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Robert Hooke's "Cyberpunk” Letter to Gottfried Leibniz

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Re: Robert Hooke's "Cyberpunk” Letter to Gottfried Leibniz

#11

Post by SilasX »

dr_dshiv wrote: post #6
SilasX wrote: post #5

>It turns out that, aside from their common interest in antagonising Isaac Newton, Hooke and Leibniz also shared an interest in mechanising scientific reasoning through the invention of a universal language for science. Leibniz called his project the "Characteristica Universalis". I'm surprised it doesn't mention Leibniz's famous "Let us calculate" quote: >>In a 1679 letter to one of his patrons, Johann Friedrich, he…

Leibniz invented binary — so he kind of succeeded in his quest. He based it on the Chinese iching, interestingly enough…

He was ahead of his time, definitely, and binary logic is one critical step in getting there, but we're a long way from having a formal language to represent all claims that would ever arise in human argumentation to the point that it's simply a matter of calculation to resolve them.

Re: Robert Hooke's "Cyberpunk” Letter to Gottfried Leibniz

#13

Post by hinkley »

sevensor wrote: post #8
TZubiri wrote: post #2

While it may be a bit old, this kind of crossover celebrity gossip I can get into EDIT: Presumably this is Robert Hooke as in the author of Micrographia and an early microscope

If you enjoy Hooke fanfic, he features prominently in Quicksilver .

Hooke in Quicksilver kinda made me mad at my science and physics teachers. He’s just some dude who did things with lenses as far as they would have had me believe.

Some of this book is fantastical but the bones of it are historical fiction.

Re: Robert Hooke's "Cyberpunk” Letter to Gottfried Leibniz

#15

Post by forgetfulness »

darepublic wrote: post #14

Sorry for the dumb question.. where is the transcript? I only see the link to the scanned letter

The transcript doesn’t seem to be finished, the part that the author uses to support their thesis is this excerpt in the article

"...especially in all those subjects where use of [such a language] may be free and where interest and authority do not intercept, the regular exercise thereof which I conceive to be the great antagonists which may impede its progress..."

“Hooke had some proto-liberal views” would be a more grounded interpretation.

Re: Robert Hooke's "Cyberpunk” Letter to Gottfried Leibniz

#16

Post by jillesvangurp »

zacwellmer wrote: post #10
sevensor wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you enjoy Hooke fanfic, he features prominently in Quicksilver .

highly recommend the entire baroque cycle!

Yep. But with a slight warning though, it's a lot of pages. Even by Neal Stephenson's standards, it's a lot. Not everybody has the attention span for this one. It's a very dense plot, with lots of side plots, asides, etc. (which is kind of the whole point of Neal Stephenson's books) that spreads over 9 books that originally were published in 3 volumes of ~1200 pages each depending on font size and edition you would have gotten. I've worked my way through that more times than I'd like to admit because it's enjoyable to re-read. Most recently earlier this year. It usually takes me 1-2 months at least.

Re: Robert Hooke's "Cyberpunk” Letter to Gottfried Leibniz

#17

Post by zeroonetwothree »

dr_dshiv wrote: post #6
SilasX wrote: post #5

>It turns out that, aside from their common interest in antagonising Isaac Newton, Hooke and Leibniz also shared an interest in mechanising scientific reasoning through the invention of a universal language for science. Leibniz called his project the "Characteristica Universalis". I'm surprised it doesn't mention Leibniz's famous "Let us calculate" quote: >>In a 1679 letter to one of his patrons, Johann Friedrich, he…

Leibniz invented binary — so he kind of succeeded in his quest. He based it on the Chinese iching, interestingly enough…

He didn’t actually base it on the Yiching, he just noticed that it could be expressed neatly in binary. But he had come up with binary code before that.

Re: Robert Hooke's "Cyberpunk” Letter to Gottfried Leibniz

#18

Post by jhbadger »

hinkley wrote: post #13
sevensor wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you enjoy Hooke fanfic, he features prominently in Quicksilver .

Hooke in Quicksilver kinda made me mad at my science and physics teachers. He’s just some dude who did things with lenses as far as they would have had me believe. Some of this book is fantastical but the bones of it are historical fiction.

And springs! They brought up springs, surely. But it is true that Hooke is underrated in popular culture, in part because Newton thought very little of him, unfairly.

Re: Robert Hooke's "Cyberpunk” Letter to Gottfried Leibniz

#19

Post by mr_toad »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #16
zacwellmer wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

highly recommend the entire baroque cycle!

Yep. But with a slight warning though, it's a lot of pages. Even by Neal Stephenson's standards, it's a lot. Not everybody has the attention span for this one. It's a very dense plot, with lots of side plots, asides, etc. (which is kind of the whole point of Neal Stephenson's books) that spreads over 9 books that originally were published in 3 volumes of ~1200 pages each depending on font size and edition you would h…

Don’t threaten me with a good time!

Re: Robert Hooke's "Cyberpunk” Letter to Gottfried Leibniz

#20

Post by mr_toad »

SilasX wrote: post #5

>It turns out that, aside from their common interest in antagonising Isaac Newton, Hooke and Leibniz also shared an interest in mechanising scientific reasoning through the invention of a universal language for science. Leibniz called his project the "Characteristica Universalis". I'm surprised it doesn't mention Leibniz's famous "Let us calculate" quote: >>In a 1679 letter to one of his patrons, Johann Friedrich, he…

> The only way to rectify our reasonings is to make them as tangible as those of the Mathematicians, so that we can find our error at a glance, and when there are disputes among persons, we can simply say: Let us calculate, without further ado, to see who is right.

And then Kurt Gödel forever permanently dashed those dreams.

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