Larry Susanka's Personal Pages

The various pages that comprise this site have been accessed times since the counter was created in March 1998.

Currently I have an active interest in Physics, Rock and Ice Climbing, Mathematics and am learning to Play Guitar. Progress in this last is steady but amazingly slow.

"The fool! The meddling idiot! ...as though his ape's brain could contain the secrets of the Krell!"
;-)	Dr. Morbius Forbidden Planet (1956)
"If people do not believe that mathematics is simple, it is only because they do not realize how complicated life is."
	John von Neuman
We got around to the subject of war again and I said that, contrary to his attitude, I did not think that the common people are very thankful for leaders who bring them war and destruction. "Why, of course, the people don't want war," Goering shrugged. "Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship." "There is one difference," I pointed out. "In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars." "Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."
This quote is attributed to Hermann Goering on 18 April, 1946 as reported by his interviewer, Gustave Gilbert, and published in Gilbert's book Nuremberg Diary.
"The displacement of the idea that facts and evidence matter by the idea that everything boils down to subjective interests and perspectives is -- second only to American political campaigns -- the most prominent and pernicious manifestation of anti-intellectualism in our time. "
Larry Laudan	Science and Relativism (1990)
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Benjamin Franklin	This sentence was much used in the Revolutionary period. It occurs even so early as November, 1755, in an answer by the Assembly of Pennsylvania to the Governor, and forms the motto of Franklin's "Historical Review," 1759, appearing also in the body of the work. - Frothingham: Rise of the Republic of the United States, p. 413.
Geometry is a dangerous thing; there are many accounts of its addictive power. A description of Archimedes from Plutarch paints a dire picture of a man so enthralled by the subject that "he neglected to eat and drink and took no care of his person; that he was often carried by force to the baths, and when there he would trace geometrical figures in the ashes of the fire."
The Works of Archimedes	by Archimedes and Sir Thomas Heath
Q: Why is mathematics so effective as a tool in describing parts of the physical world? A: Mathematics is not a random collection of facts. It was created by the minds of individuals. Though it pleases us to imagine that we can think any kind of thought, that is an illusion. Our "idea space" is highly constrained by the process that created the thinking engine. Our distant ancestors used their proto-minds as images of certain relevant parts of the external so they could anticipate better or faster and generally be more effective at passing on genes. An early example of this might have been an oozing toward or away from a higher concentration of a chemical in the water. An impulse like this, by its survival, contains information about the world. As these impulses accumulated a "negotiator" would be highly advantageous, to "break ties" and avoid paralysis. The collection of impulses and negotiators, together, would be the proto-mind. The proto-mind itself could be thought of as a genetically encoded memory of past contact with the external, with properties assembled by random mutation but selected for over eons by ability to confer advantage. The genes that created the proto-mind were "survivor genes," selected over eons precisely because they increased the fidelity of the mirror they generate to parts of the external. Billions of years of evolution created better and better internal models of parts of the external and added individual memories - an enormous advance that would allow for (evanescent) improvement of the model during the lifetime of an individual. Volition, or a means to probe the boundaries of increasingly sophisticated models would benefit individuals with memory if done cautiously. Both of these might come through changes to the "tie-breaker" mechanism. A means to transmit useful memories among related individuals would also be selected for if it should ever arise. Curiosity or even outright recklessness in probing the boundaries of the growing model would benefit the genes if there were a means of transmitting memories of the outcome among related individuals. We could go on with this, and it is a long way from the ruminations found above to consciousness and self-awareness, but we need to get back to the question: Mathematics is a consciously created model of parts of the mind - a structure formed over eons and used by individuals to effectively interact with the external. It is an intentional mirror image of a natural mirror image of the world. It fits onto parts of the world which are important to us by the very nature of the structure which created it. We think those parts are important because the genes that form the mind that created mathematics tells us they are important. Those genes survived because they were "right" in some sense. Q: Can you list the implicit assumptions in the question and in your answer with which people might take issue? A: Not on one page. Not on many pages. But it works for me!
In fact the notion of truth a la Tarski avoids complete triviality by the use of the magical expression "meta." We presuppose the existence of a meta-world, in which logical operations already make sense. The world of discourse can therefore be interpreted in the meta-world. The truth value of "A" is determined by "meta-A," and we can in turn explain "meta-A" by "meta-meta-A" ... We are facing a transcendental explanation of logic: "The rules of logic have been given to us by Tarski, who in turn got them from Mr. Meta-tarski." This is similar to asserting that "Physical particles act this way because they must obey the laws of physics. "
paraphrased from a note of Jean-Yves Girard

The following items strike me as interesting, funny or valuable in some way. I will add or change content from time to time. Enjoy!

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The Bellevue College Pages

The Mathematics Department Pages

The Science Division Pages

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I can be contacted by phone at Bellevue College at (425) 564-2484 or by e-mail at lsusanka@bellevuecollege.edu .

My PGP public key can be found on the public keyservers and also here.

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