleasant and highly paid. " I've always liked that quote.
How does programming fit into this? It feels a bit in-between. On the one hand, you tell the computer what to do, in a way that feels similar to Type 2; on the other hand, you actually have to do the work of programming, which feels much like Type 1, except you're not moving physical matter around, but stuff in 'concept space'.
In all seriousness, I've long thought of what I do as moving electrons around, getting pits onto CDs in the right place, things like that. Whatever I do in, say, C++-land, is a means to those ends. An intermediate step. I arrived at that way of thinking after trying to define 'work', and deciding that it always consists of moving matter around (transporting it, putting it into a desired configuration).
Any specific recommendations? I've seen Eugene, Boise, Flagstaff, and Albuquerque thrown around on HN before but I'd like to hear your thoughts.
Eugene is in Oregon with the free medicaid. ABQ is my favorite, though. I hear great things about Boise, especially if you are into river sports.
Boise is flippin fantastic. I say this as someone from the Northeast who never gave a state like Idaho a second (or even first) thought. I like being close to family (here on east coast), but if I was picking one place in the US to live based on cost of living and awesome things to do, with amazingly beautiful women, awesome outdoor activity, coupled with good urban lifestyle, Boise would be IT. Also a decent tech/software scene I hear. Just look at what $400k will buy you. It's outta this world, plus you're in an awesome location (right at the base of the Rockies).